addictions

Men and Responsibility

Ron Johnson addictions, Development, emotional maturity, Feelings, mindfulness, relationships, Self-Awareness, work

“It is the best of times. It is the worst of times,” to quote Charles Dickens as he penned the beginning of A Tale of Two Cities. The best and worst times for men have to do with responsibility, or we might say “their responsibilities,” namely how they face responsibility (or responsibilities), understand responsibility, and how they respond to it. Responsibilities give men a great sense of accomplishment, give them self-esteem, give them an opportunity to serve their families, communities, and the world. This is the best of times. Responsibilities can also be the worst of times as they can cause tremendous anxiety for men, and then this anxiety can migrate into the three challenges men have: avoidance, anger, and addiction. Note that my primary comments have to do with men, as the helping of men mature is the passion of my life. Allow me to start by identifying several men (identifying information adjusted for the purpose of maintaining privacy) who demonstrate various ways of facing their responsibilities in life.

  • Jack: Jack is in his mid-thirties, bright, a college graduate, and a man of good character. Sadly, however, Jack hasn’t done anything of significance if life to date and there seems to be no realistic path ahead for Jack. He has fallen into mild to moderate depression with interludes of mild excitement and hope. Perhaps, the most interesting thing about Jack is that he really wants to be President of the United States. He admits that he has no idea of what he would do as President, to say nothing of how he might get elected, but he feels a deep passion to do something great. He also talks about being some kind of hero, in the likes of a “superhero”, but again doesn’t know how he might become a hero. I attempted to help him with something practical, like maybe getting job flipping hamburgers, but I have abandoned any and all such suggestions because they fall on deaf ears.
  • Ben: Ben is over 80 and has been a pastor for nearly 60 years. He has been successfully married, raised three successful children, and served many churches over these years as well as being in a supervisory role for many years sometime back. He is well liked and well respected by all who know him, from what I can determine. Like, Jack, he is bright, a man of good character, and has several advanced degrees. Unfortunately, at 80-plus, he is in so much debt that he is not able to keep up, probably something well beyond $100K with little or no income aside from a meagre social security. How he got there has a lot to do with responsibility, or lack thereof, something that we talked about recently. His most visible lack of responsibility has to do with how he managed money, or lack thereof, but as I have come to know Ben, I have seen that he has avoided all kinds of responsibilities all his life, whether financial, practical, or interpersonal.
  • Peter: Peter wants to be a doctor, or so he told me the first time I saw him. More accurately, the second time I had seen him because I saw him some 15 years ago. He is also mid-30’s and not doing much. He barely finished high school and never went to college. Somehow, the idea of becoming a doctor came into his mind and so he decided to come into my office to help him with his (pipe) dream. He has been taken care of by his wife for many years and before that was subsidized by his mother for years. He never has held any kind of full-time job. I can’t ascribe to Peter high intelligence and good character but he is generally a good man.
  • Alex: Alex is a man in his early 50’s and is the opposite of what we see in the likes of Jack and Peter, although he shares intelligence and good character with them. He has always worked, raised his family, worked diligently in his local church, and generally served everyone…with the exception of himself. Some years ago, much against his wishes, he found that he was truly unable to work, perhaps largely due to severe apnea that has not allowed him to get a good night’s rest for five years or more. He would dearly like to return to work and made one futile attempt at it some time ago, which probably just set him back six months. He has always done what he deemed should be done in life starting from about the time he was 8 or 9 and culminating with taking over the role of the man in the house when his dad ran off with the babysitter.
  • Guido: Guido, as his name might suggest, comes from Italian heritage although he has not been particularly interested in his European heritage. He has been an ardent follower of sports, particularly the Green Back Packers and the Wisconsin Badgers, staying a committed fan for 55 of his 65 five years. He graduated from college as a financial manager and did reasonably well, for the most part, but never really successful. Over the past 30 years that I have known him, he has been hired, fired, quit, and worked occasionally, but never with any meaningful passion. His real passion? Feelings, ,particularly other people’s feelings, so much so that he has been both liked and despised by almost everyone he has known. He has not had a meaningful job for 5 or 10 years, which is my guess, but he also has wanted to do something “great” like Jack, never quite knowing what that might be. He encounters random people in his semi-retirement but seemingly has no intimate friends from what I can tell despite the fact that he is both intelligent and somewhat fluent with certain aspects of psychology. He has never been married, lost perhaps the one love of his life and hasn’t been able to sustain any kind of intimate relationship since that unfortunate event in his life. While he pays his bills and such, he is radically alcoholic depending on drinking nightly until he passes out, something that he has done for perhaps 30 years.
  • Bill: Bill shares the high intelligence and good character so often present with men who can’t seem to face the responsibilities of life or face them to a fault. Fiercely independent, Bill took 20 years to finish college because he refused to take English 2 because “it was beneath him” and because he had taken several advanced English classes. When the university changed its requirements, he was given a diploma having acquired 170 credit hours in a college that required only 120. Bill also was never successfully employed having tried to sell insurance, worked in his dad’s business for a year or two (unsuccessfully), and driving a cab (actually quite successfully) off and on. He was a voracious reader. When his father died and his mother became impaired with dementia, he took care of her for 5 or 6 years, but died when he was 59, a young age for most people, probably caused to some degree by his caretaking of his mother. He was married to a severely characterologically impaired woman whom he couldn’t divorce because his wedding vows included the statement, “I will not divorce you,” not unlike the vow he made to his mother that he “would never put you in a nursing home.” Bill acted so responsibility with his impaired wife and mother, that it killed him. On the other hand, he was not responsible to himself, somewhat like Guido, and had very little care for finances and property. He never owned a home, much less took care of it.

