Alice In Wonderland Can Teach Us Something About Our Addiction

Through The Looking Glass is a children's story that is a metaphor about growing up with addiction. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

It's time again for Doc Jock, your addiction lifeguard podcast. I am Dr. Jock DeBerker, a psychologist, licensed professional counselor, and addiction specialist. If you are suffering from addiction, misery, trauma, whatever it is, I'm here to help. If you're in search of help to try to get your life back together, join me here at Doc Jock, your addiction lifeguard, the addiction recovery podcast. I wanted to be real clear about what this podcast is intended for. It is intended for entertainment and informational purposes but not considered help. If you actually need real help and you're in need of help, Please seek that out. If you're in dire need of help, you can go to your nearest emergency room or you can check into a rehab center or call a counselor like me and talk about your problems and work through them. But don't rely on a podcast to be that form of help. It's not. It's just a podcast. It's for entertainment and information only. So let's keep it in that light. All right. Have a good time. Learn something and then get the real help that you need from a professional. I don't know how many The story is one where it's about Alice, who's a little girl who enters into a fantasy world by stepping through a mirror in her room. And everything is reversed. And everything works in kind of illogical ways. And the whole world is based on a chess set. And the whole world is based on that. And she meets characters along the way, you know, Humpty Dumpty, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and the different queen, the red queen and the white queen. And there's a lot of nonsense in it, a lot of craziness that goes on. The whole... Jabberwocky thing and she you know it's it's different it's different things that she has to try to understand and they don't make a lot of sense and she's a she's a little girl so her understanding of the world is based on that not being an adult and so there's a lot of kind of metaphors and symbolism for adulthood and the transition of that and that's kind of what it's about. Uh, but it, you know, in terms of like how we exist in the world of addiction, to me, it was kind of interesting. It was like, that's what it's like being an addict is like everything's reversed. And, um, it's, we go into this fantasy world where up is down, right is wrong. Black is white, you know, light is dark. And, um, Everything gets confused. And so it's kind of like through the looking glass. That's what happens when people end up getting involved in the destruction, their own self-destruction is. It's like an upside down world. And so I always... Whenever I saw the movie Alice in Wonderland, or I read the book when I was a kid, and to me it was always interesting that everything was backwards. It's all backwards. So maybe there's hope, if I can get out of this craziness, that the backwards world will become... the right side world and uh if you grew up in a house like i did with alcoholic parents um everything is upside down everything is backwards and confusing and you know your your reality is different from what you're seeing all the other realities uh out there and the examples that we see on television um when we're growing up or at least back in the day when i was a kid that it was not what it seemed like i'm seeing this world in this television show that doesn't really exist in my reality. So it was like through the looking glass and to me, looking through the screen of a television. And back then we had glass tubes, right? It was a cathode ray tube TV. So you could tap on it. It was like glass. It was interesting because to me it was, I always thought as a kid, it was like, oh, there's this other world out there that is like the Alice in Wonderland through the looking glass. This is the looking glass. The television tube is the looking glass. And so it was always interesting to see these realities that didn't exist in my reality. You know, mom was never drunk. on the Brady Bunch or Leave it to Beaver or Father Knows Best like nobody drank nobody smoked they just didn't it wasn't a thing the only the only thing that actually came close to that was on the Andy Griffith show there was Otis and Otis was the town drunk on the old show and he was always seen as this lovable character who was innocent and harmless and he self-regulated like he would go out and drink but he never caused problems and then he would bring himself into the sheriff's office and he would put himself in a cell and close the door so he could sleep it off and it was kind of like oh that's Otis which to me was kind of funny because drunkenness was always like weird behavior and fighting erratic explosive behavior and fighting in my house and I'm watching it on TV and these shows in the 60s I'm watching these shows on TV where Otis is like a lovable character and I'm like where's that guy you know I mean I never saw that in real life that didn't happen and probably the biggest insult of all was when in the early 70s there was a movie