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Eating Balanced and Healthy Even With Fast Food
An Interview with Kevin and Dr. Vera Stevens
Abundant Life Health & Fitness Center, Inc. where
they encourage participants to look far beyond the benefits of health
and wellness and to take on new life objectives for strengthening
themselves, their families and their communities.
____________________
Contact:
abundantlife2000@bellsouth.net
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Health
Addict in the Family!
By: David B.Smith
Addict in the Family!
an edited extract from ’Understanding Addiction’
Because
the person suffering from the addiction acts untrustworthy, the family
stops trusting the person, and the members consciously or unconsciously
start to distance themselves... When the person starts to act like his
or her self again, not like an Addict, the family feels ashamed for
having distanced themselves. They decide to reach out once more, only
to feel betrayed once again.
Addiction never simply affects the
addict alone. The addict pulls friends and loved ones into the vortext
of their addiction, which can easily consume them all.
Friends
and family try to make sense out of what is happening to their addicted
loved-one. In trying to understand, people around the addict inevitably
label him or her in an effort to cope with the changes.
What is
really being labeled is the addictive personality. The addicted person
may get labeled as ’irresponsible," ’troubled," ’tense," ’strange," or
’weak." If people suspect the true source of the problem, addicts will
be labeled more aggressively, to reflect what is happening, and how
others perceive them. Family members use many labels when speaking
about the addict:
He’s a bum.
He eats too much.
She’s so irresponsible.
All he does is buy, buy, buy!
All she does is work, work, and work!
He does drink a little too much.
He’s oversexed.
You just can’t trust her anymore.
When
the labeling process occurs, it’s a sign that the illness of addiction
has progressed to the point where family and friends have noticed it
and must protect themselves from the addictive personality. People
sense that the addict doesn’t care about others. They will protect
themselves by either removing themselves from his or her presence or
trying to control the addicted person.
Thus, for families, the
labeling process is an attempt to control what is happening. Addicts
react in turn to protect themselves. In doing so, the addictive
defensive system becomes even better developed.
For the
addictive process to continue, the addicted person must learn how to
deflect the concern of others. One of the most dangerous aspects of the
labeling process is that, once the addicted person is given a new
label, the family starts to adjust to the ’new person."
The ’new
person’ can indeed be given a significant place within the family, who
adjust and may even become dependent on having him or her around! ’The
Addict" becomes a role within the family and starts to serve a vital
purpose. Family members are caught in a dilemma: they hate the Addict
but still love the person they once knew, who still exists within the
addict. It’s not typical for family members to realize they’re dealing
with an illness; as the addiction progresses within the family,
everyone slowly adjusts to it.
Family members or others, such as
co-workers, start to see what a good scapegoat a person suffering from
addiction can be. They start to hate the Addict. As family members feel
attacked, used, and abused by the Addict, they want to get even and
fight back. Family members then become locked into the same fight that
the Addict and the Self are locked into. The family tries to make the
addict more responsible and respectful, but fails because a practicing
addict is not able to change. The struggle continues, becoming a ritual
embedded within the fabric of the family.
For example, suppose
you love a family member who suffers from an addiction and is unable to
love you back. You have deep mood swings, as the person you love swings
from the Self to the Addict. One minute you may be relating quite well
to the person’s Self; then something is said that awakens the Addict.
The personality shift occurs, and the next minute you are hating the
person, trying to figure out what happened. Perhaps you made a caring
statement that triggered feelings of shame in the person and out came
the Addict to protect his or her territory.
Because the person
suffering from the addiction acts untrustworthy, the family stops
trusting the person, and the members consciously or unconsciously start
to distance themselves. This is a natural means of protection. When the
person starts to act like his or her Self again, not like the Addict,
family members start to feel ashamed for having distanced themselves.
They decide to reach out once more, only to feel betrayed once again.
This goes on and on until a family member cannot take it anymore and
gives up trying to have any relationship with the person. But whenever
family members feel the person’s Self trying to emerge, they will feel
a longing to connect, but also a sense of shame for not wanting to for
fear they will be hurt once again.
Article Source: http://www.articlerich.com
Rev. David B. Smith
(the ’Fighting Father’)
you have just read an extract from
Understanding Addiction
To find out more about the Understanding Addiction eBook
and Audio package, visit our website
"stop-addictions-secrets"
"understanding-addiction"
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