I'd rather die than keep doing this

That was a message from an Elite client I got today. To set up the proper context the “keep doing this” was about constantly relapsing with addictive food.
But what immediately struck me was how if we don’t think in ways we aren’t used to we just get stuck in the same old rut of thinking. So I thought this …
It makes sense that someone would want to die than keep repeating behaviors that, in the end, create tremendous pain, remorse, angst, anger, self-loathing, resentment and depression. Yes, it does.
But I don’t think that phrase really sets up the right thing to be thinking about.
So I asked her a question. I said “Yes or no, would you rather die than keep doing this?” Her answer, “Yes.”
But here’s where it gets tricky because I believe this next question is the more appropriate one.
“Yes or no, Would you rather LIVE than keep doing this?” There was a LONG pause on the other end. Simply not as easy to answer. Why is that?
Viktor Frankl says in “Man’s Search for Meaning” that “to live is to suffer.” I agree. I also agree with another statement I’ll paraphrase from him which goes “… we must find meaning in the suffering.”
To die means that the pain of living is over – permanently. That makes some sense actually that having the pain OVER is more attractive than repeating this decades-old pattern of self-abuse and pain through self-medication and food addiction. I get it. I don’t believe the “coward’s way out” of suicide is the answer. No, far from it.
Instead what I believe is paramount for this client and for ALL of us is how we can make life SO worth living that we can do it clean, sober and drug free.
In the real world, what I expected as a response, was what I got. “Well I would much rather live and live clean than what I’ve been doing.”
And in this real-life dialogue with my client I did have to say “Your behaviors don’t support the statement you just made. Your behaviors indicate that life REALLY sucks unless you are able to get high and medicate with food and drink.”
I asked “What is it about life that just doesn’t measure up – for you?” And I asked “What do you perceive you should be, do or have that you don’t that creates the gap that makes daily eating and drinking of drugs necessary just to get through it?”
It’s right about now when both my client and I need some space.
The idea behind asking yourself questions like I asked my client today is not to support an argument that death is better than fighting the good fight. No way! The idea behind asking the tough, but appropriate questions, is to help sort out what’s missing, to change thinking to what can make life FEEL really worth living even though and without exception – without drugs.
So how about you? What do you perceive you should be, do or have that you don’t that creates the gap keeping happy living just out of reach? What needs to happen, specifically, to make life worth living clean and sober?
You may not know the answer to this. It’s okay. If you don’t then start with the end in mind first as Covey says in the “7 Habits” and create your best-self vision. See it, feel it, touch it, taste it, smell it, make it real, get it clear. Focus on what you want. If you don’t know the how it’s okay. But focus on what you want – always always always. The how will come.
The clearer vision you can create of what you want the more likely you are to get it. Unclarity is a real goal killer.
Be careful of the Alice In Wonderland syndrome that is SO common.
Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
The Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to
Alice: I don’t much care where.
The Cat: Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go.
The keys are to create a life worth living, to find meaning in the suffering, to make it feel so good and worth living that we can do it clean and sober – imperfectly but exceptionally so we can be, do and have everything our best-self reflection envisions.