These seem like severe cases, but in fact, they are not so uncommon. The names, places, ages, and responsibilities vary but the theme is the same in all of these fine men: a failure to face, feel, and act responsibly. What went wrong with these men, especially in light of their intelligence and good character? No one taught them about responsibility. Bill’s father was truly brilliant but had been fired a couple of times over his life before he started his own business, but Bill and his father were substantially different, something that caused Bill to avoid doing the things that his dad wanted him to do. Ben talked about how farmer father would simply “go to the bank and ask for $1000 or more,” which the bank would gladly loan him because they trusted him, Ben didn’t learn the rudiments of being financially responsible, much being responsible in his work, much less in the care of property. He was so good at speaking and telling stories that he got away with the results of his lack of responsibility. A couple of the other men didn’t really have fathers, like Jack and Guido. In general, men are not taught about responsibilities. Rather, they are taught some responsibilities but not others. Very few men are taught, for instance, how to relate to women, when to give, when to restrain from giving, when to speak, when not to speak, and certainly when to do something and when to choose not to do it.  The results of this lack of responsivities are many.

The results of being irresponsible

Not all men suffer all of the results of a failure to be responsible, but all men have one or more of these consequences:

  • Ill health. All of the men I have mentioned above are in ill health of some kind. One man has cancer, another is underweight because of a poor diet and lack of exercise while three others are overweight for the same reason. One suffers from apnea as I noted. I currently have several men in my office who are in the neighborhood of 70 years old all suffering from ill health, all of which has to do with a failure to accept the responsibility of caring for one’s body
  • Financial. Not all of these men actually suffer from financial difficulties but none of them has been prudent with earning, saving, and spending. I know of two millionaires who have failed to adequately care for money, one of which works 80 hours a week “trying to earn his (deceased) father’s approval,” while another spends wildly on “toys.”
  • Unsatisfactory work. Jack can’t seem to accept that he needs to work at something…anything in order to make it in life, much less be President. Ben loved his work, which was largely speaking, preaching, and having coffee conversations with other pastors, but he didn’t do the important work of teaching, which requires study and planning. Alex never recovered from having too much mother (and mother figures) and not enough father. He turned out being a visible failure while Alex worked so hard that he neglected some important psychological and relational matters in life. Sadly, one of his sons is estranged from him, a phenomenon I have seen with many men who didn’t know how to be fully responsible.
  • Unsatisfactory intimate relationships. Female relationships are always adversely affected by men not knowing how to be responsible. Some men dominate while most men fail to know how to say “yes” and “no” responsibly. Most men fall into undue anger, while others go towards avoidance or addiction. Who taught us men how to be good partners to the women in our lives? No one.
  • Addictions. The obvious include the alcoholism that Guido displays. One of these men has been impotent for many years probably due to the sexual abuse he had as a child, while many men fall into sexual addictions like pornography together with undue masturbation. Some men fall into play, whether computer-based gaming or being in 4 baseball leagues in the summer. Some men fall into a work addiction. All addictions are due to a failure to understand one’s feelings, value them, and appropriately express them.

