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OUT FROM UNDER!
Treating Your Own Addictions

Chapter 3

HAVING FUN WITHOUT IT

"Play, not work, is the true purpose of life. Work is only the means to that end."

        Before you were addicted, you got "high" or engaged in harmful activities in order to have fun, or to heighten fun. Indeed, at first those activities were fun. But sooner or later they became less fun. As tolerance to the substance or activity developed, more and more time was spent getting and ingesting more of the substance in order to continue to enjoy yourself. In the case of harmful activities such as gambling, more and more time spent to meet the need for more and more money led to compulsive debt, which soon took the fun away. In both cases however there was some joy in the addiction at first.

        You must now learn how to have that joy without the chemicals or harmful activities. This may involve a total lifestyle change, but it can be fun to make. The result is the release of a reserve of energy that has been bound up in tension and frustration with life. With the newly released energy, you can slowly heal yourself and others around you.

Having Fun Can Lead to Mastery

        What is the difference between work and play? This is one of the most baffling of questions. The child at play is hard at work. The adult who owns a business often enjoys building it as if he or she were playing with blocks. Those with a hobby are often experts in it. Large amounts of detailed information are stored in their heads with virtually no effort, and the work involved never seemed like work at all. They have achieved a mastery at something and rarely was it anything but fun. The members of a local bowling league have a skill that others can only admire. One would think that it involved nothing but hard work. Yet, it was fun and not stressful. There are countless other examples of this phenomenon such as kids who are patient only when assembling a model or collecting baseball cards, or teenagers who are generally unmotivated except when involved in the hard work of fixing their cars.

        Fun is an attitude that we bring to what we do. For example, lifting heavy objects can be defined as hard work, or as a form of recreation. "Working," or "working out," what a difference a word makes. Laborious detailing can be boring work, or part of your hobby. Fun is the context, the "outside" of what we do.

        Try this exercise. Draw a circle in your mind and "write" the name of an action inside (e.g., run, write, paint). Now focus" your mind on the area outside the circle. The outside is where the meaning is that you give to what is inside the circle. This is similar to the problem you have in making fun out of whatever it is you are doing. Your mind is continually pulled inside the circle. 

        This is especially true when you are fighting an urge to relapse. Your mind is pulled like a magnet to the urge, to the inside of the circle. During these times you need to constantly refocus your mind on the outside of the circle.

        Create the context of fun around the things you do when you want to avoid urges. It might even be possible to create the context of fun and recovery around the urge itself. If you can learn to do this you will have mastered the urges. If you put whatever you do into the context or attitude of having fun, you will be able to avoid giving in to urges. And you will have fun. Fun is mastery.

        The fun factor has an additional benefit: it can prevent you from becoming pre-occupied with your healing. This is not uncommon with those who are battling addiction, and is understandable. However, becoming compulsive about healing and recovery is a kind of addiction and should be avoided.

PUT EVERYTHING YOU DO IN THE CONTEXT OR ATTITUDE OF HAVING FUN.
* THIS IS THE FUN FACTOR.*

The Fun Mantra

        Begin right now to pursue a fun attitude. The change can be abrupt and revolutionary. Define everything you do in the context of fun. Right now, as you read this handbook, say to yourself, "This is fun." Say it over and over as you read. Now go out and walk a short distance, and as you walk say, "This is fun." Say this twenty times. Actually pretend you are having fun.

Funblock? How Good Are You at Having Fun?

        The authors in their work have seen many persons having difficulty having fun. Are your nonworkdays stressful and just more work? Do you spend a lot of time preparing to have fun but not really having it? Take a good look at the things you do on your days off and see if you could have some more quality fun time by yourself, and with others.

Funblock Memory Exercise

        Close your eyes and relax. Try to remember a time when you were having fun as a young child. Try to completely re-experience what you did to have fun and to recall how it felt then. Try to have that feeling right now.

        You may discover that you had some funblock even in your childhood. You may discover that you were "going through the motions" of play. You were pretending to have fun. If this is so, perhaps you need to learn how to have fun for the first time. Your ability to overcome funblock will gradually improve in stages. Just keep at it.

Stages of Learning How to Have Fun

The Law of Fun Synergy

        The more fun it is, the easier it is, and yet the more is accomplished. This may eem like a contradiction, but it works out that way. This is good news.

The Hobby Attitude

        In the next chapter you will think lot about yourself and complete some questionnaires and lists. Try to be as careful with them as you would with a model plane or a stamp collection, or your face make-up. Bring this "hobby attitude" to everything you do. Make healing and covery your hobby.


Mindfun and Bodyfun

        Read Appendix 1 and figure out the difference between the two types of fun. Decide on a mix that suits you. If in doubt, start with "50-50." Go out today and do one of the items on the list.

How's Your Funlife?

        Consider the possibility that your whole life can be lived within the context of fun. If your child spills some juice, instead of getting upset, imagine you are playing in the ocean. Let your child play in the Mocean" too. You can use your imagination to create miracles for yourself and others. You must now live a pattern of fun. This can be done if you work hard to learn how to play your day.

Positive and Negative Fun

        Dr. Boris Sidis in his book, The Psychology of Laughter, proposed a distinction between ascending and descending laughter. Ascending laughter results from having real fun and brings joy and elation. Descending laughter, or cynical laughter at persons, places or things, is scornful and hurtful and only resembles real laughter. There is a similar difference between types of fun. Positive fun affirms you and others, negative fun only hurts and harms. When you "make fun" of a person, place or thing in order have fun, you are having negative fun. When you enjoy something that affirms yourself and others, or when in your hobby you build a model and thus create something for the world, you are having positive fun.

        Since your childhood you have known the difference between the two. The difference is a moral one. See Step Five of the Twelve Steps To Having Fun below. Be aware of this moral distinction as you continue with the restructuring of your life to a context of positive fun.

Fun-Raising Exercise        

        Call some persons you know and arrange to meet to have some fun without chemicals or harmful activities. Push yourself to do this. Raise some fun.

The Twelve Steps to Fun

 © 2003 by danmahony.com