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   %CHALLENGE ADDICT SOCIETY SURVIVE INTEGRITY TRUE 930315

     The challenge  in an addictive society is to  survive
with personal integrity;  not just to survive.

     Most  people  in  an  addictive  society  survive  by
resorting to various defensive measures; including keeping
secrets, being less than open and honest, being deceptive,
being  outright  dishonest,   and  participating  in   the
collusive   games  of  mutual  self  deception  which  are
normative for  an addictive society with  its  codependent
supporters.    Such  defensive  measures  to  not  lead to
survival with personal integrity.

     To survive with integrity in an addictive society  we
must  learn how to be true to ourselves and to  each other
and  still survive.   This is made difficult by  the  fact
that the  participants  in  the collusive games of  mutual
self  deception  in  an addictive society  have  as  their
ultimate concern the survival of the apparent integrity of
their collusive games  of mutual self deception.   Anybody
who  threatens  the apparent integrity of their  collusive
games  of  mutual  self  deception is by  definition  "the
enemy" and is treated as such.

     If  you  are seeking to survive with integrity  in an
addictive society you are bound to threaten many  powerful
members of the society; they in turn are bound to threaten
you with disintegrative defensive measures.   The  dilemma
is how to  respond  to  their  disintegrative threats with
integrative   love.     Too   often   our   responses   to
disintegrative   threats  take  the  form   of  legalistic
lectures,  moralizing,   lessons  in  ethics, injunctions,
prohibitions,   taboos,  rules,  laws,   judgements,   and
excommunications.   Such responses  are disintegrative  of
both personal and communal integrity.

     Collusive  addicts  and their codependent  supporters
are uncomfortable  with people who are not like they  are;
so   they  are  uncomfortable  with  healthy   people   of
integrity.  They naturally want to make all people be like
them;   to  have  similar beliefs,  convictions,   ideals,
values, goals, attitudes,  desires  and  needs  which  are
unhealthy, dishonest, disintegrative, and blinding.  Their
behavior patterns  are  cleverly designed to  get  healthy
people to become as unhealthy as they are.

     What makes collusions, addictions and codependency so
insidious is that  our  instinctive  defenses against them
enmesh  us  in  them,   and  so  make  us  become   active
participants   in   them.     To  avoid   becoming  active
participants in them,  we need to understand in some  deep
way how our instinctive  defenses  against them lead to us
becoming enmeshed  in  them.   We cannot ignore  them  and
retain  our personal integrity,  because ignorance of them
leads  us  to become enmeshed in them.    Neither  can  we
cannot   become  compulsively  preoccupied with  them  and
retain   our   personal  integrity,   because   compulsive
preoccupation is part  of the process of becoming enmeshed
in  them.    To promote  communal   integrity,   education
regarding   the disintegrative ways  in which  collusions,
addictions   and  codependencies  function  should to   be
integrated  into our educational programs of all kinds for
all ages of citizens.
                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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