The Spackle Theory

So here is the main premise for my blog, web site, the name of my book and the ministry that I would eventually like to get started. It all is based on this and this only. It is what I call Spiritual Spackle, and it includes the Spackle Theory that I have come up with. It has been of vital importance in my new life and my recovery.

Before I get into the Spackle Theory, I want to relate a story from my addiction. When I was younger I was living in a house that I was buying. I was a full blown alcoholic at the time, and I did not really think things through well. That will be evident by the end of this story, probably sooner. I think that I was in a verbal disagreement with my then girlfriend, and I went outside in a huff. When I got outside, I guess that I figured throwing a tantrum and hitting an inanimate object would solve everything.

So, without thinking I punched the side of my house twice. My house was older, and it had wooden siding. When I punched the siding, I put two holes in the side of my house. Obviously, this solved nothing. In actuality, it caused what should have been a much bigger problem. Now, instead of just being in an argument with my girlfriend, I had structural damage to my house.

Luckily, since I was a thinker back then, I had an incredible idea of how to fix the holes. I instantly went inside my house and grabbed duct tape. Presto, problem solved. I no longer had two holes in my outside wall. Instead, I had the eye sore of shiny silver duct tape covering the two holes in my tan colored wall on my house. I did this, and stepped back from the wall thorougly satisfied. I thought that the problem was fixed.

I left the house that way for several years, holes covered with duct tape. The issues did not really present itself again until several years later when I moved. I took the duct tape off of the wall so that I could see what it would take to fix it. It was no longer two holes the size of my fist, but was now two places that were a foot each of soggy and cracked wood. Worse yet was the sheet rock behind the holes. The sheetrock was moldy and water stained from where it had gotten wet and then dried.

In short, the wall that I thought had been covered up and protected was damaged horribly. Just because I could no longer see the hole or the damage that was done does not mean that it was better and the problem no longer existed. Instead, it had continued to be a gaping hole and did nothing but deteriorate and get worse even though it was covered and unseen.

Now what I want you to do is imagine that the issues you have are rain. My fist in this story is trauma that you experience over the course of your life. Finally, the outside wall of my house is representative of your soul. As traumatic things happen to you, they create holes in your soul. These holes are emotional, spiritual and psychological in nature and are created by sexual, physical and emotional abuse. These are the things that hurt you. This is how the major craters that are created in our lives occur.

We get filled with this pain, and it creates emotional and psychological stress. This stress is then turned into anger, depression, anxiety, self-sabotage and guilt; all of which can turn into shame. Our self-esteem dwindles and any positivity that we once had is reduced to negativity and self-loathing. I could go on and on with this description, but I will instead break it down to two words - WE HURT!

So there I am hurt. I discover that when I hurt all I have to do is insert method of escape here. Whether I am a drinker, drug user, gambler, cutter, co-dependent, have an eating disorder or engage in retail therapy (shopping) I can escape from my past. If I like to sleep around, save others by playing superman/woman or I am the perfect candidate for anger management classes I will do the same thing. I will use those things so that I can feel better about myself or numb myself to the pain that I feel. I will use my method to not hurt. It may be fleeting, only lasting minutes or hours, but it will make the hurt go away for a while.

Unfortunately, this method of escaping hurt that we use is a lot like the duct tape in my example at the beginning of this. It may cover the damage on the surface, but what is happening underneath it all? If my best friend slept with the person that I am married to, my grandfather abused me or I was always told that I was no good do my methods of coping really fix the problem?

Of course not, at best it is a temporary solution to a problem that is sure to reoccur. And reoccur it will. The worst part of using duct tape to cover the problem is that there is the illusion that it is better. The reality is that the problem is getting worse and worse underneath. We continue to deteriorate, we continue to beat ourselves up about the past. We dwell on things that we can not change instead of working through them. We do not allow ourselves to grieve what happened to us because we try to act like it did not happen or that we are better.

The truth of the matter is that we never give ourselves the chance to work through our past hurts and hang ups because we do not face them. Every time that they come up, we use our preferred method of escape to avoid them. We cause ourselves untold amounts of depression and anxiety because of the traumas of our past and numbing and ignoring it does us no lasting good. It just mires us in the victim role and we never reach the survivor stage, let alone advance to being a thriver.

Unfortunately, perception for us is reality. Our reality believes that if we do not feel it, that it is better. Our reality eventually learns that by using, we do not have to feel ever. If I can stay self-medicated, I never have to feel hurt again. I am insulated from what others can do to me. No matter what they do, I do not have to feel it. Our reality keeps us sick and insures that our cycle of addiction is never broken.

That false sense of what is true becomes more and more distorted. It eventually reaches the point where we begin to believe that the problem is taken care of. We walk around angry, ashamed, depressed, anxiety-ridden and begin to push those who care about us away.

“But I am better,” we claim.

Just because we claim that there is no problem does not mean that the previous issues become nonexistant. If it rains and I tell you that it is not water coming down on us, does that mean we  won’t get wet. Of course not! Just because there was duct tape on my outside wall, it did not mean that the rain was not still affecting the damage that was already done and making it worse. If it is covered over that does not mean that it is fixed. In order for us to overcome our past, we need to admit it, allow for the grieving process and then heal. Only then can we learn from it and use it to make us stronger and wiser.

There are three stages we can be in due to our past trauma. The first is the victim, who is still stuck in the past and allows the past to hurt them constantly. Then we have the survivor, who has accepted that the past has happened but locks it away and does not really deal with it. Both of these people will be prone to using their preferred methods of coping.

The victim at least acknowledges the pain, but they do not feel they have any control or power to fix it. The survivor is much like the person who has the tiger by the tail and feels like they have succeeded. At any moment that lion can turn around and take a huge bite out of them. Much like the minute that our method of artificially coping goes from being occasional to the focus of our lives.

Lastly we have the thriver role. This is where we want to be. This is the person who not ony accepts what happened to them, but processes it and works it out. It may have been horrific and unfair, but we realize that nothing we can take, do or say will change the fact that it happened. Instead we use what happened to make us first stronger and wiser. But, we do not stop there. We then use what happened in our lives to help others who are hurting and suffering. We give them hope by sharing our experiences and how we have grown from them.

So, what allows us to grow from our past? What do we do to fix the holes that life leaves in us? What is there that was made for that purpose? We need to find something that comforts us and fills those holes instead of just covering them up. Otherwise, we will continue to rely on our traditional methods of escape. I do not want to escape the hurt, I want to learn from it and grow. How about you? Do you want to be defeated by your past, or do you want to work through it so that you can be stronger and wiser?

The Holy Spirit is the one thing that can fix those holes. It is comparable to spackle. Spackle is a substance that is used to fix holes and cracks in walls. The Holy Spirit is the spiritual equivalant of spackle. What spackle is able to do for a wall the Holy Spirit is able to do for our lives! It can allow us to be guided towards happiness. It can give us the comfort that we have never felt from our methods of escaping and numbing. See the blog at: http://spiritualspackle.blogspot.com/2011/05/holy-spirit.html to read about the power the Holy Spirit possesses!