Poisoned or Protected?

Today I am grateful for the sound of leaves beneath my feet or bicycle tires. I am also grateful for the joy and wonder it brings me to be a mom to my son Sam.

I was thinking about antidotes some more yesterday after blogging about my 500th post. I guess my thoughts were an example of antidote multiplication. (Read yesterday's post for reference if needed.) The job of antidotes is to protect us from poisons. Poisons like self-pity, self-hatred, fear, and that nebulous "never good enough" that comes with perfectionism.

My adolescent and young adult mind was especially poisoned by self-pity and self-hatred, and alcohol was an accelerant. My thoughts were killing me as I slowly killed myself with alcohol. My default thinking mode was almost always along the lines of how stupid or ugly I was, or how I should have known better, done better, been better, how much of a misfit I was, why nobody really, truly cared about me . . . ouch.

Stinging poison. Alcohol would stop the sting temporarily. But it was a cruel trick. It would then create more poisonous thoughts. Alcohol multiplied the poison production in my diseased mind. Alcoholism-and all addictions-have a strong basis in our brains and our thought processes. That's why simply quitting use of an addictive substance does not often help for long. Our faulty thinking needs to be addressed.

Gratitude practice has been a key component in my recovery, along with things like acceptance, patience, and humility. Together they protect me. They ward off the poisonous thoughts and send them packing before they can get a stranglehold. Gratitude practice shifts my thoughts from those that can poison to those that protect.

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