A Little Experiment

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#006699" TEXT="#080000" background="005fd5a3.jpg"> <div> <I><B>Dependency Answers</B></I></div> <div> <I><B>         </B></I><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000066" FACE="Georgia" ><I><B>  Since 1998</B></I></FONT></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>|     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Dependency Answers"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFCC66" TEXT="#080000" background="006d2b03.jpg"> <bR> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id21.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Articles and Resources"><U><B><U>Articles and Resources</U></B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Dependency Answers"><U><B><U>Home</U></B></U></A></div> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I><B>A Little Experiment</B></I></div> <bR> <div> The news comes out that after more than a decade of Rush Limbaugh saying that addiction is not a disease and that people who buy or use drugs should be tried and jailed, Rush Limbaugh now says; "I have a disease" referring to his addiction to pain killers. So now that it is a tailor made excuse for Rush, we are all given the king's permission to call addiction a disease. Oh really! Do I note some hypocrisy? Rush, the measure of a person is their deeds and not their words.</div> <bR> <div> Rush Limbaugh still has it wrong and if you will allow me a few of your precious minutes I think I can convince you that his concept of addiction is total hogwash.</div> <bR> <div> <B>The Exercise</B></div> <div> The first thing I need you to do is pretend mentally that you have just won $100,000,000. That's one hundred million dollars and it is in your hands right this very second. Take five minutes and fantasize about what you would do with all of that cold hard cash. What you would buy, where you could go and how it would change your life. Use up a full five minutes. I'll sit here and wait while you do that.</div> <bR> <div> Now, how did you feel while thinking of that experience? Did your heart beat faster? Did you get excited? Happy? Euphoric? Did you make plans? Did you visualize having fun and feeling good? I'll bet you did. I'll bet it felt really good as mental images poured through your head almost nonstop.</div> <div>  <B>We are done with part one. Now comes the more serious side of the experiment.</B></div> <div> I need you to take another five minutes and visualize that the most important person in your life, the one who means everything to you just died. They are laying on the floor completely gray and lifeless. Think about how your life will no doubt change without that person around. Think about the plans and sharing of good times that will now not occur. I know it's hard, but there is an important lesson in these actions. Again, I'll wait while you work at it.</div> <bR> <div> Done? Now, how did that make you feel? Weepy? Like all of the energy was just sucked out of your body and you feel drained. It's a horrible, vulgar feeling when sadness smashes us down isn't it? It's a helpless feeling that is often a feeling of regret or of words not said or of unfinished business. It's not a good feeling at all. It's something no one wants to ever feel.</div> <div> <B>Coming To The Point</B></div> <div> Scientific studies have proven that people with very upbeat personalities do much better recovering from illness than people with cynical personalities. People who pray and believe in something spiritual are also those who get sick less and fight off disease with better results than non-praying people. This is because good thoughts send good chemicals flowing within the brain and the brain is the control room of a person's body. Those good chemicals in the brain are natural pain fighters, disease fighters and emotion controls.</div> <bR> <div> What does this mean? It means that what you think and have a habit of thinking controls your emotions and those same emotions decide whether we have the pathology to become addicted or not. You see, rehab programs only change a person's thought choices. The mere fact that a change of thought choice can put addiction into remission proves that the wrong thoughts can push a person into addiction. Can it be any other way?</div> <bR> <div> The little exercise I had you do was to show you how a choice of thoughts affects not only your emotional state, but your physiology or what your body felt like to you. In the first case you felt light and full of energy. And in the second case you felt heavy, bogged down with no energy. One experience felt good and the other experience felt horrible and you probably wanted to escape that feeling.</div> <bR> <div> Now unless I miss my guess as a recovering addict myself, the substances of abuse are used to help escape some bad feelings either mental or physical or both and we are or were convinced that these substances helped to make one feel better and function in a more acceptable way to us. That about the size of it? I rather think so. Sorry Rush Limbaugh, convinced is not a disease. It is a thought habit and a habit linked heavily to control issues.</div> <bR> <div> After those two exercises, can you see how thoughts affect your brain chemistry and physical reactions to those thoughts? Can you see how habitually thinking certain thoughts can actually give a person the emotional state that brings about addiction to a substance or activity? If the thought process solves the problem, then the thought process is where the problem began. Very simple stuff. We all can and do convince ourselves of things that later turn out to be on the money or horribly flawed.</div> <bR> <div> Don Whiting Jr. <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Georgia" >2003</FONT></div> <bR> <div> Copyright 1998-2006 © DependencyAnswers All Rights Reserved</div> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>