"Civilization Anonymous"

[BenjaminTheDonkey]

It's nice to see there's an all-purpose 12-Step approach out there.

My vote, but your call. Some traditionalists might prefer not making it secular, but I don’t see how any other way will work here.

Ben, I have a problem with the word "renounce."  I look at it more as having a daily reprieve from the malady of civilization.  "Renounce" sounds to me (and I may be off-base here as to the definition of the word) like attempting to go cold-turkey forever and ever.

Yes, I knew that word would be hard on people (heh heh he said, oh, you know) and wasn’t part of the proposed language, but “Civilization Anonymous” suggests Stone Age, to me anyway.   

the success rate of 12 step programs

Hey Chessie! Sorry, but it’s the best general approach to addiction we’ve got, AFAIK.

[Chesyre]

never said there was anything wrong with the programs. its the people in them who hvae a hard time with them .

[cobaltblue]

Ben, Stone Age that's something to consider.  To be sure, I'm not sure "civilization" is the right word there either.  It just seems to be the catch-all term I've come to think of, and it drives some people batty.  What I'm talking about is a cultural toxin ultimately, and for the moment it wears the moniker "civilization." 

In Cultural Addiction, Alfred LaChance puts it in terms of consumerism mostly.  That's one element of what I'm speaking of.  But there's more to it than just shopping and buying stuff.  Ultimately, all addictions are about filling a hole in our soul because the soul ain't whole. 

What sort of word would be better, I wonder.  Still the title of the thread attracts attention doesn't it?

And regarding success rates, again the 12 Step programs I am a part of remind us all that they exist because people WANT it, not because they need it.  In the food fellowships we joke and say "I came for the vanity and stayed for the sanity."  People go to Al-Anon because they want to help someone else recover, and discover just how sick they themselves are in the family disease of addiction.  (We're all de facto qualifiers for Al-Anon just by participating in the culture, no matter how low-impact we might do so.)

But it's also interesting in light of WTF would we be recovering from anyway?  I think most of us can identify, though we recognize that some of us are sicker than others.

[Anoki]

When looking through the lens of addiction, civ does start to look like a bad habit...we all experience unmanagability as a result of engaging in civilization-related activities.

[Shamaness]

When looking through the lens of addiction, civ does start to look like a bad habit...we all experience unmanagability as a result of engaging in civilization-related activities.

Well said, and welcome.   

[cobaltblue]

I recently went to a retreat for a food fellowship, and it involved a lot of writing.  I found myself writing about discovering, through my weight loss, that I was a nature boy at heart, who had been ensconced in city life since my early 20s.  Participating in the "necronomy" and being subservient to all sorts of rogues and thugs (and learning how to play the game in the process), had pushed me into quite a few addictions that will always be around me.  I will always find that one bite of a Twinkie is too many and 983 billion served (all me!) is not enough. 

My abstinence is a "together we can" phenomenon.  Still, my journey into this nature boy aspect has also led me to appreciate the connection between "human" and "humus."  We are all humus-people.  And even if we are constructing air-castles financed by air-money to create air-dreams of air-reality (no offense to Geminis, Libras and Aquarians!  ), we are still all humus originating. 

I guess on some level, remembering this is about right-sizing myself in relation to all my relations.  The process of surrender usually is triggered by the realization that I can't continue along the same way I've been going.  That's how it was with my food problem.  I got so I wanted to be dead.  There are days when I feel that way re: this Black Iron Prison.  (I love all the different images that people have come up with to describe this stale sort of hell.  Panopticon, kyriarchy, kakistocracy, and my own creation, vEmpire.)

Anyway, I ask my H.P., who I choose to refer to as "God Herself" to dispel these notions and assist me to become more of service to myself as well as to my fellows. As I continue to awaken, I come to appreciate what others' journeys have taught them and their ability to share.  Regardless of class, religion (or "sectual preference") , sexual orientation, cultural background, etc.  And I'm grateful that this thread has continued, and that people drop in and see what it's all about.