How can men be responsible and avoid such problems?

  • Admit to yourself that no one really taught you the breadth of responsibilities. Do this, and you will feel childlike and a bit helpless. This is a beginning, not an end. Don’t tell anyone although if you are lucky enough to have a good friend, partner, or therapist, you might be able to speak of feeling helpless and childlike.
  • Take a look at the myriad of responsibilities that you have in life: health, money, relationships, children, property, work, retirement, and friendships. Note that you have many things that you need to attend to. Note again, privately, that no one taught you about such things. It’s not your fault. It is your responsibility to do something about it.
  • See the breadth of responsibilities, not just one or two. If you are good with finances, good for you; most men aren’t. If you good with managing your sexuality, good for you also. You might be good at sports, reading, writing, playing, telling stories, or particularly good with children. Maybe you’re even good with the whole matter of feelings, as most are not, so good for you. Maybe you’re good with the care of property as many men are…and many men are not. Take stock of what you’re good at, what you do well and do in a timely fashion. You are probably good with some kind of responsibilities and less good at others. Join the crowd.
  • When you see a bit (or a lot) of irresponsibility in some arena of life, admit that you don’t want to do this thing that you seemingly should do. Certainly, you don’t have to do everything that you don’t want to do. Many men get caught thinking that they have to do something before they admit that they don’t want to do it. One of the guys noted above really doesn’t want to do his taxes… for the past three years. He needs to admit that he doesn’t want to do it, and then painfully do it.
  • Do not do what other people say you should do. They’re wrong for telling you so. Something that is easy for one man is not easy for another. But as Desiderata says, “listen to others, even the dull and ignorant, for they all have their stories.”
  • Realize that the things that you…no one else…knows…not “feels”…should be done, are your responsibilities and not anyone else’s. It’s hard enough to be your own task master, let alone tending to others’ opinions.
  • Do something that you don’t want to do admitting to yourself that you don’t want to do it. You may truly hate cutting the grass or doing reports. Don’t do these things out of obligation to someone else (your wife, your boss, or your friend), but obligation to yourself.
  • Note that when you actually do something you don’t particularly want to do, you don’t actually feel the “accomplishment” that other people might feel when they do this same thing that they might actually enjoy. Take this moment to yourself and realize that you have been “responsible” in doing something that you didn’t want to do, or perhaps that you didn’t know how to do, or perhaps that you did in a less than perfect way.
  • Then, having done this terrible thing, do something that you really want to do, whatever that might be. Give yourself a break.
  • Then, tomorrow, do this “terrible thing” again. And, maybe the next day.

Keep in touch.

 

Thriving and Surviving

Ron Johnson addictions, emotional maturity, Feelings, grief, happiness, mindfulness, Self-Awareness

Some years ago I asked to talk to an African American man who had written a number of pieces in the local paper. In my email I said that although I had two Black sons in law and had Black men occasionally come to my office, I often felt that I was missing something important about the Black subculture, namely how Blacks actually engage in conversation, friendship, and intimacy. Intimacy is the heart of any good therapeutic alliance between therapist and patient. I was to meet him in a local café. I had been interested in some of the things he had said about his work, which was essentially with primarily Black kids. When I entered the café, he waved at me and invited me to come to the table where he was sitting with a friend/colleague (who happened to be White) with whom he had been working for a few years. As I approached the table and had not yet sat down, he volunteered something that has stuck with me since our meeting although I have not had contact with this man since. He said something like, “I want to start by saying that you look confident and a man who is thriving in life. If you want to know that your very appearance suggests thriving and it is off-putting. I have lived in an environment that has been one of surviving, not thriving.” I was not offended by his comment, but I did take a figurative step back from the conversation because I had never heard of the difference between thriving and surviving, and I immediately knew that I had not been raised in a survival context. This matter of surviving has continued to be an important aspect of my understanding people, to some degree the subcultures of America like the African American culture, but in a larger context of how many people engage life: they are surviving. Let’s look at the whole business of thriving and surviving that people do. There are many people who survive terrible ordeals, like physical illness or even war, but my focus will be primarily on people who survive through emotional challenges.

