Canada Drug Rehab

What is meaning? For many of us, it can be a feeling as something that’s missing. Alex Pattakos tells us that by reading ”Man’s Search for Meaning” or ”Prisoner of Our Thoughts” and then practicing these principles, we can embark on a new path of living with meaning and purpose.

Alex Pattakos was interviewed on the Vancouver-based Fanny Kiefer Show in August, 2010, while in town for the 6th Biennial International Conference on Personal Meaning. For more information on Alex Pattakos visit his website, Prisoner of Our Thoughts. For more information on the INPM Conference visit the meaning.ca website.

By Geoff Thompson, MA, CCC
Program Director
Sunshine Coast Health Center

The 2010 INPM conference with the theme of “Creating a Psychologically Healthy Workplace” turned out very well for all involved. It was great to hear from some of the leading experts about how well-being depends on meaning and purpose in life. And there were several experts in the addiction field talking, such as Ken Hart and Alan Marlatt. And many of the speakers talked about research on the treatment of addiction.

Most of the speakers geared their talks to the workplace but what they said applies to all aspects of life. A big topic was the difference between “happiness” and “meaning.” As you know from looking at the self-help section of bookstores, finding “happiness” is very big today. But the conference speakers did not have much faith that this would lead to a better life. The problem of making the goal of life to “be happy” is that human beings suffer. And some suffer terribly. If your goal is to be happy, then what happens when you’re having a bad day? What happens if your teenage son acts out or crashes the car? What happens if work is causing you grief? If your goal is to be happy, you’re going to fail a great deal of the time.

But if your goal is to find meaning, then you don’t expect to be “happy” all the time. One of the things the speakers pointed out is that to be human is to suffer. It is as natural to life as a heart beat. At Sunshine Coast, all of our clients have suffered because of addiction. But those with good recovery actually tell us that they are “thankful” they were addicts. They are thankful for suffering because it helped them discover a more satisfying way of living. That’s a truism of human nature. We grow by overcoming our problems. Without problems, how would we grow? On the other hand, if your goal is to be happy, you certainly wouldn’t be thankful for suffering. You’d see that as a total failure.

Another problem that many of the conference presenters pointed out about trying to be “happy” is that it is self-centered. If your goal is happiness, then you have to walk about the universe asking yourself, “Am I happy?” Think about that. If your concern is your own happiness, how much attention will you pay to others? And if you don’t pay attention to others you’ll be lonely and isolated.

There were lots of interesting speakers at the conference, and in this article we’ll talk about four, whose talks are relevant to addiction and recovery.

Part One—Todd Kashdan

Dr. Todd Kashdan is a remarkable research psychologist. He’s only 35, and he’s published 100 articles and book chapters, all about meaning and purpose. And he’s written a book, “Curious.” At the conference he talked about one study he did with alcoholics, which should be of great help to understanding addiction and recovery.

The research projected asked drinkers to carry around a beeper. When the beeper went off, they wrote down what they were feeling. And there were also specific times that he asked the drinkers to write down their feelings, such as just before they were going to drink.

The results were fascinating. It turns out that all the participants had intense feelings. Some were happy, some sad, some mad. But there was no link between the intensity of the feeling and the amount of alcohol they drank. This seems to contradict much of our belief about why people drink. Clients at Sunshine Coast often claim they get loaded because of an angry outburst with their partner or bad feelings at work or because they felt good and wanted to feel better.

According to Dr. Kashdan’s study, however, the real link with drinking was whether the person could describe his or her feelings. For example, if the participant wrote, “I feel bad,” then he would likely drink a lot. “Feeling bad” is not very descriptive. No detail. The person really couldn’t make sense of what he or she was feeling. But those who wrote, ‘I was feeling guilty because I raised my voice to a friend, and that’s not who I am’ would not drink that much. In other words, if the person could make sense of his emotions, he would drink significantly less.

So the link between emotions and drinking is not the intensity of the emotion; rather, it depends on whether he or she could name and detail what they were feeling. In other words, the key was whether the person could find meaning in the emotions. This ability is a big part of finding meaning and purpose in life.

Part Two—Alex Pattakos

Dr. Alex Pattakos is known as “Dr. Meaning.” The Fanny Kiefer show in Vancouver learned he was speaking at the conference and interviewed him, just to give you a sense of Dr. Pattakos’ reputation. He’s written a famous book called, “Prisoners of our Thoughts.”

Pattakos basically takes Viktor Frankl’s theories and boils them down to make them understandable for everyone.

