Self -Help Sucks

1

Introduction

Self-Help Sucks!

Do you have something that you can’t stop doing in your life? Gambling? Online shopping? Screen addiction? Are you a control freak? Are you addicted to emotionally unavailable people? Have you tried self-help methods to stop doing these things and failed? Are you tired of reading fluffy, empty, and wordy books that offer no real change? Me too.

I tried every self-help approach out there. I spent thousands of dollars and countless hours doing vision boards, repeating affirmations, and just trying to exert plain old willpower. Every time, I'd find myself in the same hole, one more time—and that's when I realized self-help sucks! It’s BS! It doesn’t work. It never did, and it never will.

We all want to go out and exert our power of will and get stuff done. Make things happen. Change ourselves, our habits, and our behaviors. What I am telling you is that self-help sucks. I mean that on our own power, without the help of a Higher Power and the support of others, we will not be able to change ourselves.

If you are a person who wants to change something in your life or are in a twelve-step program and want to deepen your program, this book is for you. Filled with exercises and meditation, and prayer,. Iit lays out a foundation for daily living that is beneficial for everyone.

In this no-nonsense twelve-step-based guide, I have laid out a path based on my own experience. I offer the same practices that helped (and continue to help) me achieve a sense of inner peace and contentment and freedom from these habits and behaviors.

After several years in a twelve-step program, I came face-to-face with mythe inability to change what I was doing. I was making myself miserable and hurting people in my life and knew I needed to find a solution. I picked up several self-help books and, even though the writing was excellent, none of them provided the change I so surely wanted in my life. Having worked the twelve steps in the program I was in, I decided to apply those steps around the behavior. What happened was amazing! It not only freed me from this destructive behavior, but it also provided me with a sense of contentment and inner peace I had yet to achieve, even after twenty-two years in a twelve-step program. I continue to apply this process to the things that pop up in my life. It has never failed for me, and that's why I feel called to share it.

There are upwards of forty twelve-step fellowships globally that have helped millions of people overcome their addictions and destructive behaviors. The steps work. Period. It is by no means an easy system, and most people must get beat up badly to fully submit themselves to it, —but I have personally never seen anyone, who is being honest and has done everything it asks them to do, ever not get better.

In the chapters to come, I'll share my experience with the process of the twelve steps in the original six-step format that was followed at the beginning of its history. Included are a few other people's experiences doing the same thing. All of us have one thing in common: we came face-to-face with behaviors that we could not stop doing on our own. We all worked the steps, and came out on the other side free from the behavior and with inner peace and contentment. It is by no means meant to be a replacement for a twelve-step program or your spiritual practice. It is only my experience with what I did.

Before we begin, there are a few things I'd like you to know:

When you start to do this work, begin each day with a prayer (or your own version of a prayer), asking the power to set or lay aside all that you think you know.

Start with five minutes of meditation every morning! Later in the book, I will cover an approach to meditation, but for now, imagine a beam of light in the middle of your forehead and put your focus there. Thoughts come and go, and that is a natural thing, so do not worry yourself about it. The important thing is that you carve out the time to do this first thing in the morning. Do the same thing consistently, every day, no matter what.

Get a notebook that is only for this work. Keep everything together in an organized space. There will be exercises and meditations that you will write down your experiences with as you go along.

Finally, I will talk a lot about God in this book. It is not meant to conveybe of any specific religion or viewpoint—the truth is I consider myself a spiritual agnostic. What I mean by that is I have no idea what God is. I just know that it works. Use whatever is the most accessible to you and what makes sense in your heart. The wWords used to describe it are wholly inadequate and cannot convey what that Power really is, so do not worry about semantics. Give it a chance and do everything suggested here, and you cannot fail to get results.

Dear Divine Spirit, (use whatever description you like), please set aside everything I think I know, about myself, about my story, about my problem (insert problem:; money, sex, etc.), and especially about you, Spirit (use whatever you like), so that I may have an open mind and a new experience with myself, with my story, with (my problem) and with you, Spirit. Please help me to see the truth. Amen.