People who are surviving

  • People with physical limitations
    • Blindness
    • Debilitating illnesses like cancer and heart disease
    • Physical disabilities
  • People with household difficulties
    • Financial limitations or challenges’
    • Deteriorating living quarters
    • No living quarters
  • People who interpersonal difficulties
    • One partner is seriously physically limited
    • One partner wants out of the relationship
    • One partner is unfaithful
    • One partner is addicted to some behavior or chemical
    • Partners have substantially different religious/philosophical orientations
    • Partners have a cognitively impaired child, which causes them to frequently be at odds with each other
    • Partner one does not like the biological family of partner two. Makes Christmas celebrations difficult
  • And many other difficulties that people need to manage by surviving

People who are surviving personal matters

  • Jack is unable to conquer his addition to one of the following: alcohol, drugs, food, promiscuity, gambling, video game playing, other screen time, working, playing, toxic relationships, or sleeping (too much or not enough)
  • Marge is generally not happy with herself. She thinks she is stupid.
  • Peter is not happy with himself. He thinks he is smarter than everyone
  • Both Marge and Peter are lonely
  • Stan continues to pine for the woman he thinks he should have married, a feeling that makes life difficult for him and secondarily and unconsciously for his wife
  • Dad doesn’t really like his son. Thinks that he is too much like his wife
  • Mom really favors daughter # 1 over daughter #2 because she is more like #1

The ways people survive these difficulties

In a nutshell, they avoid them. The essence of avoiding these difficulties means that they avoid the feelings associated with these difficulties. When they don’t finish the feelings associated the challenges, these feelings stay with them. These feelings then become repressed. It wouldn’t be so bad if these feelings stayed repressed but that is not what happens. The feeling show themselves in things they say or do. When they are speaking or doing something that is a result of not having felt through these feelings, they are accommodating. Very likely, they are not aware that they are accommodating. What happens is that the things they say or things they do are coming indirectly from the repressed feelings without their conscious knowledge. It just “feels right” to say something or do something that may seem quite odd or offense to other people. What are the things that they do to accommodate?

Accommodation

Depending on the individual, the subculture that they live in, the people they live with, the work they do, they play they do, or the any environment where they live, there are many possibilities of accommodation including:

  • Being distrustful of everyone
  • Being dishonest, or at least easily dishonest when they run into some kind of challenge
  • Fall into some addiction, chemical or behavioral
  • Become isolated. Introverted people tend to isolate
  • Become very active. Extraverted people tend to talk a lot
  • Fall into depression
  • Fall into a generalized anxiety
  • Take some kind of radical action
  • Take some kind of radical philosophical or religious orientation

To avoid these unfortunate accommodations, what can people do to move from surviving to thriving?

Positive coping mechanisms

  • Without a doubt, the most important thing for a person to do when he or she has faced with the trauma that caused the person to survive is to face the trauma and understand that they were in a dangerous or untenable situation and they did what they needed to do to survive. This takes away the false guilt of being a bad person.
  • Grieve the loss of what happened. This is easier said than done. It is hard enough to face the violence of sexual abuse or any other kind of abuse. It is much harder to face traumata that occurred over a longer period of time or traumata that occurred to one’s family or one’s heritage. How will Palestinians cope with the trauma of being assaulted? How Israelis cope with their traumata? How will Black people face the trauma of slavery that occurred for 300 years and the aftermath of racism for another 100 years?
  • Most people need a confident, which could be a good friend, family member, therapist, or clergy person to do this kind of grief work.
  • Slowly replace surviving words and activities with thriving activities.
    • Being more honest
    • Being more trusting
    • Taking a chance with some activity like work school, friends
    • Facing and overcoming addictions whatever they may be
    • Finding a community of people who have moved from surviving to thriving

I wish you a time when you can achieve a life of thriving, which of course, will be imperfect. It will also be more honest, graceful, and peaceful. But it will also be sadder as you see that you lose things every day and have disappointments every day.

