How Addiction Can Affect Self-Esteem
Our understanding of addiction is aided by these findings.
It is almost always the unconscious purpose of those who are hooked to alcohol, drugs, or destructive relationships to alleviate anxiety and anguish. Tranquilizers and anodynes are the drugs that humans get hooked to. Fear and suffering are the “enemy” that we are attempting to flee from.
The poison that is killing us drives us to consume more and more of the poison that is killing us when the ways we have selected do not work and make our issues worse.
Instead of being less scared than other human beings, addicts are really more fearful than normal human beings. Their discomfort is not lessened; rather, it is increased in intensity and duration. Self-esteem cannot be gained by excessive drinking or drugging, nor can it be obtained through unhealthy relationships. Through self-hatred inducing activities, we do not build up our own self-confidence.
A dangerous place to be if we don’t have faith in ourselves – whether it’s in our own efficacy or the kindness of our hearts.
Recognizing and Appreciating Our Own Worth
This does not rule out the possibility of reaching any genuine ideals in the future, though. In spite of having a negative self-perception, some of us may have the ability and motivation to do great things — for example, the extremely productive workaholic who is determined to show his or her value to, say, a parent who prophesied that they would amount to nothing.
However, it does imply that we will be less successful — and hence less creative — than we are capable of being, and that we will be hindered in our capacity to take pleasure in our accomplishments. “Enough” is never going to be a feeling we have.
If we have actual confidence in our own minds and values, if we feel safe in our own skin, we are more likely to see the world as available to us and to react correctly to challenges and opportunities that come our way. Individual self-esteem provides vitality, vigor, and motivation to others.
Having a sense of accomplishment motivates us to work harder and helps us to feel good about ourselves and our accomplishments. Our pleasure is enhanced as a result of this procedure.
A good feeling of one’s own worth, some authors today appear to suggest, is all that is required to ensure happiness and success in one’s life. More nuanced considerations are required.
More than one need exists in our lives, and there is no one answer to all of the issues that confront us.
A strong sense of one’s own identity is a necessary but not sufficient prerequisite for our overall well-being. Its absence does not guarantee satisfaction, but its absence ensures at least some level of tension, frustration, and hopelessness in the future.
It declares itself as a need due to the fact that its (relative) absence hampers our capacity to carry out our daily activities. Because of this, we consider it to be of survival importance.
And this has never been truer than it is right now! With the passage of time, self-esteem, which has always been a supremely essential psychological need, has also evolved into a supremely important economic need – an attribute required for adaptability in a world that is becoming more complicated, more difficult, and more competitive.
Resources for the Future in Psychological Resources
The transition from a manufacturing society to an information society, the shift from physical labor to mind-work as the dominant employee activity, and the emergence of a global economy characterized by rapid change, accelerating scientific and technological breakthroughs, and an unprecedented level of competitiveness, all necessitate higher levels of education and training than were previously required of previous generations of employees.
This is well known to everyone who is familiar with business culture. The fact that these advances also place new demands on our psychological resources is something that is not well appreciated at the moment.
To be more specific, these advancements need a larger capacity for creativity, autonomy, personal responsibility, and self-direction. Interestingly, this is a question that is posed not just “at the top,” but at every level of a company, from senior management to first-line supervisors and even entry-level employees.
Managing a contemporary corporation can no longer be accomplished by a small number of individuals who think and a large number of people who just do what they are told (the classic military command-and-control structure).
Organizations today require not only an unprecedentedly high level of knowledge and skill among all those who participate, but also a higher level of personal autonomy, self-reliance, self-trust, and the ability to take the initiative — in a word, a higher level of self-esteem — among all those who participate in them. This implies that individuals with a healthy sense of self-worth are now in high demand on a purely economic basis. This is a relatively recent phenomena in terms of historical contexts.
It is necessary to have high self-esteem in order to make wise decisions.
With more choices and opportunities than ever before, as well as frontiers of endless possibilities in every direction we turn, we demand a greater degree of personal liberty than we have ever experienced before.
This implies a larger need to exercise independent judgment, to nurture our own resources, and to accept personal responsibility for the choices, values, and behaviors that form our life; a higher need for self trust and self-reliance; and a stronger need for a reality-based confidence in oneself.
The larger the amount of choices and judgments we must make on a conscious level, the greater the urgency of our need for self-confidence.
When we have faith in the effectiveness of our brains — when we have faith in our abilities to think, learn, and comprehend — we are more likely to persist when confronted with difficult or complicated tasks.
After months of perseverance, we are more likely than not to achieve success, which confirms and reinforces our belief in our own abilities. As long as we are skeptical of our own abilities and lack confidence in what we are doing, we are more likely to quit up than we are to continue working hard. When we give up, we fail more frequently than we succeed, which confirms and reinforces our poor self-perception.
Self-esteem is stimulated by challenging objectives, and achieving challenging goals helps to maintain positive self-esteem. The safety of the familiar and undemanding is sought for by those with low self-esteem, yet restricting oneself to the familiar and undemanding only helps to further erode one’s self-esteem.
Higher our self-esteem, the more prepared we are to deal with adversity in our vocations or personal lives; the faster we are to pick ourselves up after a fall; and the more energy we have to start again from the bottom up.
Because we have better self-esteem, we tend to be more ambitious in life, not necessarily in terms of a profession or financial success, but in terms of the emotional, artistic, and spiritual experiences we want to have. We must reduce our self-esteem in order to be happy and fulfilled.
