fetus winning: Alcoholics Recalibration Continues

It's been a while. Sorry. And I know I'm jumping all over the place. That's not so bad though because it can take you back to my shared idea that there is a lot more to recovery than the wheelchair option of AA. That's right, a flashback to my New Pregnancy Vision regarding sobriety.

Here, an interestingly, capturing article turns one bad notion upside-down. This interesting read shows that self-esteem is more dangerous than most people realize and who better to explain that but:

Scott Sinclair, Ph.D.

Scottsdale, Arizona

Warning: Self Esteem May Subvert Your Sobriety

The Journal of Rational Recovery

Having worked in the field of addictions for over 18 years, I am regularly faced by patients, colleagues and treatment programs that spend much time, money and emotional energy on the issue of self-esteem. The most common statements by patients are, “I have low self-esteem,” “I am working on self-esteem issues,” “Maybe I drink because of my low self-esteem.” Therapists, lecturers and workshop leaders promote self-esteem workshops (and themselves in the process).

The unfortunate problem is that the mental health profession, and lay councillors, and some self-help groups perpetuate a myth. The myth is the very concept of self-esteem. People blame their bad feelings on self-esteem. People blame their lack of assertiveness on self-esteem. They often blame their performances and poor choices on self-esteem. Low self-esteem has been blamed for causing procrastination, for antisocial behaviours such as shoplifting and violence, for drinking and drugging abusively, for staying in abusive relationships, or even for choosing abusive partners in the first place.

It has been my experience that the real culprit is the irrational idea or belief in the very concept of self-esteem. The concept of self-esteem betrays an assumption that self-esteem is something that you can have (should have?). It is perceived to be something that others, those whom we may admire, seem to have. It is something that may seem out of reach because underneath, “I am really a bad person.” Yet, as I will attempt to demonstrate, it is a dangerous concept – dangerous to sobriety and dangerous to rational living. It may prevent us from attaining and maintaining a happy, or at least a relatively undisturbed attitude.

Self-esteem refers to liking or respecting one’s “self.” On the surface, this sounds healthy. Underlying the concept of self-esteem, however, are several Irrational ideas:

1) Self-esteem is often associated with self-worth. We tend to base our self-worth on our achievements or attributes. When we do this, we crawl far out on the proverbial limb. We can get easily knocked down by losing our attributes (looks, money, power, position, etc.), or by achieving less than we expected. A simple mistake can turn our self-worth into worthlessness, and our The Journal of Rational Recovery plummets. Criticism by another, if we value their opinion, may also threaten our self-esteem.

2) Self-esteem is based on a thinking distortion called over-generalization. We cannot possibly evaluate, judge or rate all of our behaviours each and every day. So, somehow we pick and choose which behaviours to focus on. The unfortunate human tendency is to focus on our negative emotions, failures and mistakes. We usually ignore the many hundreds of things we do well each day. When we focus on our mistakes or bad actions, we then over-generalize and think that most of what we do is bad. Or, we give the mistakes so much weight that they cancel out any of the successful, good or neutral actions we performed. Therefore, we end up with low self-esteem because we choose to focus on the negative, and over-generalize the worthlessness of the action to the worthlessness of the personal self.

3) Self-esteem is also based on the irrational idea or thinking distortion called labelling. This is often a subset of overgeneralization. Having self-esteem usually comes from labelling our “self” as good. We may be generally successful, or achieve our goals, or do other good things. We then erroneously (albeit not unhealthfully) label our “self” as good. “I do good things, therefore, I am a good person.” Yet, do we not know “good” people who also do bad things? Are there not “bad” people who also do good things? How many good things does it take to earn the “good seal of approval”? How many bad things does it take to lose it?

4) Once we have what we think as low self-esteem, we tend to look for examples of it. We seem to try to verify our vileness. We ignore or discount any evidence of good actions. We develop a self-image of being a bad or defective human. So self-esteem is really a mislabel. When we think we have low self-esteem we are really only feeling bad, miserable, or rotten because we have labelled our self as bad, and then call it low self-esteem.

I believe it would be better to not think in terms of good or bad people. It would be better not to label myself as good or bad based on a few arbitrarily selected behaviours, attributes or actions. A better, healthier, and rationally sound approach is to eliminate the concepts of self-esteem and self-worth altogether. That doesn’t mean I can act badly without suffering the consequences (natural and self-imposed). Instead I can label and judge my actions as bad without labelling and judging my “self” as bad. I can remain solution oriented. I can try to repair the damage of my mistakes, work toward eliminating the causes, if at all possible, and try to do better, rather than be better. I can stop calling myself names.

Do I replace the concept of self-esteem with anything? No not exactly. Instead of self-esteem or self-worth, I try to think in terms of my being a human being who does good and bad things. I accept my humanness and fallibility, even though I do not approve of nor like my mistakes. I can reject my mistakes without rejecting me. (We often think and act this way when others make mistakes, why not treat ourselves this well?) I can adapt to and accept responsibility for my error much more easily. I can get to the heart of making changes without the accompanying of self-blame, guilt or shame. I can take healthy risks without the fear of failing and losing self-esteem.

Some of actions are worthwhile. Some of my behaviours have worth. As such, I had better try to continue doing such worthwhile activities and work at reducing or eliminating as many bad or ineffective or worthless activities as possible. Rather than being or becoming “good,” we can merely feel good more of the time; and we can do it without drugs.