And I wish you a wonderful holiday season.

The Basic Anxiety in All Men

Ron Johnson addictions, Development, emotional maturity, Feelings, men's issues, mindfulness, Self-Awareness

Since my practice is composed of entirely men, I frequently hear similar things from these men, and surprisingly from men of very different ages. I have come to believe that the central ingredient that men where when they get distress in some way is some form of anxiety. I will discuss the various faces of anxiety in this blog a bit. We will also talk about the secondary effects that these other “faces” of anxiety cause in their lives. I want most importantly to identify what I think is the basic building block of this anxiety, which is not anxiety itself but rather a very important element of manhood. This is not something wrong with men, nor is it something wrong with women or with society in general. We want to look at the causes of men’s anxiety and most importantly look at what can be done to reduce it to zero.

The faces of anxiety

  • Anger. This is, of course, one of the most obvious challenges that most men face. We tend to get angry too easily, speak too loudly, yell and scream, or, God forbid, become physically aggressive in some way.
  • Avoidance. This is the second most common thing men do when they are anxious. If they don’t yell and scream, they go into the man cave, whether that is a real physical place or whether it is just sitting silently on the couch or in front of some kind of screen.
  • Addiction. This is the third most common form of men feeling anxiety without an understanding of what to do about it. Addictions can be chemical or behavioral. Chemical addictions include marijuana, alcohol, or script drugs. Behavioral addictions include gambling, some form of excessive sexual expression, overeating, working too much, not working enough, or playing video games.
  • Physical and medical abnormalities. This would include the simplest headache to the serious heart attack or cancer. With little doubt, anxiety aggravates a man’s inclination to some kind of physical abnormality. Not every man will have headaches, nor will everyone have heart attacks.
  • Dishonesty. Dishonesty is usually not in the form of stealing or outright criminality but rather hiding some activity or outright lying about some small thing in life by a man who otherwise might be a man of quite good character
  • Depression. I don’t not use the term depression, like anxiety, as a “diagnosis” of a mental disorder but rather the extended realm of a man’s unhappiness. A man can become increasingly unhappy with one or more elements of his life, like work, relationships, play, or life in general. They all stem from anxiety.
  • Helplessness. There is a helpless component of depression, but the more serious helplessness is when a man feels that he just can’t do what he knows that he should do. As a result many men work all the time, while others do nothing at all.

Statements that men make regarding their anxiety

I use the term anxiety with care because it don’t see anxiety as a mental disorder that needs to be treated. I see it as a result of men not knowing who they are, how they feel, how to speak, and what to do about the causes of anxiety. Nevertheless, I have heard the following from various men:

  • From a very successful professional man, 55, when I asked him what he felt when he thought his wife might be mad at him: “terrified,” he said
  • From another successful man, 65, when I asked him what he felt when he thought his wife might find out something he did that she didn’t approve of: “terrified.”
  • From many men including a man of 32, many men in their 40’s, and some in their 20’s:

“I feel a constant feeling of anxiety in my stomach (chest, back).”

  • From many men of various ages: “I feel some kind of anxiety every time I make any decision. This could be turning my car into an unfamiliar driveway or deciding what to eat at a restaurant.”
  • “I might have some kind of death fear. I think of the possibility of my dying all the time.”
  • “I think I made some dumb choices in my early years that still cause me anxiety, almost like I think I can turn the clock back and make different choices.”
  • For some parents: “I can’t seem to shake the fear that my son will die for some reason>
  • “I am afraid that they will discover some mistake I made at work and demote me or fire me.”
  • “I’m afraid that they (whoever the unknown “they” might be) might discover that I am a fraud in some way.”
  • “I am afraid that will be impotent in bed with my wife.”
  • “I am afraid that I am a failure in life, despite my apparent success and accolades.”
  • “I just don’t know what to do so much of the time. This could be if to take a shower, go to work today, or tell my wife that I love her.”