Say this prayer every day when you get up in the morning. After which, move into five minutes of meditation or quiet time. Use the method of picturing a beam of light in the middle of your forehead. Thoughts will come and go. Let them. When you begin to get distracted by a particular idea or story, focus back on the light. You can also focus on the diaphragmatic breath in the same way you focus on the beam of light. If you already have a meditation practice, add the prayer above to begin or to finish your time, whichever feels right.

Chapter One

Powerless

"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

Romans 7:15

We all have something in our life that torments us. Even Paul the Apostle struggled. As he wrote about it in the bBible, “For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” I'll bet that, at some point in your life, you have tried on your own to change that destructive behavior without help. So have I. And I'll bet you have failed repeatedly. I've done that, too. This chapter is all about what happens next, and we'll begin with a question that may make you feel uncomfortable.

What is it in your life that you have no power over? What is that behavior you have repeatedly tried (and repeatedly failed) to change? Look, I get it. No one wants to admit they are powerless. No one wants to think that their willpower is weak and they can do nothing to change the circumstances of their lives. It is a hard truth to admit or even consider.

It could be a career you are stuck in, shopping, relationships, sex, the internet, or repeatedly doing something you do not want to, no matter how hard you try to not do it. Apostle Paul called his problem "the evil I do not want to do," and I think that is a helpful way of describing it. Better yet, let's put it into a question: What is it in your life that you keep doing, no matter how hard you try to stop?

In this chapter, we look at three elements of powerlessness:

Once I start, I cannot stop.

I make up my mind not to do it and do it anyway.

My life, especially around this problem, is unmanageable.

There are two things I want to make clear before we go any further: iIf you are grappling with behavior in your life that obliterates you, something that eats you up and spits you out.— Wwhether it is drug or alcohol addiction, relationship addiction, porn, sex, gambling, food—if you are struggling with something that's destroying your relationships, family, career, home, health, or self-worth, go join a twelve-step program. Work through their steps, do everything they say. You will come out on the other side not only victorious over that thing but with a whole new set of ideas and a way of life that is very fulfilling.

The other thing is that if you do not really want to stop doing what you are doing, or you just kind of want to stop, this is not for you. You must want it bad enough that you are willing to be challenged in a way that you may not have been challenged before. You will have to look at things that will make you uncomfortable and tell someone else about them as well as go out and make amends for the harm you have caused in your life, especially around this behavior or problem that you have named, and declare that you are ready to try something totally opposite of what you think might work. Whatever that thing is, make sure you really do not want to do it anymore. With the help of whatever Power you identify with as a Higher Power, make the commitment to do whatever it takes to go down any road this work leads you down.

Once I start, I cannot stop.

I have Uulcerative Ccolitis. It is an autoimmune disease in the large intestines and the bowels that causes inflammation in your digestive tract. That inflammation causes "flares" that put your waste system into overdrive. You can get uncontrollable diarrhea striped with blood and mucus, lose your appetite, and become anemic from blood loss. When you are in a flare, you always must know where the nearest bathroom is and stay close to it. Because you know there's no stopping it once it starts. Because if you are not in the bathroom when it comes, you will either go in your pants or find a nearby bush. No matter what your intentions or how hard you try, you still shit your pants. That's true powerlessness, and addictive behavior works about the same way.

The concept of "once I start, I cannot stop" was first introduced to me as step one in the twelve-step work that I didhad done in step one. There is almost an allergic reaction. Here's an example of what I mean. Let's say you are walking in an alley, and you see that someone has thrown away a half-eaten chocolate cake. You tell yourself, for some reason, that you would like to have a taste of this chocolate cake. You tell yourself you are only going to have a couple of bites. You pick up the cake and eat your two bites, then put the cake back on the ground where you found it and walk back out to the street. However, you suddenly feel a compulsion to go back to the alley and eat some more cake. You make your way back to the alley and polish off the whole thing, making yourself sick in the process from eating not only a whole cake but eating a cake that was left out in an alley.