that came out No, no, I'm sorry. It was the late 70s where a movie came out called Arthur. And it was a story about a guy, this English guy, who was this very likable, cheerful, always laughing and enjoying life guy who was a severe alcoholic. And that was the whole storyline. And he met a woman, Liza Minnelli, who becomes his girlfriend. And he's super wealthy. And he has a manservant butler guy. guy who's with him all the time and taking care of him but the whole drunken shtick that he had was he would walk around and he would enjoy life and he was drunk all the time and it was accepted it was like well he's he's harmless and yeah and he's you know slurred speech and stumbling around and but it was like that every day and I'm watching that and again it's like through the looking glass I'm like I'm living a different reality than that um You know, my dad's like screaming at me and swearing at me and my mom's like checked out and acting, you know, dysregulated. And it was like, this is not reality. So the whole idea of like whatever you're growing up with and if you like, you know, you grew up in a house where there was addiction and abusive stuff going on. And then you see outside of your house, there is a completely different reality that many people that you see, not everybody, there were some people that had the same thing going on, of course, but many of the people that you're interacting with, they have no idea what that's like and they can't relate to it. And so you can't relate to them and it becomes isolating. And it became particularly difficult when there was tragedy in my life. at a young age uh you know before i was 18 and and there would be a horrible tragedy that occurred and the way it was dealt with in the alcoholic home is that it's ignored or it's the blame for it is put on uh misplaced onto other people so um you know and and then you start acting out in ways to try to get attention because you're not getting attention you're getting negative attention so that's where you think attention is and so you start acting out And and that's the call for attention in these emotional times. And so if you grew up in a house where there was like real tragedies going on, mom and dad are drunk or they're getting high on drugs or whatever, and that's your reality, man, that's bad. Like that's abuse. And so through the looking glass reality of you looking from from your reality. like Alice in her house, and then she stepped through the mirror, she would step into an alternate reality. And it can make you feel very displaced, very almost like you don't belong, a dissociative kind of experience where you just don't fit with this, whatever it is. And it's uncomfortable, right? So that drives a lot of the discontent, which results in the use of drugs and alcohol to cope. And so what do you do when you're uncomfortable and you're, you know, when you're experiencing that as a kid, if you were a drinker or did drugs as a kid, you know, the trap that occurs. I mean, it did for me, it was a huge trap. And the more I drank as a kid and I started drinking when I was 10, the worse it is because you started so early and you used it as an escape. and then it resulted in not being able to understand or engage in other coping mechanisms and it's those missing coping mechanisms that can really get you so that's the one that works and you depend on it now we you know my anecdotally we you know alcohol in particular that's one that takes you know 20 years to get to the point where you're just severely debilitated with alcoholism drugs not not so Not so slow. It's much faster with drugs. You can't be doing cocaine, crystal meth, heroin, something like that. You're not going to do that for 20 years. You're going to do that for a few months and you're at the 20-year mark as far as addictive outcomes with destruction. It doesn't take long. But... In any case, if you started with alcohol, and I'm just going to keep it with alcohol today. If you started with alcohol and you were 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 years old, 10 years in, you're 20 or 21 or 22 or 23 or 24. So by the time you get to that age of 24, you are 10 years in on your addiction. At 34, you're 20 years in. Most of the people that I deal with who have alcohol problems are in their 40s into their 60s because that's 20 years, right? You start drinking when you're in high school, 16, 17, 18, or in college. By the time you get to 41 or 42 or 45 or 50, you've spent 20 years drinking. Now, I want to be clear. I'm not talking about drinking every day. You know, the Arthur thing where you're stumbling around and fumbling and drinking to, you know, blackout multiple times a week. You don't start out that way. That's not how this happens. You start off slower. So if you are at that point where you're 20 years old and you've been drinking for 10 years, by the time you get to 10 years in, you're drinking probably multiple times a week and much more than everybody else you know for the most part. So by the time you get to 15 years in, yeah, it's creeping in pretty bad. And you get to the 20-year mark, you're a hot mess, honestly. So getting to where it's at to that point, it's bad.

