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contact with it), Basic Fear (what the individual is driven to avoid at all costs because it reminds them of suffering they have already experienced as children), the passion or vice (the emotional habit the individual developed in response to closing down their heart and abandoning their true self) the mental fixation (or habit of mind that supports an individual in staying disconnected from themselves, others, and reality, and keeps them locked in repetitious suffering), the Inner Critic message (how an individual is compelled to judge themselves causing repetitious suffering), the Self-Concept (what an individual tries to be for others to suppress their own suffering). Let’s take a look at the Type Two. Their basic desire is to feel love, to be at one with love, or to be a source of love in the world. Their basic fear is of being loveless, that there is no love to be had. We call the Type Two the Helper, and she is driven by the conundrum of her basic desire and fear depending on her level of health. The healthier she is, the lighter she will hold these desires and fears. But the unhealthier she is, the more they will rule and run her blindly, like a puppet on their string. Riso and Hudson qualify this through their Levels of Development, which they divide into nine Levels. Levels 1-3 are the healthy levels, and here, due to inner work and/or an extremely healthy childhood, the Type Two is in contact with her loving nature, rejoices in it, shares it when appropriate, is generous, kind, creative, empathic, nurturing to self and others. Level 4-6 is called the average levels where most of humanity resides. It is here that the individual has lost contact with her deeper nature and is now driven by the engine of her basic desire and fear. The Two, feeling that there is no love in the world, tries to manufacture love through her loving acts. This intensification of effort to prove her lovingness and to create love around her increases when she moves down the Levels of health. This descent down the Levels reflects her deeper disconnection with herself and reality due to the undigested suffering she has experienced or is experiencing. Level 7-9, the Unhealthy range, describes the continued descent into illusion and mental illness. When Mary, a 25 year old woman struggling with alcohol addiction, entered treatment she easily identified herself as a Type Two. “I give until it hurts, and then I give some more.” In treatment she begins to see the trap of her personality. Each time it comes to identifying her need for help, she immediately begins talking about her boyfriend, a struggling heroin addict, and what he needs for 12 support. “He’s such a good guy and suffers so much. It’s not fair.” I remind her that her attention has moved to her boyfriend when asked about what she needs. She smiles, a trace of embarrassment flashing in her eyes. “It’s okay,” I say, “No need to get down on yourself. The mental habit of the Two is to think of others even when they need to be thinking of themselves. Many Twos report that when they think of their needs they feel selfish and unlovable.” She smiles again. “I don’t know if I can stop that. I think about him all the time. I’m not really sure I know how to think about myself. It seems like he needs a lot of help.” I reassure her. “It won’t happen overnight, but every time you can gently notice that you’ve moved your attention from your needs to his, from your life concerns and priorities to his, this will start to weaken the habit. As you know, people get sober who learn how to ask for help and receive help, and as a Two, this may feel like an impossible task. Right now you’re just trying to learn when and how you forget to notice and identify your primary needs, and instead focus on helping another. It will take time but it’s definitely learnable.” When individuals enter addiction recovery they are typically experiencing life at Level 6 or 7. For the Type Two it means that she will be gripped by the her basic fear that she is unlovable and unwanted, and that she must do something to change this immediately. Her entire sense of self-worth hedges on being seen as the loving one, acting as the loving one, and becoming indispensable to someone, which drives her to focus on another and completely lose contact with herself. This suffering is so acute that she can barely comprehend it (this is the nature of life at the lower levels -we are driven by feelings that are unconscious to us), except as a feeling of terrible loneliness and emptiness, which propels her into immediate action. She will be driven by pride, the emotional passion of the Two. This pride shows up in her as “I don’t need anything, but I can see that you have needs which I can help you with.” That is, her ability to sense her own needs disappears in this emotional habit. In addition, her mental fixation, ingratiation, will function such that she is wired to be always thinking of ways she can help those she loves or wants to love, or such that she is often drawn to over-complimenting others to endear them to her, or to at least insure she will not be abandoned by them. This is the machine of her personality, and it is alive and kicking at Level 6 and 7, with little room for her true nature to show up. Add to this her Inner Critic message: “I’m good or okay if I am loved by others and close to them,” meaning
