Chapter 7

Facing truth is the first step in change, and this change is first brought about by reasoning from self-evident propositions. Facing truths is often unpleasant because it forces you to do something (change is scary) or consciously do nothing (live without hope). You must endure physical and emotional discomfort until you find a way to deal with it that rightly serves you. Otherwise you may focus only on emotional harm, and not emotional health. An addict’s exaggerated elevation in importance of emotional hurt provides them with a thousand or more excuses to take a moral detour right into demented, demeaning, counterproductive, desperation-based-situations, and to stay there.

Does this not lead into wishful thinking? Hiding from truths does not abolish them. Courage is necessary to suffer through and endure irrational thinking without letting it dictate behaviors. Learn to diagnose and analyze each situation with common-sense reason, not emotional reactions. Learn to struggle (at first) with new, healthier interpretations and actions that satisfy your rational mind without, for now, appeasing your emotions. This takes great courage. Doing right is very challenging, and there is rarely an immediate reward or reassurance. The reward for doing right is mostly an internal phenomenon: self-respect, dignity, integrity, and self-esteem. The rest of your life depends on what you do with any one moment. For the most part, no one knows or sees those clandestine micro events of integrity. But what matter? You know. And therein lays the greatest reward for integrity, your self-respect.

This is an overwhelmingly difficult, yet simple truth: the effectiveness with which we use common-sense reason to counteract emotionally-based decisions is utterly reduced when we refuse to surrender our power position of using hurt feelings to control or change others. When we’re afraid to be strong, we use weakness to try to control others. We hope the weakness (the hurting, the pain, the “look what you’ve done to me”) will somehow create pleasure, whereas we fear that an appropriate use of strength (assertiveness) might cause us pain. Maybe this is additional knowledge we don’t want to risk having.