In past articles I have mentioned Frankl’s belief that each of us is free to choose the attitude we take toward something or someone. An example here is addiction. Most clients at Sunshine Coast are angry at their addiction. It has caused them lots of suffering. Later, in recovery, many people change their attitude toward the addiction. Some people even say that they are “thankful” for their addiction. The key to a good attitude is if it works for you. If being angry at your addiction is helpful, then it’s a good idea to stay angry at it. But if your attitude toward your addiction is that you really miss alcohol and drugs because you love to get high, then this likely won’t work out well for your recovery. But the point is that you have the freedom to change your attitude.

Pattakos also talks about Frankl’s idea of “de-reflection.” Basically, de-reflection means changing your focus on some matter. He uses the example of “complaining.” Complaining is a common pastime for those with addiction problems. But the problem with complaining is that it does not solve anything; in fact, it usually reinforces a belief of being a victim. In his book, Pattakos relates the story of where he used to work. The staff complained so much about conditions that they went on strike. Pattakos’ boss said, “Good for them! However, the show must go on, so let’s see what we can do without them.” His boss used de-reflection, switching the focus from dwelling on all the problems due to the strike to dwelling on solutions.

Frankl also stressed the need for action. Pattakos provides exercises at the end of each chapter for the reader to consider. Although the topics are different, the key question is ‘What did you actually do about the problem’. It’s not enough in life to simply think about things you don’t like or wish for something better for yourself. You actually have to DO something to change your life. This is a common problem for those in recovery. Clients often have a good intellectual knowledge of what they have to do and still suffer. The key is to act, not merely think about it.

A third example in Pattakos’ book is that people often work against themselves. This is very true for those in recovery. They may know that they have to make new clean and sober friends, yet they keep in touch only with their using buddies. They may be trying to recover but refuse to give up going to the bar for their social life (they try to get away with drinking soda water). They may want a better relationship with their spouse, but they are always ready for an argument. In each of these cases, the person is working against himself.

Part Three—Paul Wong

Dr. Paul Wong, whose ideas form the basis for the new program at Sunshine Coast, gave a talk on meaning-centered therapy.

To help the audience understand this therapy, he volunteered a psychiatrist to show how a psychiatrist works with patients, and Geoff to show how a meaning-centered therapist conducts therapy. When Dr. Wong asked the audience what differences they saw between the psychiatrist and Geoff, they observed that a meaning-centered approach treated the client as a human being first. The psychiatrist was more interested in keying on the patient’s problem.

At Sunshine Coast, we see the client as a unique human being, who happens to have an addiction. We see the human being first, rather than some patient that needs to be diagnosed and fixed.

After this little demonstration, Dr. Wong talked about “basic human needs.” These needs, according to his research, are: meaning (vs emptiness), virtue (vs destructive way of life), resilience (vs. giving up), relationships (vs. loneliness and alienation), hope (vs despair and depression), faith (vs. fear), and well-being (vs. boredom, brokenness).

If a therapist sees a client as a human being, then the therapist is interested in these basic needs. The problem is that each client has to find his own way of satisfying these needs; if he doesn’t, he will suffer unnecessarily. This is why, at Sunshine Coast, therapists never tell clients what to do or how to live their lives or what they should think. No therapist can provide the answer to a client’s basic needs. That’s their job. It’s just not possible for a therapist to give a client well-being if they are bored. It’s not possible for a therapist to give a client a relationship, if they are lonely. No therapist can ‘fix’ a client.

Part Four—Alexander Batthyany

Dr. Alexander Batthyany is head of the science and research department at the Viktor Frankl Institute in Vienna. He is also a professor of psychology at the University of Vienna.

Needless to say, he’s one of the world’s leading experts on Frankl. In his talk, he spoke about how Viktor Frankl interpreted what it means to live a good life. Clients at Sunshine Coast are told the story of Frankl’s experiences in the Nazi death camps. From these experiences, he developed the idea that human beings can choose how to live their lives. Even though the prison guards controlled their bodies, Frankl said that prisoners could still choose to control their minds.

Dr. Batthyany said that if someone punches you, and you are angry about it, you still get to choose how you will react. If, out of anger, you punch him back, then you choose to be aggressive. On the other hand, you can choose not to punch him back and find another way of dealing with it. So you have choices, or, as Dr. Batthyany put it, “There are lots of potential selves” you can choose from; which you choose dictates who you are. This is also what Frankl called “freedom.” You are free to choose your life.

In other words, it is not the circumstances that dictate your life, but how you react to the circumstances.

Dr. Batthyany also said it was a waste of time to pursue happiness, and anyone whose goal is “to be happy” will soon discover that this is not a good approach. Batthyany said that people whose goal is happiness ask themselves two questions: “Did I get what I want?” and “Am I feeling good.” Since it’s impossible always to get what you want and it’s impossible always to feel good, then these people are doomed.

Geoff Thompson, MA, CCC

Geoff Thompson, Program Director for Sunshine Coast Health Centre, discusses Viktor Frankl’s theory that happiness is the by-product of a personally meaningful life, and that addiction is a response to a life that is not personally meaningful.