UNKNOWN: 12:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 12:23

So through the looking glass, the realities that you see, looking at friendly people, happy families, close-knit relationships, intact families, intact marriages of moms and dads, and people that actually sit down and eat a meal together and actually talk to each other. They're not hiding. They're not running away. There's no craziness going on. And so your understanding of reality is what Alice experienced earlier. by going through the looking glass. Everything is upside down. It's backwards. That's kind of the reality that other people are looking at you and they don't recognize that because they haven't walked through that looking glass into your world. So it's the two sides. Your side, you're in what could be perceived as an alternate reality for everybody else because there's craziness and chaos going on with dysregulated, dysfunctional people. But that's your everyday experience. For them, they live the opposite. So they'd have to come into your world through their version of the looking glass to see the opposite day that's going on in your reality for them. And they don't do that, do they? That's an issue. Right. They don't really understand what it's like to come home and find your mom passed out on the couch or her heavy tongue slurred speech, boozy breath, you know, coming at you and mad or. upset about something that she made up in her head or your dad's you know screaming at your beating you or whatever's going on that they don't know what that's like and so you're not going to get a lot of empathy or sympathy or understanding from the person who has no concept of what that's like and so the reaction that people have when they experience that version of reality is they tend to hide it and you don't have people coming over to your house because You don't want to have your friends come in and see that, right? So they're going to step out of their reality through the looking glass into your upside down world. You don't want them to see that. And it's hard to understand. And, you know, also on top of that, who's to blame for that? You know, it's like, this is what I have and I don't like this. I'm the kid who's living in that. I don't like this. Well, who's to blame for that? Well, the parents are, but you're a child, so you can't process it that way. So you tend to take on the blame yourself. So if I was a better kid, this wouldn't be happening or I'll do better. So many, many times people who come from those homes are overachievers. They have unbelievably high expectations of themselves because they're trying to prove that the reality their worth they're trying to prove that to themselves and to their parents even if their parents aren't even they don't care they're not checked in at that point so they become overachievers others become those who act out and they start being destructive to get attention and something from the relationship so it depends on which I guess which route you took so the reality of it is that It's difficult to navigate through a dysfunctional home. And it's very difficult to come out of it without perfectionism and procrastination and social distrust of others. So it's difficult to form relationships. And when you do get into relationships, you're too harsh on yourself. You keep thinking the person is going to abandon you. And so then you try to Cutting that off early by abandoning them and saying that you're not good enough and why are you with me and all that kind of stuff. And then when the person does say, well, okay, you know what? Maybe you're right. Maybe I do need to move on. Then you get hysterical and upset because the person's threatening to leave. All this stuff that goes on from that. And you need to recognize that, that it's not normal functioning and it's not normal self-awareness and... The ability to see those things in yourself that are actually good have been perhaps distorted and or lost, even though they actually are there. Many people that I've run into, a lot of them who live in those environments, grew up in those environments, are charming, nice, compassionate people that have very low self-esteem. And so they don't see those positive traits in themselves. But they do demonstrate them all the time on a regular basis. So they are the ones who will help and are sensitized to others' needs. They are people pleasers. And they will extend themselves in ways that others won't. So they'll be giving of their time or their resources. And it's a wonderful thing, but it comes from a very dark place. And so it's not healthy for the person who's giving. So if you grew up in a house like that and that was your experience and your takeaway was that you were trying to be a good person to everybody around you, all you're going to do is just burn yourself out in the process. And you're never going to get the thing that you're looking for by doing that, which is the feeling of an increased self-esteem. Because it doesn't matter how many times people say thank you for things. You can't say you're welcome and you kind of push off the thank you part because you're going to just automatically focus on what you didn't do above and beyond what you've already done. It's never going to be good enough. So you can't. It starts eroding your self-esteem. If the goal is to make your self-esteem higher, it's not going to happen. So there are many things that can happen to people when they grow up in a home with an alcoholic or a drug addict parent that makes life very difficult. And that's why it's so important to work on those things. And so if you're in recovery or you're trying to get into recovery, you're listening to this and you're really struggling with the idea of recovery and trying to figure out how to get there or even start, you really need to do a self-assessment, if you will, just like the words that I'm using today to describe the people that grow up in these homes, if you're one of those and you have addiction, you're doing two things. You're trying to eliminate the experience that you had as a child and to make it something that it wasn't, which is pleasant or good or better. It wasn't. It was an S show. It was a mess, man. It was bad. And the acceptance of that, and there's nothing you can do about it, That's one thing, but you're trying to get rid of that. And so you do that by becoming, and I've said this in another podcast about being the social handyman. You're trying to fix everybody else to fix yourself. So that's very destructive. It will end up destroying you. And you're not going to get any satisfaction from it or get any better from it. And the second thing you're doing is you're using chemicals to alter your understanding of self and to change the reality that you have. about the discomfort you feel because you didn't have. Like, I didn't have the family. I didn't have the parents that were healthy and good. And so you're trying to drink that discomfort away. And again, because I'm talking about alcohol today, it's that. And of course, you could be doing drugs, too, or exclusively, whatever. But you're trying to get rid of the discomfort of the crappy situation you got into.

