Trauma Recovery

My name is Jeff and I am an alcoholic in recovery. That is one of the conditions, I have many and some of them are severe. All of them, to the best of my understanding, are trauma related. Trauma is common and has an impact on billions of people. It is wildly misunderstood and if it were completely understood, I feel it would show that all addiction and all mental illness is trauma related. In my experience, mental illness is at it's core, harmful attachments and to heal our minds we need to gain acceptance, and let them go. Here is how it works. Anytime a human experiences shame, either intentional or situational, it leaves a crippling emotional imprint on our experience. These experiences are accumulative and create a rift in our realities, where everything is seen through the eyes of our traumas and social conditioning. Example: telling a child repeatedly to keep their arms off the table is a form of crippling social conditioning. Children who have a difficult time accepting their conditioning, are often given additional shame, more reminders, nagging and punishment. Each time we experience this insertion of shame, it leaves an accumulative scar on our frail human Egos called Trauma. Trauma is not what happened, it is how it impacts our systems and is connected to self-esteem. The more doubt, fear, regret and remorse we are experiencing, the greater the level of shame our minds attach to the experience. Eventually when there is too much, people snap and forget about what is acceptable and begin operating off of anger an instinct. Movies like Carrie, Firestarter, Falling Down, The Joker, illustrate people who have experienced too much trauma and lost control. Thankfully, Dr. Bob and Bill W. were quick to discover, the cure for these emotional wounds is Acceptance. The reading about acceptance from page 417 of the AA Bigbook is one of the single most important and profound statements ever written. It represents a universal truth, meaning it applies to all situations and all people, forever. Furthermore, they discovered that traumas could be neatly and simply described as Resentments and Character Defects and then offered an effective and reliable process on how to heal these traumas through their program of recovery. Sadly, many traumas are complicated, deep and severe traumas will never leave us. We cannot and will not be able to ever change what happened in the past, our only hope for acceptance is emotional sobriety and daily maintenance of our spiritual condition. Reaching acceptance is an emotional journey and while recovering from my traumas, I have become very familiar with the nature of grieving. Please check my profile for the data sheets I offer on the Actual Grieving Process, my model includes a stage called Surrender. In surrender, people break their attachments to these traumas. The expression, "Let go and let God" is a statement about surrender. When we surrender, we let go of all illusion of control and we come to terms with the truth that we cannot have what we want. All our emotions catch up to us in surrender and overwhelm the Ego. It is heartbreaking and so it is normal to cry during surrender, which may also be mixed with anger and cursing while we leave the bargaining stage of grief. To make this information useful, I would like to offer this suggestion to people struggling in recovery. Somehow, find safe people to share your traumas with and keep talking about them with the intention of letting them go. It is imperative we have the willingness to let go of absolutely anything that is causing harm to us or others. Life is simple, we make it complicated. Crying, more than anything, helps me remove the feelings and thoughts of trauma, addiction and mental illness from my system. I cry daily, as part of my spiritual maintenance. It humbles me and reminds me of my place in the universe and once I am at peace, I know who I am again. Powerless, human, flawed and still learning. Thank you, bless you and may your higher power keep you safe for another 24 hours. Rev. Jeff Rounds for Mixed Recovery, Inc.