Elizabeth Gilbert
Other
Stepping out of other people’s drama cycles was scary, weird, and difficult for me at first. I felt guilty for keeping the focus on myself, and I wondered how anyone could possibly survive without my overinvolvement in their lives. (Spoiler alert: They all survived. And I gradually started hanging out with healthier people.)
From All the Way to the River
My own sober dating plan is approximately three pages long, and it includes such items as “NO WEEKLONG FIRST DATES.” My plan also forbids me from texting obsessively between dates, dropping any existing plans or projects because of a new relationship, falling into fantasy with someone I have met in my travels (aka not in real life), moving virtual strangers into my home, trying to rescue unrecovered alcoholics or drug addicts; buying expensive gifts for new lovers; or sharing bank accounts with anyone, ever.
If all this sounds boring, or feels like it removes the spontaneity and intensity from romance, that is exactly the point. Spontaneity, for sex and love addicts, is exceedingly dangerous, and intensity is something I am wise to avoid.
If all this sounds boring, or feels like it removes the spontaneity and intensity from romance, that is exactly the point. Spontaneity, for sex and love addicts, is exceedingly dangerous, and intensity is something I am wise to avoid.
From All the Way to the River
As a sex and love addict in recovery, I define a “clean day” as any day where I have not used another human being—not as a stimulant, or a sedative; not as a badge of honor or a bodyguard; not as an emotional support animal, a sleeping pill, a sex toy, a babysitter, a parental-replacement figure, or a good-looking trophy; not as some infinitely wise Delphic oracle who is here to answer all my most challenging life questions; and certainly not as a mirror that I can stare into, searching for evidence that I am lovable, attractive, worthy, normal, respectable, special, desirable, valuable, irreplaceable, adored, secure, or good.
From All the Way to the River
I couldn’t stop; I couldn’t stay stopped; I kept doing that thing.
No matter how costly the consequences, I kept acting out. One disastrous encounter after another left me shattered, guilt-ridden, shamed, and exhausted. Lessons kept piling up, but I was never able to act differently, despite being a trustworthy and disciplined person in every other realm of my life.
No matter how costly the consequences, I kept acting out. One disastrous encounter after another left me shattered, guilt-ridden, shamed, and exhausted. Lessons kept piling up, but I was never able to act differently, despite being a trustworthy and disciplined person in every other realm of my life.
From All the Way to the River
But I was always coming here. I though about one of my favorite Sufi poems, which says that God long ago drew a circle in the sand exactly around the spot where you are standing right now. I was never not coming here. This was never not going to happen.
From Eat, Pray, Love
Like all sex and love addicts, I can feel someone’s attention and attraction from a hundred yards away—hell, I can feel them from the other side of a continent.
From All the Way to the River
That goes for all addicts. We are all runaway trains—and nobody can stop us from acting upon our worst and wildest ideas, once we get started. Nothing can stop us but a miracle.
From All the Way to the River
Look for God, suggests my Guru. Look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water.
In 1954, Pope Pius XI, of all people, sent some Vatican delegates on a trip to Libya with these written instructions: "Do NOT think that you are going among Infidels. Muslims attain salvation, too. The ways of Providence are infinite.
From Eat, Pray, Love
There's no trouble in this world so serious that it can't be cured with a hot bath, a glass of whiskey, and the Book of Common Prayer.
From Eat, Pray, Love
It was becoming evident to me that addiction is addiction is addiction—that all the ways in which people binge, hoard, numb, act out, control, and self-medicate are just equally desperate attempts to cover up the same deep spiritual pain. In fact, I don’t think there’s a single room in the twelve-step universe that I don’t relate to or qualify for, at some level or another, because my anxious mind never stops looking for ways to escape its host of human dilemmas.
From All the Way to the River
One of the central characteristics of sex and love addicts is that we assign magical qualities to people, and then we become enraged when those people fail to live up to our fantasies, expectations, and projections.
From All the Way to the River
I know the voice of God the way a blind, mewling, newborn kitten knows the smell of its mother.
