Author: Ann Schiebert
For all of us on a journey to a healthy life, a life away from the RDS that caused us problems and emotional pain, the goal is a sustained Reality Clarity System and Intimacy Filled Pastiming. The RCS will allow you to see your past clearly and to identify the denial you have been unintentionally, embracing. Intimacy Filled Pastiming will help you make your RCS enjoyable.
We find a RCS and IFP at the heart of true intimacy. If we are in a denial system, it will defend against intimacy that doesn’t support the denial system. That means YOU can’t come first….ever! If I am trying to be intimate with someone who is smoking weed every day, any questions I might raise about the health and mental consequences of daily marijuana, will be met with responses that support that denial system….. for example, pot is, "natural, there are no long term effects, everybody does it!" Use of pot is defended.
But, if I raise questions about daily substance abuse, and the questions are met with curiosity and openness, there is a better chance for intimacy. However, when someone says they want to change, talk is cheap and BEHAVIOR says everything. For example, if the outcome of a conversation about daily marijuana use ends with promises of radically decreased use or going to treatment, and the promise is not met with follow through, then we HAVE to believe the behavior because the talk didn’t convert to action. AND, the substance use came first!
Those of us who have reached a RCS are clear about many of their values. If one of their values is not being in a relationship with an addict of any type because addicts comprised the RDS they left, then once it was discovered that a potential partner was smoking pot daily, that relationship potential would be abandoned.
Look for potential partners with like RCSes. In a RCS, promises are met with follow through, commitments are kept, YOU come first. This opens the door to intimacy. When one feels cared for, important to the other person, treated kindly, respected, then secrets about dreams, wishes, and aspirations are likely to be shared. Physical intimacy often follows. One of the best things in life is being held by someone we trust, love, respect, like and someone who shares our values and isn’t stuck defending a RDS with its concomitant demand for defense to keep it sustaining life.
More on this topic in upcoming posts.