How Addiction Can Affect Self-Esteem
We are attracted to those whose self-esteem level is similar to our own.
One of the most essential principles of human relationships is that we tend to feel most comfortable, most “at home,” with others whose degree of self-esteem is similar to our own level. Persons with high self-esteem are more likely to be attracted to other individuals with high self-esteem.
Persons with a moderate sense of self-worth are often attracted to other individuals with a moderate sense of self-worth. Low self-esteem seeks out other people who have low self-esteem. The most destructive partnerships are those that develop between two people who have low self-esteem; the marriage of two abysses does not result in a mountain of success.
As I write this, I’m thinking of a lady I previously treated who grew up believing she was “evil” and hence unworthy of care and respect, much alone happiness. He “knew” he was unlovable and was consumed by self-hatred, which led to her marriage to him.
It was via being nasty to others that he shielded himself from the possibility of others being harsh to him. The fact that she didn’t protest about his violence was due to her “knowing” that abuse was in her future. He wasn’t startled by her growing retreat and distance from him, since he “knew” that no one could ever love him in the first place.
After twenty years of pain together, they had “shown” to themselves and to the world how correct they were about themselves and about life.
When I said to my wife that she had not experienced much pleasure, she stared at me with wide eyes and asked, “Do individuals ever experience true bliss?”
The stronger our self-esteem, the more likely we are to treat others with respect, compassion, good will, and justice — because we do not view them as a danger, and since self-respect is the cornerstone of respect for others — because we do not perceive them as a threat.
The Ticking Timebomb of Low Self-Esteem
While having low self-esteem may significantly restrict an individual’s objectives and achievements, the consequences of having low self-esteem might not often seem to be immediately apparent. Occasionally, the repercussions manifest themselves in a more indirect manner.
For years, the time-bomb of a negative self-concept may tick quietly in the background, while a person motivated by a desire for achievement and exercising actual talent may climb the ranks of his or her field. Then, without any real justification, he begins to cut corners, both ethically and legally, in his zeal to present ever more spectacular exhibitions of his mastery of the art.
And after that, he continues to commit ever more egregious sins, telling himself that he is “beyond good and evil/’ as if daring the gods to bring him to justice again. We only realize how long he has been working ceaselessly toward the last act of an unconscious lifescript that he may have began writing at the age of three when his life and career implode in humiliation and destruction at the conclusion of the film.
Self-Efficacy and Self-Respect are two important aspects of one’s self.
There are two dimensions to one’s self-esteem that are interconnected:
1. A feeling of one’s own ability to succeed (self-efficacy)
2. A strong conviction of one’s own value (self-respect).
It is the combined total of these two components when considered as a fully formed psychological experience.
In terms of self-efficacy, it refers to the belief in the functioning of my mind and my ability to think, as well as the processes by which I judge, choose, and decide; belief in my ability to comprehend facts of reality that fall within the sphere of my interests and needs; and cognitive self-reliance.
Assuring my own worth, having a positive attitude toward my right to exist and be happy, feeling comfortable in expressing my views, wishes, and needs in the proper manner are all signs of self-respect. It also implies believing that happiness is my natural inheritance.
Consider the fact that if a person felt insufficient to meet the problems of life, if a person lacked basic selftrust and confidence in his or her own judgment, we would notice the existence of a self-esteem shortfall, regardless of what other assets he or she had.
Alternatively, if an individual lacked a fundamental sense of self-respect, felt unworthy or undeserving of the love or respect of others, felt unentitled to happiness, or was fearful of asserting thoughts, wants, or needs, we would recognize a lack of self-esteem, regardless of the presence of other positive characteristics in his or her personality profile.
The Two Fundamental Elements of Self-Esteem
Self-efficacy and self-respect are the two cornerstones of good self-esteem, and they work together to promote both. Self-esteem suffers as a result of a lack of either. The fact that they are basic is what makes them the defining traits of the word. They do not express self-esteem in its derivative or secondary connotations, but rather in its core.
The experience of self-efficacy generates the sense of control over one’s life that we associate with psychological well-being, as well as the sense of being at the vital center of one’s existence — as opposed to being a passive spectator or a victim of events — and is associated with psychological well-being.
It is possible to have a positive, non-neurotic sense of community with other people, the fellowship of independence and mutual regard — as opposed to either alienated estrangement from the human race on the one hand, or mindless submersion into a tribe on the other — when one has experienced self-respect for oneself.
There will inevitability be swings in self-esteem levels inside a particular individual, just as there would be oscillations in all other psychological states as well. We must consider a person’s overall degree of self-esteem while evaluating him or her.
What does it feel like to have high self-esteem?
While we often refer to self-esteem as a belief in one’s own abilities, it is more correct to refer to it as a tendency to experience one’s own abilities in a specific manner. Which direction do you want to go?
To summarize: 1. One believes one is essentially capable of dealing with the challenges of life; as a result, one has faith in one’s own intellect and its processes; one has self-efficacy.
2. As someone who is deserving of success and happiness; as a result, the perception of oneself as someone to whom achievement, success, respect, friendship, and love are acceptable; self-respect; self-esteem
In a nutshell, self-esteem is the disposition to see oneself as capable of coping with the challenges of life and as worthy of pleasure. To put it another way, it is the disposition to believe oneself to be deserving of happiness.
