Ockham's Razor Revisited: A Simple Solution To Freedom From All Addictions - Softcover

Clarke, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1452598355 ISBN 13: 9781452598352

Verlag: BalboaPress, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

Ockham's Razor is a blazingly candid memoir and recovery guide within a spiritual context. It is a deeply moving, intensely caring, intimate portrayal of a gay man's journey through abysmal depression, manic episodes, extreme indulgence, and sexual addiction. He eventually discovered the power of the simple solution and enjoys enduring sobriety. Unlike many self-help books, it speaks from the heart of one who's been there and back too many times. It offers a simple, doable plan that can lead to a safe harbor for addicts and people on the brink of disaster. It is a valuable source of information and inspiration for manic depressives, addicts, their supporters, co-dependents, and professionals in the field, gift-wrapped in a literate and fascinating read. Twenty-six years of practicing, studying, rising above, and sinking to the depths; recommitment, regret, disillusionment with incompetent professionals, twelve-step commitments, and lapses, confirms the author as an expert on the subject with a workable solution.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Austin Macauley Publishers Having read all the reports and taken note of the Editors' opinions, we can confidently state that 'Converted on LSD Trip' was found to be a strong and moving memoir. You're chronicling of your experiences that lead to your conversion (the 'successes', challenges, and hardships) and its impact on your life is incredibly powerful and evokes a strong sense of empathy in the reader. The Board was keen to comment on the poignancy of the work, how you tackled a difficult subject with dignity and skill. Overall, the Board was impressed with your authorial voice and feel it will be an excellent addition to the current catalogue with a definite place in the current market. The assured writing style and the honesty with which you detail your experiences make this story one that will resonate with readers, particularly those who are facing or have faced such struggle in society today. It is worth noting that as your work is based on fact, permission will need to be obtained from any persons mentioned in the book if their legal or familiar names are used. Alternatively, you may wish to change the names instead

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Ockham's Razor Revisited

A Simple Solution To Freedom From All Addictions

By David Clarke

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2014 David Clarke
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4525-9835-2

Contents

Foreword, ix, 
Prologue, xvii, 
My Secret Shame, 1, 
The Journey to Sanity, 16, 
From the Closet to the Open Door, 30, 
Reaching for Recovery, 51, 
My Program and Happy Memories, 73, 
Insanity and Laughter, 87, 
More Laughter, 100, 
Affirmations as a Key to Wholeness, 116, 
Responsibility, Awareness, and Abundance, 128, 
The Heart of My Being, 144, 
Epilogue, 161, 
Biography Of David Clarke, 165, 

CHAPTER 1

My Secret Shame

What does it mean to do unto others as you would have them do unto you? That has been referred to as the Golden Rule in the Bible. The Wiccans say to do no harm. I say always be gentle and come from a place of love. It really is just that simple. And all you have to do is to take it one day at a time.

Let me share a little bit of my story. It is a story mixed with mental illness, alcohol abuse, and sexual addiction. It is a life of sorrow, trauma, joy, triumph, redemption and transformation.

I am a gay man. It took me a long time to admit that! There had been so much shame involved. Here is my story about how I found the key to open the closet door. Eventually I walked through it; but, for many years, I was locked in the closet. It was a closet of shame.

It all began with sex. I have shared a host of addictions in my past. These would include alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual addiction, codependent relationships, love addiction, tobacco addiction, compulsive shopping, workaholism, caffeine addiction, sugar addiction. The list could probably go on.

Gratefully, many of these addictions such as alcohol, drug abuse and sexual addiction are no longer issues within my life. From cigarette addiction, I am still seeking recovery. I may never recover from this and that's okay. Fortunately it is not truly life-threatening in my belief system. We get what we believe. I keep my focus on recovery from the greater of "the evils."

What I've come to learn is that I could not work on all of my addictions at once. That's what the perfectionist who lurks within my brain would like me to do. It's also a recipe for failure. I'm like everyone else. I'm not perfect; I'm only human.

