{"id":19786,"date":"2020-08-06T09:00:26","date_gmt":"2020-08-06T16:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=19786"},"modified":"2020-08-05T11:35:20","modified_gmt":"2020-08-05T18:35:20","slug":"freedom-from-addiction-the-power-of-the-label","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2020\/08\/06\/freedom-from-addiction-the-power-of-the-label\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom from Addiction<\/em>: The power of the label"},"content":{"rendered":"

My mom has told me that she does not like labels. Before I even went to my first Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA) meeting, I made an announcement to my mom, step-dad, and brother, who I was living with at the time following a relationship with a violent, abusive, manipulative nightmare of a man. I told them matter-of-fact that I was an addict, had been for as long as I can remember, and I was going into addiction recovery immediately.<\/p>\n

I think, understandably, my mom does not like to think of her daughter as an addict, although she has stopped protesting two and half years past my initial proclamation, perhaps seeing the undeniable changes that have happened to me (or perhaps because I can be annoyingly energetic and verbose when I feel passionately about something).<\/p>\n

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Freedom from Addiction<\/em> is a column exploring issues relating to addiction (graphic by bestdesigns).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I also told my dad, my other siblings, my friends, cousins, grandma (who I\u2019m pretty sure had no idea what I was talking about), and everyone else I knew… And many people I didn\u2019t know, too.<\/p>\n

Labelling myself as such, I felt a tremendous weight lift from me. I tasted freedom.<\/p>\n

Rather than feeling downtrodden by the label, I felt liberated. I finally understood myself\u2014my behaviour, my two-year relationship with my abuser, my entire history\u2014more fully. Basically, every issue in my life boiled down to being addicted to men: relationships, validation, sex, and several other addictions over the years as well.<\/p>\n

Many people are uncomfortable with such a label, even if I am only referring to myself when I mention it. They may sense the same in themselves, and become shifty and off-put to hear about what they know, on some level, is at the core of their suffering and problems as well.<\/p>\n

Some people commend me for my openness. And some people still believe addiction is cured by willpower and can be overcome if one is \u201cstrong\u201d enough.<\/p>\n

I do not believe addiction can be overcome. I am an addict. But, I am sober. The label is important in the process of surrender. Surrender, not willpower, is the way out of addiction. (Do not confuse surrender with giving in to one\u2019s addiction).<\/p>\n

Do not be afraid of the labels. Addict. Abuser. Abused. Co-dependent. Afraid. Whatever. Call yourself out, face the consequences, pay your karmic debt, serve your time (like, for real, if you have to), and make your amends. Label yourself as you are, now, and you can begin your journey to real freedom.<\/p>\n

Look up your local AA, SLAA, CODA, NA, and so on, meetings if you are ready to wake up and become free. (By the way, no religion is required; every religion is welcome).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My mom has told me that she does not like labels. Before I even went to my first Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA) meeting, I made an announcement to my mom, step-dad, and brother, who I was living with at the time following a relationship with a violent, abusive, manipulative nightmare of a man. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-webexclusive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19786"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19787,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19786\/revisions\/19787"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}