I really never thought much about the personal life of Whitney Houston.   I only really thought about her great talent, her music that would stick with me for days – her public life.  We take for granted that musicians, actors, and “famous” people may give up their private lives for the sake of their career.  I am not just talking about tabloids and photos.  I am saying that they may not feel like they have a personal life.  Their public life has taken over.  Addiction may be an unfortunate way to feel a “private” life, a “secret” life where they can “be themselves” and do things that they know the world would not be proud of.  There is a certain denial (unawareness) we the fans have towards the famous as we watch them die from addiction.  Do we intervene and have an intervention that would say, we love you, we love your talents, but we can not contribute to watching you dies from this disease.  If addiction and rehab are mentions it comes across as shaming.  The addictive artist then respond by having to defend themselves. 

 We are too used to the tabloid exposing and shaming they entry into treatment.   

We don’t really think about what the personal life of stars must be.  I mean, really be like.  Do they really ever feel like the have a private life.  Does there talent compell them.  Is there a sacrifice of one’s personal life when one is successful?  I am not just talking about the media crowding in.  I am talking about how does one live a normal life when you are that successful.  Each of us may have a calling or mission of some sort.  But most of us is not that talented or driven to succeed as only a few.  Those few seem to struggle so.

Great talent, a world that adores you and great strength seems to be of no help for one who struggles with addiction.  It is quite sad that there isn’t a way to make someone stop taking drugs.  This is a disease that can only be arrested by the person themself.  One has to ask what caused this?  Was the pressure too much? Was her talent part of the problem? Think of the adoring fans.  To leave that behind, what would that be like?  Once you have the much popularity, then what?  Can you just live a normal life like everyone else or are you compelled to succeed? It the addiction to drugs to balance out the success? 

This news makes me all the more committed to try to be part of the solution in people’s lives who struggle with addiction.  It make me consider about the balance between our private lives and our public selves.  May God have mercy on Whitney and on us all.

Erik

But her personal life.  The personal life of stars I usually avoid because I don’t want to hear of the details that you usually don’t sound so good. Addiction. Broken relationships. Weight loss or Weight gain.  Depression.  Is there a sacrifice of one’s personal life when one is successful?  I am not just talking about the media crowding in.  I am talking about how does one live a normal life when you are that successful.  Each of us may have a calling or mission of some sort.  But most of us is not that talented or driven to succeed as only a few.  Those few seem to struggle so.

Great talent, a world that adores you and great strength seems to be of no help for one who struggles with addiction.  It is quite sad that there isn’t a way to make someone stop taking drugs.  This is a disease that can only be arrested by the person themself.  One has to ask what caused this?  Was the pressure too much? Was her talent part of the problem? Think of the adoring fans.  To leave that behind, what would that be like?  Once you have the much popularity, then what?  Can you just live a normal life like everyone else or are you compelled to succeed? It the addiction to drugs to balance out the success? 

This news makes me all the more committed to try to be part of the solution in people’s lives who struggle with addiction.  It make me consider about the balance between our private lives and our public selves.  May God have mercy on Whitney and on us all.

Erik

Remember the experience of the teeter-totter or see-saw as a child?  You almost had to get on at the same time.  You would each push off the ground and then let your weight bring you back down.  When this got boring, we would jump higher or less to change the speed.  We would then lean back farther or lean forward and that would change the dynamics.  We would even jump off or pretend to jump off which would jolt them.   We could even walk on it standing up moving towards the fulcrum.  Little did we realize we were getting a lesson in physics, let alone a lesson in family dynamics.

The addictive relationship has many qualities that are similar to a teeter-totter.  The jumping off or the pretending to hop off is like the threats or “ promises” we make to the addict in our life.  It creates a disturbance, but still there is a strange equilibrium to the rleationship.   The dynamics of . . . ”what I do affects you greatly” is present in the addictive relationship.

