It Is About The Nail

A lot of work goes into theories of how the patient / client came to have their problem. The answer is invariably something that happened in the past, and therefore cannot be changed.(1) It’s the same with a viral infection: does it really matter where or from whom you got it? What matters is whether there’s an available affordable antidote or if you have to sweat it out.

Here’s a simpler approach.

You’re doing something DoublePlusUnGood. The next time you get an urge to do it - don’t. Even if it means you have to stand under a cold shower, run a mile, or bang your head against the wall. You’re allowed to do anything (except self-harm) you need to do to stop yourself doing it. You can give the bathroom a thorough clean, or finally sand down and varnish those shelves. Whatever it takes.

Start by removing yourself from as many of the temptations as you can. Alcoholics stop going into pubs, bars and off-licenses, and stay away from the booze shelves in the supermarket. If you only ever see Eddie and Frank to have a drink, stop seeing Eddie and Frank. Nobody said this was easy. Other people with other addictions can take relevant pre-emptive avoiding action.

You’re going to think about doing whatever it is. That’s okay. This isn’t about the chaos inside your head - yet - it’s about what you do.

Just don’t do it.

Rinse, repeat, until it becomes easier.

It’s AA in disguise, of course. What the Floundering Fathers recognised was that giving up drinking (or enter your vice here) for ever was too much to contemplate. Not having the next drink is way, way, easier. So is focusing on what you need to do today, and not worrying about tomorrow or yesterday.

That’s the advice that the addict / screw-up needs to get them started. Happiness and all those other good things will follow as a consequence, once the noise in their heads has quietened down, and they have some confidence that they can get through a bad patch without giving way to the wrong temptation.

However, addicts have Meetings. Meetings don’t always work for everyone, and nobody knows how they work for the people they work for. There’s just something about being in a group of people being honest about whatever is The Problem. You’re not alone. It can be done, because others are doing it.

Meetings are for things one wants to stop doing.

The idea doesn’t work for things that one wants to start doing. Underearners Anonymous is the closest to that, and I’ve been to those meetings. It helped me, but I’m not sure it helped many of the other people. The reference book is pretty good though.

I think psycho-therapy can be useful in helping the client understand what may be getting in the way of doing the things they need to do to achieve the things they want to achieve. In the end, it comes down to a programme of practical action, and that’s either the Steps or it’s some kind of self-improvement (take a class, go to the gym, say “hi” to one girl a day, whatever). It’s not the essentially reflective and exploratory process of psycho-therapy.

Because, in the end, it is about the nail.



(1) However, knowing what that historical something is will help you see its consequences as put there by someone else and so that can be removed or ignored in the future.