This is http://www.essayz.com/a8904011.htm Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words. {Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.} ========================================================== %DISHONEST SUBSTITUTE LACK LOVE ADDICT COLLUSION 890401 Love is essential to life; and so in the absence of authentic love many people are prone to accept dishonest substitutes for love. Substitutes are sometimes healthy when there is honesty about the substitution which is being made. Substitutes are unhealthy when there is a lack of honesty about the substitution which is being made. In authentic love people are honestly interdependent. In the absence of authentic love people imprison themselves in games of mutual self deception about dishonest romances over addictive dependencies. They regard being in dishonest bondage as being in love. A way to reduce the various forms of addiction is to work to clarify authentic love so that people will not be so tempted to fall into unauthentic love. People who are imprisoned in collusive games of falling in love are manipulating each other and rebelling against being manipulated. Attempts by others to control their addictive patterns of behavior heighten their rebellion against being manipulated. They may tolerate in some way being manipulated by their "loved" one. They are unlikely to tolerate in any way being manipulated by others. Helpful control of addictive behavior is impossible. An addiction becomes a collusion when an addict is joined by a codependent in playing dishonest games of mutual self deception about dependency and independence with regard to the foci of addictive behavior. A common form of collusion regarding addiction is a collusion which affirms that it is possible to helpfully control addictive behavior through manipulative techniques. Various techniques of manipulation are tried: scientific, scholarly, legalistic, moralistic, institutional, personal, etc. People who engage in such manipulative efforts have in common certain habits of mind and heart. They become imprisoned in addictive attitudes through their efforts to control addictive behaviors. Addictive behaviors are rooted in certain kinds of mutual expectations and assumptions. Addicts expect to be rescued. Codependents find their fulfillment in demonstrating their generosity through possessive repeated sacrificial rescues; thereby affirming addicts' expectations of rescue. Their perversely complementary expectations and assumptions about each other are fulfilled and confirmed. Addictive behavior is moderated by charitable honest confrontations which reveal the games of mutual self deception for what they are. Honest love does not play the games of mutual self deception when the addict asks to be rescued; the situation is revealed for what it is through an honest description of what is happening. The addict's role in the game is not affirmed as a legitimate role in a legitimate relationship. Addictive behavior is moderated when codependents are honest about the roles which they have played in their relationships with addicts. The collusive games of mutual self deception of addicts and codependents involve both addicts and supportive codependents. It is difficult for honesty to prevail unless both addicts and codependents move together towards being honest with each other about their respective roles in the games which they have been playing with each other. Recovery from addiction and codependence entails substituting honest relationships for the games of mutual self deception which are central to addictive relationships. Personal relationships are central to both addiction and codependence. Neither addiction nor codependence can be understood apart from honesty about the character of interpersonal relationships as realities which play primary roles in creating individual persons. Often we think of individual persons as creating their relationships; thinking of individual persons as being primary, and relationships as being secondary. Such habits of mind and heart are not fully honest about the nature of people and their relationships. Focusing upon individual people as the cause of faulty relationships may be part of a game of mutual self deception. Relationships with families of origin play central roles in creating persons and their relationships. Relationships are just as much the creators of individual persons, as individual persons are creators of relationship. It is dishonest to pretend otherwise. Part of the process of recovery from patterns of addictive and codependent relationships is the development of honesty about the inter-relationship between personal relationships as creators of persons, and persons as creators of personal relationships. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================