Daily Excerpt: Anxiety Anonymous (Ortman): Deja Vu All Over Again

 

Excerpt from Anxiety Anonymous

Déjà Vu All Over Again

All addictions begin with “stinking thinking.” After many experiences of the soothing effects of alcohol, a tranquilizer, the budding alcoholic begins to believe that she can find happiness in a bottle and cannot live without it. She continually tells herself, “I need a drink,” whether she is anxious, sad, angry, or happy. She rationalizes many reasons for drinking. Over time, as the addiction takes hold, she becomes more preoccupied with the thought of drinking. It becomes her obsession. She begins to plan her life around drinking opportunities on weekends with friends or at home alone to chill out.

Her obsession with drinking spills over into compulsive behaviors. She develops drinking routines, going to the same bar every Friday evening, meeting the same people. Cocktail hour, with the same drink, mixed in the same way, happens every day at precisely 4:00 p.m. She may make rigid rules for herself to assure herself that she is not an alcoholic, never drinking alone or in the morning.

Slowly, she builds a lifestyle around her drinking and activities that include alcohol, such as bowling, golfing, or playing cards. All her friends share her passion for alcohol, enjoying the same rituals and routines, while her nondrinking friends fall by the wayside. Over time, the repetitions around alcohol become deeply engrained in the psyche, a habit difficult to break.

Jane, a Housewife with a Compulsion to Clean: Running on a Hamster Wheel

 “I had the vague fear that if my house weren’t clean and in order, something terrible would happen. I wasn’t quite sure what that terrible thing would be, but I couldn’t dislodge the thought from my mind. Morning to night I either cleaned the house or thought about doing it.

When guests were coming, I’d obsess for a week about how I would make time to clean so I wouldn’t be embarrassed. I just could not relax during parties because I was always watching for what needed to be picked up and kept running around. When the children played, my sole thought, rather than enjoying them, was worrying about the mess they were making and how I would clean it up. I was exhausting myself NS felt like I was running on a hamster wheel.”

Fearful and anxious, your life preoccupation is to feel safe and secure. Danger lurks around every corner. “I always imagine the worst so I will be prepared,” you tell yourself. You obsess about dangers in social situations, encountering dreaded objects, or simply being exposed. You also obsess about what you can do to be safe. Worry becomes your middle name, and you find yourself constantly planning to prevent things from going wrong.

At times, you go to great lengths to avoid threatening thoughts or situations. You may develop routines and rituals to ensure safety, such as praying, counting, or cleaning, which become compulsive behaviors. You may lose yourself in your job or in playing some role in life instead of being yourself. Rules govern your life, giving you a sense of security. Without realizing it, the four Rs direct you: routines, rituals, roles, and rules. You begin to live your life on automatic pilot so that nothing is unpredictable. Fearing the unknown, you structure your life in such a way that there are no surprises.

You become a creature of habit, and eventually, its prisoner.

No one is more conservative in their thinking and behavior than the addict and the anxious person. Both survive in a cruel world by predictability, by repeating the same thoughts and behaviors over and over. Both find safety and security in their routines, which they believe will magically protect them. These habits become engrained with many years of repetition.

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To read more posts, including book excerpts, about Dr. Dennis Ortman and his books, click HERE.

To read reviews of Anxiety Anonymous, click HERE.

To read more posts related to anxiety, click HERE.

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