Defeating the Me Monster
/For me, addiction recovery is like sharing my life with another 'me' - a different 'self'. I've recently studied a little about an approach to therapy called Internal Family Systems (IFS) which has me picturing my life being shared with many 'selves' which have developed throughout my life.
In this writing, though, I keep it simple and refer to just one other self as the "Me Monster". I'm borrowing the term from a very funny bit by comedian Brian Regan about a 'Me Monster' that takes over conversations with stories that one-up everyone else's.
Over the past several months I've had some success at eating less and moving more. This morning, however, the Me Monster drug me over to the pantry and ate some toffee that I didn't expect to see there. He said no one was looking, that I deserved it, that it was just a little, that it wouldn't hurt and that I was bored and needed it to feel okay. He made a good case and I didn't stop him. I regretted it as soon as I'd eaten it so he ate some more. Now I'm white-knuckling it and staying out of the kitchen.
This rings a bell for me. Like many others, I've 'permanently quit' viewing pornography more times than I want to think about. But the Me Monster has a way of wrecking those plans. For decades I fought him unsuccessfully with goal setting, discipline, will power, scripture study, prayer and religious obedience. At times I've shaken a fist at the heavens in anger and fear of the Me Monster's power to persevere. Nothing has been more frustrating. When fighting the Me Monster inevitably resulted in fatigue, I would give up and he would throw a party. I have to say, the respite was nice - but I couldn't live like that - it's a train wreck - and so I always crawled back into the fight.
From my experience in the recovery community, it seems that there are two approaches to the fight that can work long-term. First, scientifically, the Me Monster is a series of neural pathways that can be re-forged into healthy pathways through therapy and practice. Second, fully surrendering to God in the belief that if He can make a blind man see, he can defeat a Me Monster (example of a practice: 30 Days to Resilient). This second approach is the one championed by churches and 12 Step programs (let go and let God), but isn’t dependent on them.
These approaches can be followed independently or in conjunction with each other. They both have much in common: both approaches embrace brutal, painful honesty, they both often involve confronting wounds and trauma, and both include engagement with groups of other people fighting a similar fight.
I've benefited from both approaches, but my best success has been found in the second. After a long, exhausting fight with my Me Monster and after he'd nearly wrecked my life, I managed to surrender enough space to God for Him to work a miracle. The song "The In Between" by Matt Maher reminds me of my experience. I rolled into a holy collision and rolled out a free man - no longer a slave to pornography.
What now?
Give up! If what you’re doing isn’t working, stop fighting with tools that don't work and chose an approach (or both) that work and commit to it
Embrace honesty and confront wounds and trauma
Engage with others fighting a similar fight
Surrender enough space to God for a possible miracle
By Ty, Writing Team