I can’t hurt, upset or inconvenience anyone or I’m bad and unlovable. As Mary learns to ask for help, she notices that the help she receives, be it attention, compassion, or loving suggestions, makes her feel selfish, which she can’t bear for very long. “I feel so selfish when I receive anything. Like I’m a greedy person. I should be helping instead of asking for help! I see what he needs, why shouldn’t I help?!” I gently remind her that she is two weeks sober and her life in desperate straits. She begins to see that in the same breath that she receives help, she immediately starts planning how to help her boyfriend, when she is only barely surviving herself. This mechanism is fast and swift, mostly invisible to Mary, but with many patient reminders she will begin to see the mechanism at work and the underlying feelings driving the habit: her conviction that she is not lovable or wanted. It first arises as a compelling need to help another and to avoid the feelings of being selfish, and with time she will feel the core issue: I am unlovable and unwanted. The quick turn of attention to her boyfriend diverts the harsh sting of feeling selfish or unlovable. This habit has been her survival for enduring intractable suffering in her life. See if you can grasp the prison she is in. “There is no love so I must create it. I’m not really wanted so I must make myself indispensable. I’m bad if others get mad at me, don’t love me, or don’t want to be with me. I can’t sense my needs because I only see yours, which means I can’t experience lasting happiness or peace unless you are happy with me. I’m on empty all the time trying to fill myself with you. I can’t love others enough to get rid of the nagging feeling I’m not wanted.” This is the machine that runs her addiction to drugs, or to people. The belief and feeling that “I’m not loved, there is no love, I must produce the love” will be there throughout her recovery. It will be touched over and over again at deeper levels. It may arise after moments of great love and joy, or at the end of a romantic relationship. But arise it will. As Mary continues her treatment, her boyfriend breaks up with her. In less than a week she has found another ‘love,’ someone she cares about. Like a homing pigeon she has found a temporary home in another needy soul. As she learns to observe this process with compassion she will slowly sense the suffering of her basic 13 fear: being without love. As she learns to bear this feeling rather than transform it into another action of fear-driven kindness towards another, she will begin grief work, sensing into the wound that caused this mechanism. In time, through her tender grieving will arise the palpable sense of her own lovingness, her True Nature. This will begin her redemptive journey, sensing within her the love that she so longs for. But the habit of forgetting herself and tuning into others will not disappear quickly. When she thinks she’s finally understood it she will discover another layer still operating. With kindness and grace she will observe the speed of this mechanism, her tendency to try to love someone who cannot love her back, her need to redouble her efforts to save the wounded lover, with addiction calling to her at her most vulnerable moments. If she is aware of these Type Two patterns, develops eyes to see them, learns the Siren Call of these patterns, she will sit in the suffering, allow others to support her, digesting it such that the quality of her lovingness and sweetness begins to emerge and make its presence known. As she loves with less fear, she will love more deeply, and she will find those who can return her love. This is the adventure she has embarked upon, the redemption of her heart. Here’s the untold story that recovery circles have yet to grasp: the healthier she gets, the more she will by her personality habits, the more sharply and clearly she will begin to sense her deepest fear of being unlovable and unwanted. At year 5, 10, 15, 20 or 25 of her recovery, after much growth, she may feel it head-on and it will bring her to her knees. If she knows this in advance, she will get the help she needs and move through it. If she has no knowledge of this dynamic, she may feel that all her efforts were for nothing, that she has failed at what she cares about most. How could she be feeling so badly after all the work she’s put in over fifteen years of addiction recovery? In despair, she may relapse or develop a new addiction, or suicide. But being forewarned in understanding the stages of true spiritual growth as Riso/Hudson have so clearly described in , she will get the support she needs. The myth that sets many wonderful recovering folks up for the heart-rending return to addiction is that after a year or two, or ten, or fifteen of sobriety, their major suffering will have
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