Cathy Patterson Sterling, MA, RCC

Cathy Patterson-Sterling, Director of Family Services for the Sunshine Coast Health Centre, talks about finding meaning and purpose in life to fully enjoy addiction recovery.

By Claire Cummings, Counsellor - Sunshine Coast Health Center

Erik Erikson first coined the term generativity  and defined it as a quality that tends to appear in mid-life.  It is a time when we begin to ponder what legacy we will leave and how we can pass on our skills, and history to the next generation.  Most often it is initially directed towards our children and grandchildren.  According to Erickson, this process is somewhat static. 

John Kotre was the first to suggest, in his book Outliving the Self, that perhaps this view was somewhat rigid and too tied to age, norms, and stages.  He concluded, “A way beyond these problems is to think of generativity not as a stage but an impulse released at various times between the late teens and old age… Generativity appears on and off in different guises through fifty or sixty years of adult life, and a case could even be made for its antecedents in children.  Only, on a rare occasions, does it merit the term stage.”

Dan McAdams, in an ambitious undertaking, sought to widen the context of the term and added, “it is about generating: creating and producing things, people, and outcomes that are aimed at benefiting, in some sense, the next generation, and even the next…Finally, the adult apprehends his or her own generative efforts…giving meaning to the unique pattern of inner desire, cultural demand, generative concern, belief commitment, and generative action in his or her own life—by constructing; (g) narration of generativity, which becomes part of the larger life narration, or life story, that makes up a person’s identity  (1985). A person’s life story can itself be a kind of generative legacy, for the story itself is psychosocially created and maintained and sometimes offered to others.  In essence, it is a way of life that becomes a “self-defining life story.” 

Now consider just for a moment, could this way of being point someone away from the depths of addiction?   How often have we heard, “I can’t even help myself so how could I help someone else?”  What if, just what if, the road out is actually the road in?  Think about that for a minute.  One of the pearls of wisdom bestowed in A.A. is you cannot hold onto something without giving it away. 

One caveat that should be thrown down is this: if it is to be purely altruistic the response or the reward for such a deed should be of no concern.  It is the fact that you yourself have been generative and should begin and end there.

Where might we look for evidence of generativity at it’s zenith?  Perhaps, we can look for inspiration at the lives of individuals.  We could even call them Profiles in Purpose: Boethius,  Dr. Andrew Wiles, Reynolds Price, Dr. Vivien Thomas, Stephen Hawking andTeilhard de Chardin.  They have left a legacy in medicine, theology, mathematics, physics despite adversities; imprisonment, illness, poverty, heresy etc.  So in that very real sense the very things that seem so negative were actual gifts that forever altered them for the better.  In that real sense, addiction is an affliction of the soul and the body that can be harnessed for goodness.  The way out is the road in.

Profiles

Dr. Vivien Thomas: a surgical instructor at Johns Hopkins Medical School who lived in relative obscurity until he passed away and it was suggested the media report on the event. Though never formally trained, Dr. Thomas along with Dr. Alfred Blalock created the surgical procedure to bring oxygenated blood to “blue babies”  but never officially received the credit.  As a black man in 1944, he could not even be paged on the loudspeaker in public.  At night he bartended and served drinks to the doctors he taught during the day.  Despite his wife’s bitter objections he remained in the job of “lab assistant” for decades—it was his purpose and remains his legacy to thousands.

Boethius: a Greek philosopher and scholar fell out of favor and was imprisoned in Pavia.  His only “nurse” became philosophy and in eloquent prose he described how bad fortune is the gift to a man (not good fortune) and, ultimately, bad fortune can bring happiness.  His legacy to us is 169 pages of wisdom.  He found meaning and purpose in a small jail cell.

Reynolds Price: America’s most eminent man of letters was diagnosed with spinal cancer in 1984.  He subsequently underwent 4 surgical operations and endured years of pain and suffering that ultimately relegated him to a wheelchair.  He remains what he calls a renegade Christian and acknowledges with gratitude how his ordeal gave him A Whole New Life even though two years after his surgery the introduction of the gamma knife would have spared his mobility.

Teilhard de Chardin: a Jesuit priest who challenged the biblical story of creation and in turn suggested a very different theory around the unfolding of the cosmos.  His work was denied publication by the curia during his lifetime.  His words now echo down through history as an amazing collaboration of science and religion.

Stephen Hawking: a man who rarely needs an introduction.  I mention his name and I usually hear comments like “he is the black hole guy in the wheel chair, isn’t he?”  I respond, “that is right, but guess what if you believe in his theories then you believe in imaginary time—-past, present and future exist together.  Hawking does not discount the existence of God. Somebody asked his wife Jane once, “do you believe in God?’  She replied, “how do you think I have cared for Stephen all these years!”  She herself being a distinguished academic.