[graveday]

I like that, sectual preference, never heard that before.  So what do you do with, "This is the best of all possible worlds"?  Leibniz is said to have been deeply sarcastic when he uttered this slightly mathematical description.

[cobaltblue]

I like that, sectual preference, never heard that before.  So what do you do with, "This is the best of all possible worlds"?  Leibniz is said to have been deeply sarcastic when he uttered this slightly mathematical description.

Got me.  I feel that the journey progresses, and I continuously wake up to days brighter than the last.  Awakening from the civ-coma-fog puts me in touch with all my feelings, but I have a better proposition of feeling joy and of having a life greater than anything of my previously anemic imaginings. 

"Best of all possible worlds?"  Sounds more to me like "life on life's terms," but putting first things first. 

[graveday]

If you continuously wake up to days better than the last, then I want what you're having. 
Humans go up and down.  Down defines up, and vise versa.  I heard this funny characterization of bipolar.  They are normal, but just have more extreme lows and highs.  Their lows are so low that they want to kill themselves, and their highs are so high that everyone else wishes they did.

[cobaltblue]

This is a process of getting a mite more accurate over time.  I sort of post here like I would share at a meeting, I must say, and sometimes we short-hand things because we offer encouragement and understanding.

What I meant by "feeling better and better" was that, while I have bad days (and lately I've been driven batty by my boss's temper which has flared up for some unknown reason), I recognize they will blow over.  "This too shall pass," which also applies to good times as well as unpleasant.  But I don't get all melodramatic like I used to.

How can I be of service?  For some reason asking that question helps me out a lot.  Something people "in the rooms" have said is that when they feel angry, so overcome they just want to cry, they try and find a fellow addict to help.  I also like writing gratitude lists.  Gratitude is quite the solvent.

A sponsee of mine several years ago said that he read that when someone does someone else a good deed, serotonin levels rise not only in the Samaritan and the beneficiary, but in everyone who witnessed the giving act. 

It's not much good news, but we have the opportunity to provide each other with higher serotonin moments in the months and years to come.

[graveday]

Cobalt blue is my favorite color.  In glass, a few panels of it is supposed to calm and promote healing.  Even cows benefited, supposedly.  Yes, how can I help you is a great, positive thing to say.
That is a good thing to know, that serotonin levels are affected just by witnessing.  We know so little about that kind of stuff, but it is being researched intensely now that there are PET scans and other technologies available. 
Did you know that figs have the highest natural levels of serotonin?  Interesting that figs even have serotonin, but I don't think you will get a benefit from eating them as the molecule is most likely broken down in the gut.  But I wonder if we really know that.

[BenjaminTheDonkey]

Serotonin is one of over a hundred neurotransmitters in the brain, and researchers have identified only a handful. You hear about serotonin a lot in antidepressant advertising, but there’s no reason to think it runs the whole show.

OTOH, we seem to organize our behavior as if our goal were to maximize shooting off the juices in the brain which make our bodies feel good. Applied to PO, how ya gonna make that happen as much as possible while you still can?

[cobaltblue]

Thank you for sharing.

[cobaltblue]

Over the weekend, I went to a workshop on the Transition Initiatives that were started in England.  While there is not a 12 Step program along the lines of a _____ Anonymous or _____-Anon fellowship, there were a number of observations about the addiciton model of change that were quite interesting.

There are things that can happen interpersonally, on a societal level, etc.  But as outside, so inside.  It needs to go both ways.  Andrew Harvey talks of creating a third fire that arises from the social activist who burns themselves out learning mystical practices, as well as the mystic who sits around contemplating the navel coming out and actually taking some actions in the world.  (It IS one of the tiresome aspects of the newage (rhymes with sewage) people who advocate doing nothing.  I'm all for taking a pause, but that's meant to have an end!)

It's about taking small steps though.  Begin where we are.

[graveday]

That, and a little bit of the old Greek know thyself, should also sometimes be no thyself.