The voice said this: If you have arrived at a point in your life where you are seriously considering murdering yourself or another human being, there is a strong possibility that you have reached the end of your power.
I stopped walking.
I listened harder.
I leaned into the sound of God, offering me wisdom and guidance.
That being the case, continued the voice, perhaps it’s time you called somebody and asked for help.
The voice said this: If you have arrived at a point in your life where you are seriously considering murdering yourself or another human being, there is a strong possibility that you have reached the end of your power.
I stopped walking.
I listened harder.
I leaned into the sound of God, offering me wisdom and guidance.
That being the case, continued the voice, perhaps it’s time you called somebody and asked for help.
From All the Way to the River
Image management” is something addicts care a lot about, and I am no exception.
From All the Way to the River
What is the overgiver getting out of this obviously imbalanced arrangement?
Or at least, what do they think they’re getting?
Because nobody overgives for no reason—even if those reasons are deeply hidden or disguised as acts of pure altruism.
So what is the payoff, exactly?
In my case, the payoff has always been love—or at least, the desperate hope of love.
And how far am I willing to go—how much will I extend myself, exhaust myself, burn myself out, or manipulate, seduce, soothe, manage, and control others—in order to get my own hidden needs and hungers met?
Are you kidding me?
To earn love?
I will give up everything I have.
I will overgive myself right to the edge of annihilation.
But only always.
Or at least, what do they think they’re getting?
Because nobody overgives for no reason—even if those reasons are deeply hidden or disguised as acts of pure altruism.
So what is the payoff, exactly?
In my case, the payoff has always been love—or at least, the desperate hope of love.
And how far am I willing to go—how much will I extend myself, exhaust myself, burn myself out, or manipulate, seduce, soothe, manage, and control others—in order to get my own hidden needs and hungers met?
Are you kidding me?
To earn love?
I will give up everything I have.
I will overgive myself right to the edge of annihilation.
But only always.
From All the Way to the River
This book is not only for people whose lives have been negatively impacted by their own addictions or by the addictions of others—although I do believe those two categories will include pretty much all of us, at some time or another. This book is also about the many ways that people—despite their best efforts at living sane and stable lives—can sometimes get swept into high-octane dramas and traumas, finding themselves washed up on shores that can feel very distant from their true natures.
From All the Way to the River
On the surface, I appeared to be a confident young go-getter. But my inner life was, as it had always been, a tremulous fear-scape. I was neither mature nor emotionally secure, and I wasn’t yet ready for the demands of adulthood. Hidden beneath all my apparent ingenuity was a terrified child constantly asking, “Who’s got me? Who will keep me safe? Where do I belong?” And thus I began my lifelong quest to make other people into my home.
From All the Way to the River
One must always be prepared for riotous and endless waves of transformation.
From Eat, Pray, Love
You can measure the happiness of a marriage by the number of scars that each partner carries on their tongues, earned from years of biting back angry words.
From Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
Here’s the thing about withdrawal, from any drug, substance, person, or behavior: The reason it’s so excruciating is that not only do you have to feel the pain of losing access to that thing you desire more than anything else, but you also have to feel the pain of every other loss you have ever experienced along your life’s journey. All the previous failures, all the previous crashes, all the previous disappointments. It’s like a twenty-car pileup of failures on an icy highway, and there’s no way to get away from it. Worst of all, withdrawal forces you to feel your original suffering again—the deepest childhood grief or ancestral wound that started you out on this journey of addiction in the first place.
And who wants to feel that?
And who wants to feel that?
From All the Way to the River
I can’t even tell you when my love addiction got triggered with Rayya, or when I collapsed into the utter abandonment of self that is codependency in its most deadly and life-destroying form. I can’t name the exact moment when I made her into my higher power, or when I surrendered all my will and agency to her, or when I decided that it was my job in life to serve her every desire—no matter how much it cost me, physically, emotionally, or financially.
From All the Way to the River
Child, you keep demanding impossible promises from those who cannot even take care of themselves.
But what joy have you ever derived from being so dependent and unassured, so needy, lost, and afraid?
