Steps on our Road to Recovery

Steps On Our Road to Recovery for 29 March to 4 April 1999.

Published Last Week. A daily hint published each day since June 1996. This is past my second year anniversary since starting my web pages. Page Down for the next days that are added a day at a time. I have moved to http://www.recoverybydiscovery.com and this daily page is now here at https://www.recoverybydiscovery.com/daily.htm . I would appreciate any feedback, questions and suggestions that you have.

What I am mainly going through now is the DSM-III-R Desk Reference a "disorder" at a time and commenting on the spiritual and recovery aspects. The DSM is what the American Psychiatric Association uses to label symptoms to facilitate communication in their community. Unfortunately, the labeling from the DSM can shut down communication with those seeking temporary assistance and spread the stigmas of mental illness. The DSM can also bring some comfort by telling some that others have had the same experience. I am adding additional comfort by pointing to some ways to start getting out of the "disorders". I am not writing about cures. I am writing about how the cure process works over time. Instantaneous cures can be as traumatic as the original event that generated the disorder or illness. Instantaneous cures may not do us any good, when we get the same disorder back, since we have not changed the thought system that caused the disorder in the first place.

29 Mar 99

When the doctor does not know what code to give us from a DSM

they can always fall back on their "301.90 Personality Disorder Not

Otherwise Specified". Just like the Uniform Code of Military Justice

with its General Article, they can catch us on the "anything else" clause.

All they need is to not like us. All they need to not like us is for them to

perceive us as a borderline personality and not want to call us that code.

After all, they may know something about projections and suspect that

they are the real borderlines. I am not suggesting that any rational doctor

would just give us a code without ways out. When they are rational they

would see the rationality in the irrational. They would be able to join us

in our irrationality and show us ways to the rational. My doctors could

not do that, so I had the blessing of learning how by my self. Of course

I found that I was not by my self. I found that the spirit of the lord most

high within was with me all the way. That is really what all this stuff

about recovery is really about. There are many rational ways out of the

irrational. I have been in the irrational, I have found some of the ways out.

That is what I am sharing here, and where ever I go. Some of the irrational

can be fun for a while, but there is more fun in what really is.

30 March 1999

Now we are at the "V Codes" chapter in the DSM-III where therapist

treated conditions that they could not code, that is, tie to a mental disorder.

They may have figured out how to describe these conditions by regular

code numbers in the current DSM, but for me it does not matter. Any

condition that keeps us from living a joyful life is just another form of

madness, anger, upset, irrationality, etc. All of these forms of upset are

from a difference between what we have and what we want. The recovery

process is just a grief process. That is grieving the loss between what

we want and what we have. Spiritual recovery goes a little further.

The grieving process can be described as the five steps from denial to

acceptance. The steps could be divided into twelve, five or one, it does

not matter. The spiritual process is going on from acceptance to thanks.

Actually, this is all part of a larger perspective on the spiritual process.

To go from denial to thanks. To go from anger to thanks. That is what

naturally happens when we learn how to cooperate with spirit. This is

easy to write and difficult to let happen. It is difficult to let go and let

Good. It is difficult to go from upset to comfort and gratitude. It is just

better to be in a state of comfort and gratitude. In this state it is easier

to love and understand. This is the pearl of great price to pay everything

for.

31 March 1999

Now on to the DSM-III V codes. The first one is "V62.30 Academic

Problems". We can qualify when we are intellectually capable, but are

not performing and they can not find a mental "disorder" to code. Gee,

we just went through passive aggressive personality disorder. Here we

are expressing our anger by sabotaging ourselves, depressing ourselves,

to send someone some messages. The one we are really sending our

message to is ourselves. Part of us want to succeed and part of us thinks

that we are not worthy. There are just many ways to express the same

upsets with ourselves. Here we have our family upset and perhaps a

doctor upset, that they can not give us the right pill or order.

Our power, is our power. No one can make us sabotage ourselves.

We can sabotage ourselves and we can unsabotage ourselves, in spite

of what has happened or is going on. We are responsible for our

lives and they are responsible for their lives. We can spend our energy

in manipulating others or get on with manipulating ourselves. The later

is wiser.

See what you can find on my free page that is new today, just like

you found some free information here.

1 April 1999

Today might be April Fool's day, but I am not fooling here. Our

challenge is, that we are fooled each day by prevailing cultural ideas.

Every day is April Fool's day. We fool ourselves.

For instance:

"WESTPORT, Mar 26 (Reuters Health) - In a survey of close to 2,500

British men, about 3% reported that they had been sexually assaulted

as an adult, and, in nearly half of these cases, the perpetrator was a woman."