I've heard it said that to be human is to be addicted. I believe this to be true. It seems that it's the human condition to expect something or someone to make us happy rather than to look for happiness within ourselves. That only works for awhile until we feel the aching longing within ourselves once again. As for me, and as you may discover, only spirit can fill that gaping hole of need.

It seems to me that so much of our unfulfilled needs come from the materially-driven society in which we live. What happened to me in my past was that I became consumed by my wants instead of focused upon my needs. I certainly have had a tendency to try to fill myself up with things outside of myself in order to feel better. That's only worked for the time I had been engaged in those addictions, attachments, or compulsive behaviors. After the thrills wore off, I was just as lonely and needy as before.

My first and primary addiction fueled something even more toxic. That was my secret shame which would ultimately lead me back into this addiction following more shame, emptiness, apathy, or despair. For many years I fooled myself by justifying my sexual behaviors. So many gay men were leading promiscuous lives in the 1970's and 80's. For many that ended with the fear of illness and death connected to AIDS. For many of those who survived, AIDS had become the wake up call for them to have made changes in their sexual behavior. Unfortunately that didn't work for me. I was addicted to unsafe sex.

I had no need to put any chemicals into my body to get high. I would experience "a high" during sexual acting out that was more potent than any substance I'd ever put into my body. I have since learned about the altered body chemistry that's activated while under the influence of the addiction.

My sexual behavior was not a moral issue as I'd wrongly believed. I was absolutely unable to stop my compulsive behavior even knowing that I was doing something that went against my personal values. That only increased my shame.

During that experience of powerlessness, I would often engage in behaviors I would never have dreamed to have been possible. I would end up feeling so ashamed. That would only serve to drive me back into the addiction in order to try to make myself feel better. It never worked.

I would continue to engage in inappropriate and unsafe behaviors which would exacerbate my shame. As time wore on, I began to experience more and more unpleasant consequences. In addition to relationship problems, I experienced debilitating depressions, suicide attempts, sexually transmitted diseases, robbery, serious threats of bodily harm, and apprehension by law enforcement to name a few. None of that stopped me; that is, not until I hit a bottom connected to pure despair. That's when I found my way to a twelve-step recovery program named Sex Addicts Anonymous.

What I learned when I began my recovery was just how devious the addiction is. As with all addictions, the behavior is simply a symptom of a deeper distress. Coming to terms with my feelings and dealing with life's problems instead of running away from them became the greatest challenge of my life.

As with any addiction, sexual addiction and its accompanying shame is indeed a physical as well as mental and spiritual disease. It had its roots in my early life, when I learned to cope by soothing myself with sex whenever I became troubled. That's how I survived. I was amazed to discover that the addiction had absolutely nothing to do with sex per se. I simply wanted to be loved. I just didn't know how to find that love from others or from myself in a more appropriate way.

Unfortunately my sexual soothing became very dysfunctional when I became an adult and tried to maintain a semblance of a healthy relationship. I didn't have the tools to do that because I truly didn't love myself. That made it impossible for me to develop an open and honest relationship in which I could give freely of myself. What's more, I didn't even really know who I was. I'd been running from myself all my life.

What happened instead was that I'd developed a double life. In what seemed like my normal life, I pretended to be a well-adjusted person. I'd go through the motions of life while using my double life as a sex addict as a means with which to cope with whatever feelings were uncomfortable. By uncomfortable feelings, I'm talking about feelings such as worthlessness, loneliness, anxiety, sadness, self-pity, anger, and resentfulness to name but a few. This would translate into basically any feeling that had a negative charge to it.

I would also invariably turn to my addiction whenever I felt elated. Then I would use sex as a reward. Ultimately I didn't know how to take care of myself at an emotional level. Additionally I would find myself turning to my addiction during times when I wasn't taking adequate care of my physical self; for instance, when I was hungry, tired, or feeling sick.

I couldn't remain faithful to my short-term wife or my first male partner for any substantial period of time no matter how hard I tried. On those occasions when they learned about my behaviors, I would tearfully...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: BalboaPress
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1452598355
• ISBN 13: 9781452598352
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 186
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: GPSR Kontakt; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland