The Sources of Pain

"The neurotic personality is one whose primitive instincts have been modified to meet social demands only with painful difficulty."  Karl Menninger

"Men and women drink because essentially they like the effect produced by alcohol.  The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after time differentiate the true from the false."  Big Book of AA

Boy, that sense that what I was doing was none too smart seems to be common in The Fellowship as is that sense that my drinking was pathological in some way.  Or aberrant,  a mistaken solution for my problems of unease and dis-ease.  Boy, did it work for a while.  I felt uncomfortable; I drank; I was at peace.  That is not the effect of consuming alcohol that a non-alcoholic would report.

"Suffering is like a disease we have all contracted.  To find the cure we must carefully identify the full scope of the disease: pain, change, and pervasive conditioning."  The Dali Lama

Pain I get.  Pretty straightforward: a headache or stubbing my toe or losing a loved one.  Change is a little more opaque: the idea that even things that bring me pleasure contain a kernel of pain at their core.  This is why a new television, something that brings me pleasure at the start, becomes tiresome and boring.  The pain is latent in the television.  

Pervasive conditioning? Way above my pain grade.