There have been studies in the past that found how both women and men

are the perpetrators. All that this is telling us is that there is the perpetrator,

victim, rescuer triangles going on. It does not matter what parts we play,

we are then part of the play. The remedies are generic: Forgiveness,

Acceptance, Consciousness, Teamworking. FACT

There was another recent article on how the result of building women's

shelters for safety of the woman from abuse, produced unexpected results.

The rate of women killed in their relationships stayed about the same. The

number of men killed, had a dramatic drop. Perhaps when we build men's

shelters, that will signal a change in our consciousness. That will make it

OK for men to get out of the violence triangle cycle for a while, like it is

OK for women to get out of the violence triangle for a while. Perhaps more

men will go there and less women will be killed. Perhaps when the shelters

start teaching FACT's, Forgiveness, Acceptance, Consciousness, and

Teamworking, the violence in our society will go down.

See what you can find on my free page that is new today, just like

you found some free information here.

2 April 1999

The second V code that they do not know what to do with is "V71.01

Adult Antisocial Behavior". Their examples were thieves, racketeers,

or drug dealers. I checked and the DSM-IVr writers still did not know

how to code adult antisocial behavior as mental illness codes. To me

these behaviors are just more obvious angry and vindictive behaviors.

All the mental illness codes have forms and levels of angry and vindictive

behavior. That is what we need to recover from.

First, we can not say that any behavior is antisocial, since our society

includes angry and vindictive behavior in the first place. What comes

around is just what goes around. What our society tries to repress is just

expressed in different forms.

Since our sick society is just the sum of all of our sicknesses, the

only thing I can suggest is that each of us get on with our individual

recovery roads. That will do much more to change any antisocial

behavior and heal our sick society than any crusades to change our

society or our criminals. We can change the rules all we want, but

rules will not enforce wellness. We have over five billion sick puppies

on our planet and the number of puppies is increasing. All we really

need is a few good men and women to live better lives, in spite of any

sickness in our society. Perhaps we need some spiritual boot camps

to get more of us started down our respective roads.

3 April 1999

The next V code is "v40.00 Borderline Intellectual Functioning".

A fancy way of coding us as lower IQ. Their criteria is IQ of 71 to 84

and with Mental Retardation of an IQ of less than 70. For some reason

they did not give a V code to Mental Retardation. It does not matter, we

all have some reduced mental functioning even if they class us as a genius.

There are many reasons that we can have reduced mental functioning.

They can be genetic and spiritual and mental. The one thing we can change

is our mental concepts which effects our mental attitude and mental altitude.

Changing our mental concepts can effect our spiritual condition and even

our genetics. An example of a changed mental concept is to realize that

everyone is doing their best considering their unconscious baggage.

The reasons we have reduced mental functioning do not matter, since we

are where we are. The important thing is to continue walking our recovery

road. The reason that walking our recovery road is important is that our

mental functioning gets better as we get better.

4 April 1999

Today you can find where you can get a free fax number on my free page .

My new Fax Number is (781) 459-6332. Now on to the free recovery info.

The DSM has a V code for "v71.02 Childhood or Adolescent Antisocial

Behavior". However I have the same views about this as Adult Antisocial

Behavior that I wrote about above.

They have a V code for "V65.20 Malingering". I would include this

as just another subset under antisocial with the same comments as above.

The distinctins are of little use, the fundamental challenge is that we are

angry when we malinger or play antisocial. The fundamental solution is

to change ourselves to get what we want in a positive way.

Next they have a V code for "v61.10 Marital Problem". Good gravy,

why not have one V code for angry with several subsets. Actually, my

thesis is that the whole book could be subsets of angry. Angry is just

when there is a difference between what we have and what we want.

When we are experiencing anger and do not know why that is just when

we are unconscious of what we really want.

Very Respectfully,

Michael Foster, MA

Discovery Coach

https://www.recoverybydiscovery.com

DiscoveryCoachemail

"Learn HOW to recovery by discovering the blocks you need to remove and the actions you need to take and what you need to let go of as your blocks to your blessings."

From my book in process, The Spiritual Cookbook (Generic Recipes for a Better Life)

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I started my daily page, because it is useful for me to look for some recovery tip or secret each day for my spiritual growth. we and I only need one secret to work on and let it work on me each day. They are secrets because they are usually the opposite of what the majority of society teaches. They must be secret because they are not commonly used. A friend of mine once said "Common Sense is not much in Common.". Now that I have grandchildren I am also writing for them. I would have really liked for my grandparents to have passed on what they learned.

I am including Sunday as it is my formal day of learning the lord most high's secrets. If you would like ask questions, or contribute some of your wisdom, or want to make some comments or want to vote for which day to put on my tip of the month page or tell your success stories, click Michael Foster, M. A.