The causes of male anxiety

This is the most important thing I have to say about anxiety, and it leads to our final discussion: What can we do about it? The essence, the foundation, the cause of male anxiety is around the concept of responsibility. Every man feels a kind of immense load of responsibility in life, no matter how old he is. This feeling of undue responsibility starts in adolescence, develops in his 20’s and accelerates in his 30’s as his responsibilities become larger and harder to manage.

This concept of felt responsibility is very hard for me to communicate, especially to women, and certainly to most men because they don’t think about it consciously, but the feeling that “I have to do something, something important, something significant, something real,” is always there in some form. President Truman said it right when he spoke of the responsibility he had as President: “The buck (bucket) stops here.” Most men are not presidents but they often feel the burden of responsibility

  • Adolescence is difficult for everyone, boys and girls because this is a time of transition from the freedom of childhood and the freedom of early adulthood, which is what adolescence is. There are the general challenges of adolescence for guys like what to do with emerging sexual interest, academic interest (or disinterest), and some initial thoughts about one’s ultimate vocation. There are more specific challenges that every boy faces, like the adolescent who doesn’t like reading in school, doesn’t like sports, really likes music, or can’t find anything that he really likes. However good at one thing, like reading, sports, or music, he feels the insecurity and inferiority associated with not being good at something else.
  • The 20’s is particularly difficult because the guy is now in college or the world of work trying to find his way. He also has to deal with the challenge of how to relate to women (or to men if he happens to be gay). Marriage used to come during the 20’s but many men forestall marriage for a live-in arrangement that can be complicated by pregnancy, the partner’s children from another relationship, or the desire not to have children. All of these responsibilities are on the guy’s shoulders with no one really able to help him through these difficult years. A good deal of addiction begins in the 20’s, whether chemical like alcohol or pot or behavioral like promiscuity, video game-playing, or gambling.
  • I think the 30’s is perhaps the most challenging time for men. Some men I see haven’t been married and desperately want to do so. Many men are in the wrong profession, perhaps something that makes them money but not happiness. Marital struggles usually are at their height at this time of life, and children are now a dominant part of the man’s life.
  • After the 30’s a man’s responsibilities continue to grow including vocational, relational, financial, geographical, and ultimately personal. Few men migrate these waters without some form of addiction, avoidance, and anger. Suicide is four or five times greater for men than for women, often because of the burdens that they have without any guidance.

All of this accelerating responsibility and the results of these responsibilities lead most men to a deep-seated feeling of anxiety:

  • Do I want to stay married to the woman I married 10 or 15 years ago?
  • Do I want to stay in the job that makes me money but I hate?
  • Do I really like my children (of course, I love them)?
  • Do I like my house?
  • How do I deal with the fact that the electric doesn’t work in the bedroom?
  • How do I deal with my gaining weight and all that goes with it?
  • Am I having any fun
  • How do I deal with my addiction(s)?
  • Where’s the guy who could help me navigate these rough waters?

How to deal with the anxiety I feel regarding all my responsibilities and questions?

  1. Admit to it. You can’t get to the bottom of feeling anxious, much less cure it without first admitting that you feel overwhelmed
  2. Observe that you either work too much trying to stave off your anxiety or avoid your responsibilities
  3. Note the addictive tendencies you have: eating, playing, working, drinking, gaming, talking, or perhaps the more serious addictions like alcohol or promiscuity
  4. Find someone to talk to. This should most certainly be a male, perhaps a therapist, perhaps a wise uncle, perhaps a clergyman. But not your neighbor, your brother-in-law, or the guy at the bar. You need someone who understands and can help you through this crisis of feeling overwhelmed
  5. If you have a significant other in your life, tell her (or him) but be careful to keep her from advising you. A good way to develop a later intimacy is to learn to talk about yourself and feel vulnerable. Then you will be able to listen with as much love as has been rendered to you by your loved one.
  6. Avoid anxiolytic medication. It is addictive. More importantly, it covers the symptoms but doesn’t treat the problem. The problem is a very male-centered thing of feeling responsibility for everything and everyone.
  7. Begin to notice that you feel better, less anxious and more content. The more you admit to your feeling of anxiety and all the other steps along the way, the better you will get in talking and reducing your anxiety.