Dr. Andrew Wiles: the single most famous man in 20th century mathematics after providing a proof for Fermat’s last theorem.  One might think he was elated from that point on –his reputation being made and his fondest desire attained.  This was not the case he felt deflated and had to look for something else to drive his life and engage his love of mathematics.

Oseola McCarty: She astounded the University of Southern Mississippi by donating $150,000 for a scholarship for a deserving African-American student.  Miss McCarty worked all her life as a washerwoman and lived very frugally all the while saving the bulk of her meager earnings.   She wanted to give something she never had.

“I can’t do everything,” she said “but I can do something to help somebody.  And what I can do I will do.  I wish I could do more.

Bill Porter: Crippled at birth by cerebral palsy, Bill Porter believed to be retarded and stupid carved out a niche for himself as a faithful Watkins salesperson. He never became a ward of the state that had been predicted.  His indomitable spirit kept him trudging between 8 and 10 miles per day for over 40 years.  

Conclusion

In this post-modern era in which meaning is deemed subjective we must strive as Rollo May suggested to find our own personal meaning.  Woven through these amazing lives are themes that bode well when trying to find the way out of addiction: spirituality, reframing the narrative of your life and refraining from self sabotage.  They will light the path one step at a time.

By Daniel Jordan

With my wife and two of my three kids away on vaction in the Philippines (my oldest son, Spencer, and I will be joining them on Christmas day), I have had an opportunity to catch up on some reading. Thankfully, the book I have chosen, The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living, is helping me cope with not having Gina, Andi, and Harry around and the deafening silence in our normally boisterous home.

Some Background on the Happiness Trap

The Happiness Trap, written by Russ Harris, is based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) which was developed by Steven Hayes, Ph.D., out of the University of Nevada. Back in November, I had the opportunity to attend a two-day Steven Hayes workshop sponsored by Jack Hirose and Associates in Vancouver. So I have did have some understanding of ACT beforehand. Unlike the Steven Hayes workshop which was designed for a clinical audience, The Happiness Trap is more of a self-help book that anyone could apply to their own situation. To be honest, ACT was a bit bewildering until I read the Happiness Trap.

The basic premise of ACT is that happiness is more than just a matter of feeling good and that trying to hold on to happiness leads to the opposite effect. Instead of teaching new techniques to pursue happiness, ACT teaches ways to end the struggle that keeps us from realizing happiness. While ACT has been found effective in the treatment of depression, anxiety, chronic pain and addiction, it can also help anyone who is dealing with negative thoughts that lead to low self-esteem, stress, etc.

The Origins of the Need for Happiness

According to Dr. Harris , our need for happiness developed out of our primative need to (1) predict and avoid danger and (2) have a sense of belonging. While both of these needs were a matter of life or death in prehistoric times, for modern man these same needs are now creating much of our mental anguish.  According to Dr. Harris, the modern mind is “hardwired to suffer psychologically by comparing, evaluating, and criticizing ourselves, to focus on what we’re lacking, to rapidly become dissatisfied with what we have, and to imagine all sorts of frightening scenarios, most of which will never happen.”

Defining Happiness

Harris defines happiness in two ways:

TEMPORARY/EMOTIONAL - Pursuing the first form of happiness will, ultimately, lead to unhappiness because, like all emotions, happiness doesn’t last. Getting more toys, degrees, and admirers will only bring “temporary” relief. The solution becomes more of the same and eventually becomes a vicious cycle.

LIFELONG/MEANINGFUL - The second type of happiness will lead to a “sense of a life well lived” and a powerful sense of vitality. However, meaningful happiness is the less popular of the two because: (1) you have to work at it, (2) is a lifelong pursuit and (3) requires our willingness to experience uncomfortable emotions such as sadness, fear, and anger. As Dr. Harris puts it,” if we live a full life, we will feel the full range of human emotions.”

While most self-help books focus on “emotional” happiness, the Happiness Trap invites us to consider “meaningful” happiness. Therefore, Dr. Harris’ book is for those brave enough to pursue the latter.

Conclusion

As I read this book, I couldn’t help thinking that no matter what I do, I will eventually experience grief, loss, and fear just as I will also experience joy, success, and love. I already know from experience what it means to pursue “temporary” happiness, where each day becomes a sort of balance sheet and a good day is judged as having more assets (good feelings) than liabilities (bad feelings). Would it be so bad to spend the rest of my life focused on creating a life of meaning and purpose?

Today’s blog posting was an introduction of sorts. In future postings, I will continue to explore The Happiness Trap and how the exercises included in the book are helping me come to terms with being separated from my family.