One of these things for me was continuing to chase and get in relationships with emotionally unavailable women. I would see a woman across the room or in a crowded space, gravitate towards her, and ask her out to coffee or something. We would go out on a date, and very quickly, I would know in my heart that this person was not going to be able to show up for me. The writing would be all over our interactions, and I would make up my mind that I would not continue pursuing her and would instead wait for the Universe to bring me who was supposed to be in my life. Yet, a couple of days later, I'd be calling her to ask her out again. In a very short time, I'd somehow manage to take another emotional hostage and end up with yet another failed relationship I knew would not work from the beginning. I could see it; I would watch myself do it, and I'd watch myself try to stop. I gave myself speeches in the mirror. I read self-help books. And even though I knew something was wrong with me, and despite all my effort, I could not change—no matter how much I wanted to or needed to. I just kept engaging in the same behavior over and over, feeling guilty and remorseful every time I did it. I was powerless, but I was not willing to admit it until it almost ruined my life. This leads to the next aspect that we look for in being powerless, which is the most insidious part of the problem.

I make up my mind not to do it and do it anyway.

Now let's say you disgusted yourself with your inability to stop eating the cake once you started eating the cake. You have cleaned yourself up and made a very sound and meaningful decision to not eat chocolate cake ever again. You never want to find yourself in that situation again. It makes sense. You are a bright, willful person who has willpower in most other areas of your life. You do not overspend or gamble, and most of the time, you show excellent judgment in your life. There is really no evidence or reason why you should not be able to fulfill your decision.

Hours lead to days, and days lead to weeks, which leads to months. You haven’t thought of the chocolate cake at all. If you have thought of it, it repels your senses so much you have almost vomited thinking about yourself hunched over the cake in the alley. One day you walk by a bakery, and right there in the window is a freshly decorated chocolate cake. It has chocolate sprinkles and chocolate truffles on it with chocolate ganache and chocolate buttercream frosting. You find yourself standing at the window staring at the chocolate cake. It’s like your feet are glued to the cement; you cannot move. Suddenly you find yourself at the register paying for the chocolate cake. You walk outside and sit down on a bus bench right in front of the bakery. The cake just starts going in your mouth. There is no thought, there is no memory of the alley or your decision;, there is only the chocolate cake in front of you being shoved into your mouth. That is what it's like to have a mental obsession. That nNo matter how hard you try to remember how bad you felt, or maybe you had a great day, and decided to celebrate your success,. Yyou find yourself breaking your word and wolfing down cake repeatedly, no matter how hard you try not to.

In the twelve-step program that I worked to change my life the first time, to overcome addiction so powerful and destructive it rendered all the fat off of my body and burned every relationship down to the ground, I grappled with this type of mental obsession. And it reared up again

in my relationship choices when I would pick out the most unavailable (at least to me) woman in the room. Who was incompatible with me? I'd make a beeline for her, start flirting with her, give her unmitigated attention, flattery, and even gifts if that is what it took. I would pursue these women, get into a relationship with them, and convince myself that I was in love with them. (And maybe I was more in love with the idea of them or in love with being in love.) We would go along and more than likely move in together and even get engaged. I have done this more than once—and one of those women was a lesbian, and knew she was a lesbian;, and she told me so. I still pursued a relationship.

Each of these relationships would follow the same doomed path: soon after we moved in together or got engaged, everything would start to deteriorate. The long bridge of differences would stretch wider and wider, until, eventually, like the Grand Canyon, until eventually we could hardly see each other from the other side. Both of us knew we weren't going to make the journey to reconnect across such a vast divide, and the end rarely came as a surprise.

The thing is, I knew it would happen that way. I knew if I went across that room and talked to that girl, we would follow the inevitable pattern. I also knew I would end up with a broken heart and a broken will, full of guilt and remorse. In the end, I'd be all alone with the wreckage of my soul's sickness scattered around me in ruins just as a tornado leaves a trailer park after it touches down on its path.