If this be true, then can a codependent get recovery whether or not the addict does and not, and can this “greatly affect” the relationship for good?  I see people come into the therapy office whose lives have been affected by addicts and we focus on their half of the relationship.  Does this work?  Many say that you can really do anthing to change the addict, they have to want to change.  This is true.  We can’t change the addict, but we can change ourselves and our ways of relating to them. 

The See-Saw or the Teetor-Totter.  I like the expression Teetor-Totter because many of us have probably felt that we were teetoring on the edge.  Life seems so unstable in many ways.  Yet, in a strange way, the dysfunction is pretty predictable and also stable in a dysfunctional way.  We seemed rooted in it and to try to get out of it can seem overwhelming.

The balanced relationship (non-addictive, healthy) is where both people share the responsibility of the relationship.  Each person has their own weight to care.  It can be shared from time to time, but not taken from each other.  There really is no fixing, but an understanding that their side of the teeter-totter carries its own weight (responsibility).  Both have about the same care, love and concern for the other.  There is no pushing to changing the other person.  One may give a little and the other reciprocates.   It is not forced, but it just flows.  It moves freely and each partner pushes or works just enough to allow themselves to go up while the other goes down.  The movement is predictable and understandable.

We all have our ups and downs.  In a healthy relationship we don’t really try to stop ourselves from having the ups and downs –we go with the flow.  There is always a movement.  Some up or down. 

Stepping off the teeter totter

As you probably know from your experience with teeter totters, you begin to realize that if you jump off the other person comes tumbling down to the ground.  This is funny at first, and it makes the experience quite different.  This is how it is when we have an imbalanced relationship with an addict.

We begin to feel unappreciated.  We work too much.  We think too much.  We feel too much and so we’ve had it, we jump off and let them fall to the ground. At this point we are feeling self righteous.  We feel justified in our anger, we really don’t see how jumping off isn’t really helpful to ourselves or to them.  There is such a clamour when the other person has fallen off, this is all that the addict sees. 

When we see that the other person has fallen down or has fallen off of the teeter-totter, without our influence, but just from the drug/behavior itself, we can feel many things.

We start to feel little bit guilty after we see them falling down.  We may have asked them to leave the house.  We may have made threats because we really can’t live with the guilt and we feel the sensation of our side of the teeter totter swinging outward, we can’t help but want to jump on the teeter totter again to balance the relationship.  But little did we realize we were doing what we’ve always done which is fixing, thinking and feeling for what the other person has done.  It doesn’t work.  We do this over and over, thinking that this time it’ll be different.  Sometimes the teeter totter swings up and down really fast. Sometimes it’s really slow and we can see it happening.  Sometimes is moves fast and creates high drama, which is actually like a drug.  We avoid our own feelings numbing them with the drama. 

Sometimes we catch them and we prevent them from falling.  This may be giving them money.  This may be fixing their emotional pain.  This may be fixing legal problems, but the result is always the same: we stopped them from falling.  We do this because we hate to see them fall, were compassionate and ultimately their fall may affect us.  So the control continues. 

Notice that both the codependent and the addict are into fixes.  The addict says, “I need a fix” to “fix only the temporary problem.  It is really a temporary “fix.”  It is not going to “fix” the whole problem.  The codependent catching someone is only going to provide them from a temporary fix from how bad they feel about the situation.  A solution is what is going to help people ultimately–not fixes.

We put a pillow under their fall

This is similar to “catching them” from falling, but it doesn’t feel like we are enabling as much or fixing as much.  We are not catching them, we are just putting a pillow under their fall to make it lighter and softer.   This would be more like bailing them out after they’ve fallen.  We let them go to jail but then we bail them out.   They come to our door needing help, food, and comfort.  This may be providing legal support.  It is whatever we do, that cushions their landing.  No one wants to see someone suffer, but for some addicts it is the only way for them to experience recovery.  So we are actually preventing their recovery.  Whether addicts or codependents, we are not comfortable with feelings. 