You keep saying you want to count on somebody—
but I say stop counting.
You keep telling me you crave security because the world frightens you.
But the world, my love, is what you are.
But what joy have you ever derived from being so dependent and unassured, so needy, lost, and afraid?
You keep saying you want to count on somebody—
but I say stop counting.
You keep telling me you crave security because the world frightens you.
But the world, my love, is what you are.
From All the Way to the River
How the hell did I get here? is a question that I believe everybody will have to face at some point during their passage through life. Perhaps even at multiple points. For who among us has never gotten lost, much to our own embarrassment? Who has not ended up in scenarios that are frightening, alienating, shameful, and spirit-crushing? Who has not kept secrets, or been betrayed, or tried to control the behavior of others? Who has not longed for escape from suffering? And who has not reached for substances, people, behaviors, or distractions that offer temporary respite from the built-in discomforts of existence itself?
From All the Way to the River
The line between a problematic behavior and an addiction is a murky one—perhaps even invisible. But a good test as to whether you’re an addict or not is to answer these three questions as honestly as possible: 1. Have you tried to stop this behavior and you can’t? 2. Have you managed to stop at times—but you can’t stay stopped? 3. Has your behavior brought consequences to your life that might cause a normal person to say, “Wow, I’ll certainly never do that thing again!”—yet you keep doing that thing?
From All the Way to the River
Stepping out of other people’s drama cycles was scary, weird, and difficult for me at first. I felt guilty for keeping the focus on myself, and I wondered how anyone could possibly survive without my overinvolvement in their lives. (Spoiler alert: They all survived. And I gradually started hanging out with healthier people.)
From All the Way to the River
My own sober dating plan is approximately three pages long, and it includes such items as “NO WEEKLONG FIRST DATES.” My plan also forbids me from texting obsessively between dates, dropping any existing plans or projects because of a new relationship, falling into fantasy with someone I have met in my travels (aka not in real life), moving virtual strangers into my home, trying to rescue unrecovered alcoholics or drug addicts; buying expensive gifts for new lovers; or sharing bank accounts with anyone, ever.
If all this sounds boring, or feels like it removes the spontaneity and intensity from romance, that is exactly the point. Spontaneity, for sex and love addicts, is exceedingly dangerous, and intensity is something I am wise to avoid.
If all this sounds boring, or feels like it removes the spontaneity and intensity from romance, that is exactly the point. Spontaneity, for sex and love addicts, is exceedingly dangerous, and intensity is something I am wise to avoid.
From All the Way to the River
As a sex and love addict in recovery, I define a “clean day” as any day where I have not used another human being—not as a stimulant, or a sedative; not as a badge of honor or a bodyguard; not as an emotional support animal, a sleeping pill, a sex toy, a babysitter, a parental-replacement figure, or a good-looking trophy; not as some infinitely wise Delphic oracle who is here to answer all my most challenging life questions; and certainly not as a mirror that I can stare into, searching for evidence that I am lovable, attractive, worthy, normal, respectable, special, desirable, valuable, irreplaceable, adored, secure, or good.
From All the Way to the River
I couldn’t stop; I couldn’t stay stopped; I kept doing that thing.
No matter how costly the consequences, I kept acting out. One disastrous encounter after another left me shattered, guilt-ridden, shamed, and exhausted. Lessons kept piling up, but I was never able to act differently, despite being a trustworthy and disciplined person in every other realm of my life.
No matter how costly the consequences, I kept acting out. One disastrous encounter after another left me shattered, guilt-ridden, shamed, and exhausted. Lessons kept piling up, but I was never able to act differently, despite being a trustworthy and disciplined person in every other realm of my life.
From All the Way to the River
But I was always coming here. I though about one of my favorite Sufi poems, which says that God long ago drew a circle in the sand exactly around the spot where you are standing right now. I was never not coming here. This was never not going to happen.
From Eat, Pray, Love
Like all sex and love addicts, I can feel someone’s attention and attraction from a hundred yards away—hell, I can feel them from the other side of a continent.
