I apologize to any who feel offended by my “humor to ponder” or anything else in this post. It is not my intent to offend anyone. I have been struggling with this step for a while, and I find it very difficult to get through it. Thank you to all those who have been so supportive!
I will make a searching and courageous written moral inventory of myself.
As I do the inventory, I will look beyond my past behaviors and examine the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that are actually the roots of my addictive behaviors. Unless I examine all my tendencies toward fear, pride, resentment, anger, self-will, and self-pity, my abstinence will be shaky at best. I will continue with my original addictions or switch to other ones. An addiction is a symptom of other “causes and conditions.”
1. Incident: overeating. I was ~ 8yo, making my dinner, it tasted so good and made me feel so happy that I went and made a second dinner. Prior to this time my mother use to make me clean my plate before I could leave the table; at eight I was on my own and I ate in the living room while watching T.V.
a. Effect: Instant happiness; long-term problems with health, discipline, procrastination, and self-esteem. Budget problems, hurt relationships.
b. Feelings: Rebellious, “I could eat whatever I wanted to; it was nobody’s business but mine.” Prideful, “I can take care of myself, I don’t need anybody.” Instant gratification; long-term depression and unhappiness. Perhaps I was avoiding having to make better choices and risk the possible consequences.
c. Self-exam: A lot of self-will attitude and actions. Overeating seems to fill a void inside of me. Eating is a necessity, so it’s a great escape from whatever tedious situation I might be in at the time. I started my first weight-loss diet when I was 8yo, so I realized my SDB then, but I enjoy eating.
d. Humor to ponder: If you are what you eat, them I’m a lot of things!
e. Counsel: 1 Cor 9:25. 1 Cor 6:19. Luke 4:4. Daniel, chapter 1. D&C 89.
2. Incident: caffeine. I grew-up on Pepsi and ice-tea, probably since the age of 5. Everyone in the house drank it.
a. Effect: Increased energy; helped me stay awake. Sharp with other people?
b. Feelings: I felt ready to conquer the world. Now I feel it was just an artificial stimulant with side effects. I had the worse headache of my life when I quit. My heart was shooting ~ 8 PVCs a minute during withdraw.
c. Self-exam: Why take so much time looking for the energy from within when taking something artificial is so much easier? A lot of self-deception and self-will. Slothfulness; avoiding good and healthy choices.
d. Humor to ponder: I find it’s easier to drink more Pepsi than go to sleep.
e. Counsel: 1 Cor 9:25 and D&C 89.
3. Incident: watching too much television. As I increasingly got older (age 8-17) I would increasingly watch more T.V. By my mid-teens, I was watching T.V. from 3 p.m. to 1 a.m. most week days, and much more on the weekends. My only saving grace was I was active in the Boy Scouts and I was an avid skier.
a. Effect: Helped me escape reality. Alienated me from others.
b. Feelings: I was grateful for the escape at the time. Now I feel what a waste of life I was.
c. Self-exam: There were elements of self-pity, self-deception, and self-will. I did not want to face reality. T.V. filled a void. With the exception of what I did in Scouting, I was a very selfish individual.
d. Humor to ponder: Unlike surfing the web, you can watch television with a beer in one hand and a bag of Doritos in the other.
e. Counsel: 1 Cor 9:25. 13thAoF. Moroni 7:12-19. 2 Nephi 2:27.
4. Incident: gambling. I had an uncle in Vermont that bred and raced Standard bred harness horses throughout the Northeast. I had an Aunt that was the first licensed female sulky driver in the state of Maine. Most of the family gambled on the horses. It was a focus of mine in my late teens, and when I dropped-out of high school I lived around the track for several weeks gambling daily. The money that paid for the honeymoon came from my last two dollar bet at the horse race track I went to with my fiancée.
a. Effect: It cheapens the principle of an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. I saw what gambling did to another uncle and his family, and it scared me into not progressing any further down that path; they lost house, car, savings, and his job.
b. Feelings: Momentary excitement. Long-term guilt and shame.
c. Self-exam: Self-deception and self-will. I saw the get-rich quick scenario at first, I loved the rush, and then I found for all the time and energy I was devoting, there wasn’t much income. I was fortunate I didn’t have much money to invest to begin with.
d. Humor to ponder: I lost so much money at the track; I had to sell the car. Now what do I tell the car rental agency?
e. Counsel: Proverbs 15, esp. v 27
5. Incident: overworking. As both a soldier and a health care provider, long hours of work are often needed and required. My last job, 1997-2008, only required 80 hours every 2 weeks. However, I spent up to 16 hours a day on the job.
a. Effect: Avoidance of family responsibilities. Stress at home.
b. Feelings: Shame, remorse.
c. Self-exam: False pride in providing for my family. Broken family relations.
d. Humor to ponder: As a result of overworking, more doctors are dropping dead on the golf course.
e. Counsel: Family first!!!
6. Incident: Alcohol. It’s what adults did. There was no lock on the liquor cabinet. I was often by myself as a teenager, so no one ever knew. As an adult, my wife didn’t drink much, so I would finish hers after all of mine.
a. Effect: It would relax me and I would feel better; I felt worse in the morning. I would embarrass my wife and others.
b. Feelings: Temporary relief from all my problems. Extra problems in the long-term.
c. Self-exam: Great immediate escape from reality. Self-deception.
d. Humor to ponder: Consumption of alcohol is the leading cause of inexplicable rug burn on the forehead.
e. Counsel: D&C 89.
7. Incident: Pornography. At a very early age I started viewing my grandfather’s Playboy magazines. By the age of nineteen I had accumulated quite a collection of centerfolds. I would stare and fantasize over these pictures daily.
a. Effect: Instant happiness; I felt great. Long-term problems with perverted thoughts about intimacy, sex, and womanhood. Wasted time and energy. A physiological change in my brain that associates pictures of naked women with a pleasurable and desirable experience. Hurt relationships.
b. Feelings: Short–term gratification; seems to fill a void. Long-term enslavement.
c. Self-exam: Huge self-deception.
d.
Tags: StepFour