UNKNOWN: 20:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 20:25

See, and that's what the enemy wants you to do. It just wants to take away your self-esteem, wants to destroy any sense of good that you have about yourself. And so when it's able to do that, when the enemy is able to do that, it eliminates whatever self-esteem you have and any drive to improve or get better or seek out more. people that will make you actually feel like you're in a safe place and so it cuts off relationships and isolation happens and then you use more and more of the chemical to get rid of that discomfort and then eventually it's going to kill you so the idea that you're a bad person or you're not worthy of of um goodness or relationships or kindness or compassion is a lie. And you're not a bad person. You just grew up in a home that things just went really wrong. No amount of chemicals altering your brain are ever going to make that go away. That's your reality. So the entrance into repairing the self-esteem yourself is the working on healing that. Now, we've talked about this in different podcasts about how do you get to the healing portion of this because that's the opposite of addiction is healing. So how do you get to that healing portion? And you do that through compassionate forgiveness of others for their mistakes. If you had an alcoholic mother like I did, my mother died when I was like 28 or 29, I think. It's difficult to... extend compassion to somebody because you think, oh, well, they're gone. So how am I supposed to do that? Well, you're carrying around that person in your mind and your heart. They're living there. And they're with you all the time. And the feelings attached to those relationships, they never go away. I'm 63 years old. I still think about the relationships of the people that are gone in my life. And a lot of them are dead. And they're still in my head and in my heart. So the compassion of forgiveness is something that I'm getting rid of my anger towards that person, whether they're existing on this planet or not. It doesn't matter because the damage that's being done by those memories is the damage that's going on inside of me. And I don't want that to continue. So if you're trapped in this problem of I grew up in a dysfunctional family and now I drink because I'm trying to get rid of the discomfort and these people are never going to apologize. They're never going to change because they're dead or they just won't. Either way, it doesn't matter. You have to forgive them. because you're going to let go of that anger that you're feeling towards that person, because that ultimately is what forgiveness is. It's not forgetting the event or the series of events or the disappointments or whatever that occurred in your life, but it's getting rid of the anger that you feel towards that person. And there's an incredible amount of freedom in that. You know, if we talk about opposites, that's the opposite of what you've been living your whole life. If you think about it, if you grew up in that environment, that is the opposite. So Doing something that's different, that alters in a positive way your life. You can do that. You have the power to do that. So if you are listening to this and you are trapped in alcoholic addiction behaviors and you know what? Freedom is through working through your discomfort and recognizing it and being able to work on identifying what it is and what your part was and what their part was. Being able to forgive both yourself and the other person for their wrongdoing. And this is what I do with my clients every day. I'm doing this with them. Working towards that compassionate forgiveness so that they can heal. Not the person that did these things, but that they can heal. And it's really hard. I'm not going to lie. It's really hard. And it's like the scripture says, you know, how many times must we forgive? Seven times? Six times? How about seven times seventy? The times that it takes for us to be able to flush out of our system that painful anger that we feel that makes us so uncomfortable. A better life is out there for you if you can do that and you can work on that. Trust me. And when you do finally do it and you do it honestly, and maybe continuously for a while, the discomfort lessens. It doesn't go away immediately, but it lessens. And I've heard people talk about, you know, I was so angry at him, my father, because he did these horrible things to me when I was a kid. And I'm like, okay, but what do you want to do about it now? Well, they can't because the father doesn't care or he's dead or he can't find him or whatever. And it's like, okay, well, then you're going to just carry around anger and hate in your heart all the time. Is that really what you want to do? And ultimately, the answer is no. So growing up through the looking glass at realities that didn't exist for you doesn't mean they can't be created by you later. And so if you really want to know if you've gotten there, it's the idea of I've stepped through the looking glass myself. But I learned through these metaphors and these strange things what it's like to be a functional person. And like Alice, who learned about the realities of her childhood and what it would be like to be an adult, she did that. And you can do that too. Well, that's this episode of Doc Shock, your Dixon lifeguard. If you have enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, like, and send me a comment or two. And if you have questions for me, you can reach out to me through my website, wellspringmindbody.com on the interweb and ask me questions. If you'd like to be on the show, I'd love to have guests. I'd love you to tell your story, man. Tell your story of your recovery. They're very inspiring when we hear them But you know what? If you're not in that place and you're struggling, please go get help. Go to rehab. Go find a counselor. Do something, man. Go to a meeting. Walk into the rooms. Tell your story. Get a sponsor. Do whatever you have to because spending your life to save your addiction is crazy. So until the next time, this is Doc Jock saying, see ya.