From All the Way to the River
That goes for all addicts. We are all runaway trains—and nobody can stop us from acting upon our worst and wildest ideas, once we get started. Nothing can stop us but a miracle.
From All the Way to the River
Look for God, suggests my Guru. Look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water.
In 1954, Pope Pius XI, of all people, sent some Vatican delegates on a trip to Libya with these written instructions: "Do NOT think that you are going among Infidels. Muslims attain salvation, too. The ways of Providence are infinite.
From Eat, Pray, Love
There's no trouble in this world so serious that it can't be cured with a hot bath, a glass of whiskey, and the Book of Common Prayer.
From Eat, Pray, Love
It was becoming evident to me that addiction is addiction is addiction—that all the ways in which people binge, hoard, numb, act out, control, and self-medicate are just equally desperate attempts to cover up the same deep spiritual pain. In fact, I don’t think there’s a single room in the twelve-step universe that I don’t relate to or qualify for, at some level or another, because my anxious mind never stops looking for ways to escape its host of human dilemmas.
From All the Way to the River
One of the central characteristics of sex and love addicts is that we assign magical qualities to people, and then we become enraged when those people fail to live up to our fantasies, expectations, and projections.
From All the Way to the River
I know the voice of God the way a blind, mewling, newborn kitten knows the smell of its mother.
The voice said this: If you have arrived at a point in your life where you are seriously considering murdering yourself or another human being, there is a strong possibility that you have reached the end of your power.
I stopped walking.
I listened harder.
I leaned into the sound of God, offering me wisdom and guidance.
That being the case, continued the voice, perhaps it’s time you called somebody and asked for help.
The voice said this: If you have arrived at a point in your life where you are seriously considering murdering yourself or another human being, there is a strong possibility that you have reached the end of your power.
I stopped walking.
I listened harder.
I leaned into the sound of God, offering me wisdom and guidance.
That being the case, continued the voice, perhaps it’s time you called somebody and asked for help.
From All the Way to the River
Image management” is something addicts care a lot about, and I am no exception.
From All the Way to the River
What is the overgiver getting out of this obviously imbalanced arrangement?
Or at least, what do they think they’re getting?
Because nobody overgives for no reason—even if those reasons are deeply hidden or disguised as acts of pure altruism.
So what is the payoff, exactly?
In my case, the payoff has always been love—or at least, the desperate hope of love.
And how far am I willing to go—how much will I extend myself, exhaust myself, burn myself out, or manipulate, seduce, soothe, manage, and control others—in order to get my own hidden needs and hungers met?
Are you kidding me?
To earn love?
I will give up everything I have.
I will overgive myself right to the edge of annihilation.
But only always.
Or at least, what do they think they’re getting?
Because nobody overgives for no reason—even if those reasons are deeply hidden or disguised as acts of pure altruism.
So what is the payoff, exactly?
In my case, the payoff has always been love—or at least, the desperate hope of love.
And how far am I willing to go—how much will I extend myself, exhaust myself, burn myself out, or manipulate, seduce, soothe, manage, and control others—in order to get my own hidden needs and hungers met?
Are you kidding me?
To earn love?
I will give up everything I have.
I will overgive myself right to the edge of annihilation.
But only always.
From All the Way to the River
This book is not only for people whose lives have been negatively impacted by their own addictions or by the addictions of others—although I do believe those two categories will include pretty much all of us, at some time or another. This book is also about the many ways that people—despite their best efforts at living sane and stable lives—can sometimes get swept into high-octane dramas and traumas, finding themselves washed up on shores that can feel very distant from their true natures.
From All the Way to the River
On the surface, I appeared to be a confident young go-getter. But my inner life was, as it had always been, a tremulous fear-scape. I was neither mature nor emotionally secure, and I wasn’t yet ready for the demands of adulthood. Hidden beneath all my apparent ingenuity was a terrified child constantly asking, “Who’s got me? Who will keep me safe? Where do I belong?” And thus I began my lifelong quest to make other people into my home.
