Judgments, Vows, and Sobriety - Some Insight From Brian Cottmeyer

What’s up Sober Nation? So glad that I have this opportunity to be featured, and have a chance to interact with all of you guys, and talk about sobriety! Super cool! I want to talk about judgments and vows, and how they affect us. These two things most likely played a big role in getting you to the point of abusing alcohol, drugs, and/or both; and are the quickest path back to relapse if left untreated. Most addicts feel alone, cut off from the world around them, hopeless, and may also feel that no one understands them. That’s all because of judgments and vows. Feeling discontent, empty, guilty, anxious, less-than? It’s probably all because of a judgment, and it corresponding vow that you made along the way. These two things are the building blocks of our self-made prisons that we live in called addiction! You see, when we were younger we made lots of judgments, as most of us do. It is how we first start to make sense of the world. When you are little, you are curious, and full of wonder…watching the world around you. Everything is a first, and it is in your nature to begin to form opinions. For example, maybe you tasted lima beans and didn’t like them.  The outstanding feature of said lima beans is that they are green. Now moving forward, any food that is green reminds you of how “yucky” lima beans are, and all other other foods that are this color MUST be “yucky” too! Your parents inevitably try to give you some more of their green offerings, and you vehemently deny…saying something along the lines of,  “No, those are gross!” or, “those are too green!” In that moment you have done two things. You have made a judgment about lima beans and all things green, and along with this judgment you have made a corresponding vow. Lima beans are gross because they are green, so I ‘m not ever going to eat something green again. What you have done, even at this early age, is formed a self defense mechanism. You had a bad experience with the beans, so now you are vowing to never be put in that situation again. Okay, okay…so what’s all this got to do with sobriety you ask? Well, the judgment and vows we make as kids can be harmless for the most part, but what happens when you get older, and begin to make stronger, and harsher judgments, with stronger, more vehement vows? Let me provide a different example from my own box of regret. When I was in elementary school, I wasn’t really one of the cool kids. At least that was my perception. I lay somewhere on the outskirts of who was popular, and who all the little girls had their first crushes on. My clothes weren’t as nice, my jokes weren’t as funny, my Halloween costumes weren’t as cool, and I couldn’t even watch the same shows as everyone else. What was a kid to do??  Well, I kind of faked it, but I was making a judgment about myself, and the world around me along the way. MY JUDGMENT Cool Clothes, Funny, Outgoing, Being able to do What I Want = Popular; I do not have these things which means that I = Unpopular.  Enter feelings of worthlessness that fade into negative self-concept MY VOW The way to be popular is have cool stuff, and do cool things. As soon as I am able to, I will go and obtain all the things that I need to do awesome stuff, so that I can rise to a higher social status and then people will never think I’m lame again. You see what I did there?  I made up my own rule that I vowed to live by. This notion of being popular is something that I would eventually become consumed with as these thoughts were reinforced late into my teenage years. Even though what I thought I wanted was to be popular; what I really wanted was to feel valued, or feel loved. At the time, these were things that I didn’t feel like I was experiencing. My Mom was sick, my family was disbursed, and I felt alone. I felt invisible… but I digress…good story for another blog post perhaps? If you would like to get an inkling of what that story might look like you can get some foreshadowing here. So what’s the problem you might say? So you wanted to be popular, a lot of kids want to be popular. For me, the problem was that I’m not really all that outgoing. I’m not shy…I’m just introverted. The problem is, that I truly don’t put high value on material things, but I thought the world did. The problem was that in my efforts to be someone I am not, I ended up turning to alcohol because I found out that I could drink, and become more outgoing, more sociable, funnier, and people wanted to party with me. In fact, some might say I was the life of the party in my early drinking days. I guess you could say…they liked me… as long as I could continue to trick them into thinking I was this other person. I loved that feeling so much, that I drank every time I went out, and when I wasn’t drinking people thought I wasn’t acting like myself because I was being quiet, or I wasn’t joking around enough. The reality was is that I WAS acting like myself when I didn’t drink. They just didn’t know me well enough to realize that was the real me. When people don’t know who you really are on the inside things can get pretty lonely, and I hate to admit it, but it was my fault. However, that is exactly what making judgments and vows do. They alienate you from your true self, making it harder for those around you to know who you really are, and what you truly value. Not only that, but it makes it hard for you to even know yourself. After awhile you have no idea who you are, and you enter that part of addiction where it feels like you have a mask on, and you are performing for everyone… C’mon, you know that phase. Most of the vows I made were rooted in wanting to get people’s attention so that they would like me; due to my lack of acceptance in my younger years. Yours might be different. Your judgments and vows might look something like this…

• All overweight people are ugly, and can’t pick up –insert the opposite sex--; I will never let myself get that heavy.  Or…
• All guys want a girl with a (stereotypically) nice body. I don’t look like

                   –insert-nice-body-person- so I will never get a guy. Fortunately these judgments aren't true, but the corresponding vows are all too real.  However, not all judgments and vows look so petty, but can be equally as damaging. For example…

• My father was a deadbeat, he didn't have job, and he never could support our family; I will always put my family first even if it means working 3 jobs. Or…
• Our family always had dinner on the table, and ate as a family; Now that I have kids I we will never miss a family dinner.

Don’t get me wrong, being a good provider for your family and having family dinners are good things, but the issue is what happens to us when we can’t live up to our own vows? What happens when we start to gain weight? What happens when we can’t make ends meet, and we are working 3 jobs already? What happens when those three jobs start to interfere with our family dinners? Typically, we feel like failures! When we can no longer measure up to our own standards we default to other means with which to cope. In my case…it was whiskey. Let me say this. There is nothing wrong with wanting to do right, and be successful in life. It’s when we see success in black and white that it becomes a problem. All addicts seem to do things to extremes. We drink to excess, we work too hard, we feel too much, we cry too often, and we hurt WAY too badly.  Lets give ourselves a break can we? The world doesn’t have to be so black and white. There is much need for middle ground in the life of an addict. I wish someone had told me when I was younger that judgments and vows had the potential to ruin my life if I let them get out of control. I think that just knowing that the phenomenon exists, helps to corral it. As I get better at being sober I like to think about this concept.  When I am all worked up and feeling like a drink, I ask what role is a judgment playing in this, or is this an old vow of mine rearing its ugly head? It usually helps to get me outside of myself, and alleviates some of the pressures I am feeling because it reminds me that I am playing by a made up set of rules. It reminds me that I do not have to be confined by my man made bondage, and that it is ok to be me. Thanks for giving me the time to share my thoughts. Remember… Stay sober, Stay grateful, Stay humble, and Help others