From All the Way to the River
One must always be prepared for riotous and endless waves of transformation.
From Eat, Pray, Love
You can measure the happiness of a marriage by the number of scars that each partner carries on their tongues, earned from years of biting back angry words.
From Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
Here’s the thing about withdrawal, from any drug, substance, person, or behavior: The reason it’s so excruciating is that not only do you have to feel the pain of losing access to that thing you desire more than anything else, but you also have to feel the pain of every other loss you have ever experienced along your life’s journey. All the previous failures, all the previous crashes, all the previous disappointments. It’s like a twenty-car pileup of failures on an icy highway, and there’s no way to get away from it. Worst of all, withdrawal forces you to feel your original suffering again—the deepest childhood grief or ancestral wound that started you out on this journey of addiction in the first place.
And who wants to feel that?
And who wants to feel that?
From All the Way to the River
I can’t even tell you when my love addiction got triggered with Rayya, or when I collapsed into the utter abandonment of self that is codependency in its most deadly and life-destroying form. I can’t name the exact moment when I made her into my higher power, or when I surrendered all my will and agency to her, or when I decided that it was my job in life to serve her every desire—no matter how much it cost me, physically, emotionally, or financially.
From All the Way to the River
Child, you keep demanding impossible promises from those who cannot even take care of themselves.
But what joy have you ever derived from being so dependent and unassured, so needy, lost, and afraid?
You keep saying you want to count on somebody—
but I say stop counting.
You keep telling me you crave security because the world frightens you.
But the world, my love, is what you are.
But what joy have you ever derived from being so dependent and unassured, so needy, lost, and afraid?
You keep saying you want to count on somebody—
but I say stop counting.
You keep telling me you crave security because the world frightens you.
But the world, my love, is what you are.
From All the Way to the River
How the hell did I get here? is a question that I believe everybody will have to face at some point during their passage through life. Perhaps even at multiple points. For who among us has never gotten lost, much to our own embarrassment? Who has not ended up in scenarios that are frightening, alienating, shameful, and spirit-crushing? Who has not kept secrets, or been betrayed, or tried to control the behavior of others? Who has not longed for escape from suffering? And who has not reached for substances, people, behaviors, or distractions that offer temporary respite from the built-in discomforts of existence itself?
From All the Way to the River
The line between a problematic behavior and an addiction is a murky one—perhaps even invisible. But a good test as to whether you’re an addict or not is to answer these three questions as honestly as possible: 1. Have you tried to stop this behavior and you can’t? 2. Have you managed to stop at times—but you can’t stay stopped? 3. Has your behavior brought consequences to your life that might cause a normal person to say, “Wow, I’ll certainly never do that thing again!”—yet you keep doing that thing?
From All the Way to the River
Stepping out of other people’s drama cycles was scary, weird, and difficult for me at first. I felt guilty for keeping the focus on myself, and I wondered how anyone could possibly survive without my overinvolvement in their lives. (Spoiler alert: They all survived. And I gradually started hanging out with healthier people.)
From All the Way to the River
My own sober dating plan is approximately three pages long, and it includes such items as “NO WEEKLONG FIRST DATES.” My plan also forbids me from texting obsessively between dates, dropping any existing plans or projects because of a new relationship, falling into fantasy with someone I have met in my travels (aka not in real life), moving virtual strangers into my home, trying to rescue unrecovered alcoholics or drug addicts; buying expensive gifts for new lovers; or sharing bank accounts with anyone, ever.
If all this sounds boring, or feels like it removes the spontaneity and intensity from romance, that is exactly the point. Spontaneity, for sex and love addicts, is exceedingly dangerous, and intensity is something I am wise to avoid.
If all this sounds boring, or feels like it removes the spontaneity and intensity from romance, that is exactly the point. Spontaneity, for sex and love addicts, is exceedingly dangerous, and intensity is something I am wise to avoid.
From All the Way to the River
As a sex and love addict in recovery, I define a “clean day” as any day where I have not used another human being—not as a stimulant, or a sedative; not as a badge of honor or a bodyguard; not as an emotional support animal, a sleeping pill, a sex toy, a babysitter, a parental-replacement figure, or a good-looking trophy; not as some infinitely wise Delphic oracle who is here to answer all my most challenging life questions; and certainly not as a mirror that I can stare into, searching for evidence that I am lovable, attractive, worthy, normal, respectable, special, desirable, valuable, irreplaceable, adored, secure, or good.
From All the Way to the River
I couldn’t stop; I couldn’t stay stopped; I kept doing that thing.
No matter how costly the consequences, I kept acting out. One disastrous encounter after another left me shattered, guilt-ridden, shamed, and exhausted. Lessons kept piling up, but I was never able to act differently, despite being a trustworthy and disciplined person in every other realm of my life.
No matter how costly the consequences, I kept acting out. One disastrous encounter after another left me shattered, guilt-ridden, shamed, and exhausted. Lessons kept piling up, but I was never able to act differently, despite being a trustworthy and disciplined person in every other realm of my life.
From All the Way to the River
But I was always coming here. I though about one of my favorite Sufi poems, which says that God long ago drew a circle in the sand exactly around the spot where you are standing right now. I was never not coming here. This was never not going to happen.
From Eat, Pray, Love
Like all sex and love addicts, I can feel someone’s attention and attraction from a hundred yards away—hell, I can feel them from the other side of a continent.
From All the Way to the River
That goes for all addicts. We are all runaway trains—and nobody can stop us from acting upon our worst and wildest ideas, once we get started. Nothing can stop us but a miracle.
From All the Way to the River
Look for God, suggests my Guru. Look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water.
In 1954, Pope Pius XI, of all people, sent some Vatican delegates on a trip to Libya with these written instructions: "Do NOT think that you are going among Infidels. Muslims attain salvation, too. The ways of Providence are infinite.
From Eat, Pray, Love
There's no trouble in this world so serious that it can't be cured with a hot bath, a glass of whiskey, and the Book of Common Prayer.
From Eat, Pray, Love
It was becoming evident to me that addiction is addiction is addiction—that all the ways in which people binge, hoard, numb, act out, control, and self-medicate are just equally desperate attempts to cover up the same deep spiritual pain. In fact, I don’t think there’s a single room in the twelve-step universe that I don’t relate to or qualify for, at some level or another, because my anxious mind never stops looking for ways to escape its host of human dilemmas.
From All the Way to the River
One of the central characteristics of sex and love addicts is that we assign magical qualities to people, and then we become enraged when those people fail to live up to our fantasies, expectations, and projections.
From All the Way to the River
I know the voice of God the way a blind, mewling, newborn kitten knows the smell of its mother.
The voice said this: If you have arrived at a point in your life where you are seriously considering murdering yourself or another human being, there is a strong possibility that you have reached the end of your power.
I stopped walking.
I listened harder.
I leaned into the sound of God, offering me wisdom and guidance.
That being the case, continued the voice, perhaps it’s time you called somebody and asked for help.
The voice said this: If you have arrived at a point in your life where you are seriously considering murdering yourself or another human being, there is a strong possibility that you have reached the end of your power.
I stopped walking.
I listened harder.
I leaned into the sound of God, offering me wisdom and guidance.
That being the case, continued the voice, perhaps it’s time you called somebody and asked for help.
From All the Way to the River
Image management” is something addicts care a lot about, and I am no exception.
From All the Way to the River
What is the overgiver getting out of this obviously imbalanced arrangement?
Or at least, what do they think they’re getting?
Because nobody overgives for no reason—even if those reasons are deeply hidden or disguised as acts of pure altruism.
So what is the payoff, exactly?
In my case, the payoff has always been love—or at least, the desperate hope of love.
And how far am I willing to go—how much will I extend myself, exhaust myself, burn myself out, or manipulate, seduce, soothe, manage, and control others—in order to get my own hidden needs and hungers met?
Are you kidding me?
To earn love?
I will give up everything I have.
I will overgive myself right to the edge of annihilation.
But only always.
Or at least, what do they think they’re getting?
Because nobody overgives for no reason—even if those reasons are deeply hidden or disguised as acts of pure altruism.
So what is the payoff, exactly?
In my case, the payoff has always been love—or at least, the desperate hope of love.
And how far am I willing to go—how much will I extend myself, exhaust myself, burn myself out, or manipulate, seduce, soothe, manage, and control others—in order to get my own hidden needs and hungers met?
Are you kidding me?
To earn love?
I will give up everything I have.
I will overgive myself right to the edge of annihilation.
But only always.
From All the Way to the River
This book is not only for people whose lives have been negatively impacted by their own addictions or by the addictions of others—although I do believe those two categories will include pretty much all of us, at some time or another. This book is also about the many ways that people—despite their best efforts at living sane and stable lives—can sometimes get swept into high-octane dramas and traumas, finding themselves washed up on shores that can feel very distant from their true natures.
From All the Way to the River
On the surface, I appeared to be a confident young go-getter. But my inner life was, as it had always been, a tremulous fear-scape. I was neither mature nor emotionally secure, and I wasn’t yet ready for the demands of adulthood. Hidden beneath all my apparent ingenuity was a terrified child constantly asking, “Who’s got me? Who will keep me safe? Where do I belong?” And thus I began my lifelong quest to make other people into my home.
From All the Way to the River
One must always be prepared for riotous and endless waves of transformation.
From Eat, Pray, Love
You can measure the happiness of a marriage by the number of scars that each partner carries on their tongues, earned from years of biting back angry words.
From Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
Here’s the thing about withdrawal, from any drug, substance, person, or behavior: The reason it’s so excruciating is that not only do you have to feel the pain of losing access to that thing you desire more than anything else, but you also have to feel the pain of every other loss you have ever experienced along your life’s journey. All the previous failures, all the previous crashes, all the previous disappointments. It’s like a twenty-car pileup of failures on an icy highway, and there’s no way to get away from it. Worst of all, withdrawal forces you to feel your original suffering again—the deepest childhood grief or ancestral wound that started you out on this journey of addiction in the first place.
And who wants to feel that?
And who wants to feel that?
From All the Way to the River
I can’t even tell you when my love addiction got triggered with Rayya, or when I collapsed into the utter abandonment of self that is codependency in its most deadly and life-destroying form. I can’t name the exact moment when I made her into my higher power, or when I surrendered all my will and agency to her, or when I decided that it was my job in life to serve her every desire—no matter how much it cost me, physically, emotionally, or financially.
From All the Way to the River
Child, you keep demanding impossible promises from those who cannot even take care of themselves.
But what joy have you ever derived from being so dependent and unassured, so needy, lost, and afraid?
You keep saying you want to count on somebody—
but I say stop counting.
You keep telling me you crave security because the world frightens you.
But the world, my love, is what you are.
But what joy have you ever derived from being so dependent and unassured, so needy, lost, and afraid?
You keep saying you want to count on somebody—
but I say stop counting.
You keep telling me you crave security because the world frightens you.
But the world, my love, is what you are.
From All the Way to the River
How the hell did I get here? is a question that I believe everybody will have to face at some point during their passage through life. Perhaps even at multiple points. For who among us has never gotten lost, much to our own embarrassment? Who has not ended up in scenarios that are frightening, alienating, shameful, and spirit-crushing? Who has not kept secrets, or been betrayed, or tried to control the behavior of others? Who has not longed for escape from suffering? And who has not reached for substances, people, behaviors, or distractions that offer temporary respite from the built-in discomforts of existence itself?
From All the Way to the River
The line between a problematic behavior and an addiction is a murky one—perhaps even invisible. But a good test as to whether you’re an addict or not is to answer these three questions as honestly as possible: 1. Have you tried to stop this behavior and you can’t? 2. Have you managed to stop at times—but you can’t stay stopped? 3. Has your behavior brought consequences to your life that might cause a normal person to say, “Wow, I’ll certainly never do that thing again!”—yet you keep doing that thing?
From All the Way to the River