Some kinds of addiction really affect both the addict and the codependent virulently.  Just as it is difficult for the addict to say “no” to the drug of choice, the codependent may even have a more difficult time saying “no” to the addict.  They are obsessed with what the addict is doing and constantly is calling or texting up on the addict.  (I am coining a new term here, texting+checking up=texting up)  Addiction has an element of getting a quick response from our efforts.  The quicker the effect of the substance/behavior the more addictive it is.  Smoking a substance is more addictive in that it gets to the brain faster.  Gambling games with quicker feedback are more addiction (slots are more addictive then playing the state lottery).  Sexual addiction that involves high speed internet porn has become more addictive than when one went to the porn store across town and had to find a place to view it.  So texting is becoming more and more addictive in that it is instant and impulsive feedback. 

It may help to realize that we are not saying no to the addict so much as we are saying “no” to the addiction in general.  This means we may not be able to give them any more, housing, or emotional support. 

There are relationships with the addict (or the addiction they itself) manipulates very powerfully the codependent to bail them out and to take care of them, to give them money and to do their emotional work for them.  As the addict drops their emotional responses to the world, the coaddict or codependent picks up their emotional work and them begins to have more motivation than the addict does.

There is a joke that says, “What does a codependent and God both have in common? . . . . .a plan for your life.”

God is healthy enough to make his optional.  The codependent doesn’t realize that they are compelled to think, feel and take care of the addict.  Entering into a program of recovery for both the addict and the codependent is essential if they are going to make any long term change.  A new equilibrium can be established, but it takes effort on our part and the Grace and power of God to aquire this.

Humility is key to any growth. A wise man said, “The humble make progress.” Is there any time in my life where I have made progress without it. No. I can’t think of any.

The phrase, “The end of myself is the beginning of the Grace of God,” comes to me this evening. I have been pondering it awhile. You see, I have to come to the end of myself to make progress it seems. I have to run out of my ideas of what is right or wrong and my theories. But understanding is not enough. I don’t have the power to change some things in my life. Addiction is one clear example of how powerless we really are. If you haven’t experienced addiction, good for you. But those who have can testify that they really are powerless to stop. The paradox is that they have to come to the end of themselves to say that. Those who still feel that they are in charge and in control–that these are simple choices that they make, can’t say they are powerless over alcohol, sex, spending, gambling, overeating, and certain emotions. Maybe they aren’t addicted. But if they are and don’t know it, admitting powerlessness is like stepping down. Stepping downward from the belief that they have the power to change themselves.

Humility is coming to the end. It is the bottom in many ways.

Humility is realizing that one cannot stop.

Humility is running out of steam.

Humility is realizing that we are human, we are from the ground, humus. It is a proper understanding of who and where we really are.

Humility is understanding that one is afflicted with sin, just like everyone else.
The humble are not shocked when they sin. I don’t mean that they aren’t remorseful. No. But the humble are not shocked at their mistakes and sins for they undestand the illness that afflicts them. They understand that when something amazingly good happens, it is by the Grace of God and not anything in themselves.

The humble are not shocked when someone else sins.  They do not judge.  There is no sense of “how could they do that?” for they understand and experience the phrase, “But for the Grace of God, there go I.”

The humble are not attached to their own ideas, because they understand that their thinking is flawed and needs correction.

The humble and meek are exalted and receive the Grace of God. (The Gospel of Luke, Mary the Mother of Jesus says this after receiving word that she will bear the Son of God) She emptied herself and her life, thus giving us Jesus who gives us eternal life. If we empty ourselves out of pride, control and arrogance, we will have Christ formed in us.

Most of us are humbled rather than living in humility.  We are humbled at an offense, a slight, and something not going the way we want.  Perhaps not everyone is humbled, but the opportunity is certainly there.  Illness is a great opportunity for humility.  We can bearly move, or breath or think when we are sick.  We can see that if we do anything great, we understand that it is and is only by the Grace of God.

So, I must decrease so He can increase.

God help us all.

Erik

We hear a lot today about neurotranmitters:  Serotonin, Noripinephrine, Dopmine, and GABA (gamma-amino-butryric-acid).  But there are  alot more.  It is estimated that there are 100-200 different neurotransmitters.  We only know about 60 of them and of those 60, we only deal with about 4.  So, the picture is much bigger than we are seeing. 

Serotonin being inhibitory slows thoughts (neurocircuits) down.  The serotonergic system is activated when we are stressed out.  With less serotonin, you will become overly anxious, or burned out.  What affects serotonin?

How does this affect recovery?  Well, a lot of people have self medicated because they have this serotonin deficiency.  They look for ways to calm down.  They look for ways of calming down thoughts, worrys and resentments.

What helps Serotonin increase.  A couple of things we know that help are sleep and nutrition.   

Sleeping in delta sleep (deepest, hard, dreamless sleep) might help us reabsorb serotonin.  Brain neurogenesis (growing brain cells) might be happening as well.  We don’t absolutely know, but we suspect this.

Supplements:  L-Tryptophan – amino acid that is the nutritional building block of serotonin.  This is the metabolic chain that occurs.

L-Tryptophan converts to 5HTP, which then converts to Serotonin.  This eventual helps the process of Melatonin (affects sleep).  Vitamin B₆ is needed for this whole process.  Vitamin B₆ hits the same receptor sites that Valium and other anti-anxiety drugs effect. 

L-Tryptophan is one of the building blocks of Serotonin

I am not a physician, nor is this intended to be medical treatment, but this information can be helpful to you to help you with a lack of serotonin in your life.

Lack of serotonin can be associated with worry, obsessive thinking, stress, anxiety and depression.  Supplementing with L-Tryptophan or 5HTP can be helpful.  There was a scare with L-Tryptophan a long time ago.  It was taken off the market.  The gist of it was that a company in Japan was manufacturing it and a batch got tainted with something that caused eosinophilia-myalgia.  Some deaths were reported, the FDA took it off the market.  Some feel that Prozac coming out the very next day had some influence.  Most say that it was not the L-Tryptophan itself, but it got tainted.  The FDA later put it back on the market.  Supporters of L-Tryptophan say that the same logic would have taken beef, orange juice, spinach off the market because it was tainted and caused some problems.  Now people feel that L-Tryptophan is really safe because of the scandal.  There is some research that would indicated that it might be a genetic link with the Tryptophan itself.   Anyway, you can sort through the information.  The thing is that many deaths are caused by prescription medication every year.  We live with this understanding and take reasonable risk.  Very few if any deaths have been reported by taking supplements.  Yet, we are so nervous about them, mostly because doctors might not be aware of them and their use. 

Here is an except from a book, I recommend, The UntraMind Solution by Dr. Mark Hyman:

http://books.google.com/books?id=7p6kePqjZcQC&lpg=PT129&ots=yl3_9oZGkQ&dq=ultramind%20solution%20tryptophan&pg=PT127&output=embed

There is more to say, but this is a good start for now. 

Have a great day in recovery and stay safe.

Erik Bohlin, M.A.

My reason for being there in this moment was to celebrated my daughter’s next step. A gift of the quote was given to me as I walked out. I was well aware of Emerson’s quotes as I studied American literature quite intensely when I was junior in high school. I don’t recall hearing this. Maybe it was there but I was not ready to hear it yet.

How much of my life has been about what has lied behind me? How much fear and anxiety has affected my life because of what was to lie before me. Tiny matters are these things compared to what lies within me. Every situation I find myself in where I am disturbed by the past or the future where I have found freedom, a passageway out, has been when I focused on what or rather Who was within me. I was tempted to worry about my daughter’s safety as she celebrated her achievement as my mind was turned to the many stories of seniors dying on the graduation night. Of course there was no party, no drugs or alcohol that I was aware of, but just a movie with some friends which past the normal limits of bedtime. Perhaps this was a necessary expression of her moving beyond the limits of her life as it had been in the last chapter and her turning the page to the new. I put her in God’s hands and realized that letting go is an important gift we give our son’s and daughters.

I was also tempted to worry about my parent’s health. Who doesn’t when we see the parents who gave us life begin to experience the effects of aging. We worry that they will be okay. I had to let go of them as well and give them over to God’s care. To not is to be controlling. And do we really have that much control? It is an illusion, but a strong enough one to keep God’s grace from effectively working in the situation. So, I surrendered and I found peace. Peace enough to sleep until my daughter called me at about 2am to tell me she gotten home from the outing to her best friend’s house to spend the night. I went back to bed.

The next morning, I found the day beginning before I was ready to begin it. My son was off to school. I was off to visit my parents who had stayed at a nearby hotel. Breakfast was again an opportunity to surrender and to let go and let God. These are tiny matters – past and future- compared to what lies within us. The present moment. The place where God comes to meet with us. I am still learning to live in the moment and to discover what God is doing in me. Thank you Mr. Emerson for this quote of encouragement.

Fear is about the future.  Anger is about the present.  Resentment is about the past.  The future we really can’t control.  The past we can’t change.  The present is where we really live.  Fearing the future and resenting the past can really affect our present and squeeze the life out of it.   When we experience fear, we avoiding the moment now.  Now there are times when we do have fear and it is about something happening right this minute, for instance we may have fear of a rattlesnake or of heights.  But the fear we need to avoid with in recovery is the fear of what is going to happen next.  Usually called anxiety.  Addicts many times have anxiety and fear which is so strong and intense it propells them into using.  So is it our true personality that cause us to worry so much?  or is the addiction trying to get us to relapse by becoming an inner terrorist.  We worry what people think of us.  We are afraid of failing.  Afraid of relapsing.  Afraid of how we are going to handle a financial or legal problem.  We have fear of feeling in general.

These deadly three, fear, anger and resentment really boil down to selfishness in the past, present and fear.

Fear:  ”I am afraid I am not going to get what I want.” (future) “I am afraid of what is going to happen.”  ”I want things to go the way I want them.”

Anger:  ”I am not getting what I want now.” (present)  ”That is not fair.”  ”I want what I want now.”

Resentment:  ”I am upset I didn’t get what I wanted.”  (past)

Anger is typically about the present.  We get anger so easily.  Things don’t go our way.  We want things how we want things and we get angry if it doesn’t happen our way.  Yes, we could have a righteous anger about an injustice done to someone else, but this can still lead us to using our drug of choice again.  We have be so careful about anger.  We get angry in an AA or NA meeting when someone says something that makes us upset.  If we hold on to it, we can end up leaving in a huff and without us knowing it seeking our first relapse.  We might ask us what is behind our anger?  Are we embarrassed, scared, powerless, hungry, or tired?  Do we feel misunderstood or judged?  Do we see an injustice and feel that things aren’t fair?  Do we use anger to try and control a situation, in essence to get what we want, to manipulate and control?  Letting go is really a practical tool in any program of recovery.   But it is more than that.  It is a spiritual discipline.

What about anger in the past?  Well, it gets a separate category.  Resentment.  Resentment is holding to anger from the past.  It is a grudge, a judgement.  It is like a booger.  The more you try to flick it onto someone else the more it sticks to you.  Sorry for the crass example, but it is pretty true.  Resentment will result in spiritual death.  One can not be in a state of forgiveness of the wrongs they have done, while holding on to the past wrongs of others.  Now, before you panic and wonder how you will ever get past resentment, let me tell you that is like an addiction itself.  You may be powerless over it.  Not helpless but it is more powerful than you.  It makes you temporarily insane.  Just enough so that you go out and use.  But. . .you can admit powerlessness over resentment and your life has become unmanageable at the moment.  You can pray for it to leave you like you would a vice and ask for the virtures of acceptance and gratefullness.  You can also do a 4th step on it in the 12 step tradition of AA.  This is really powerful and helpful in preventing future resentments because there are underlying character defects that are what attracts the resentment.

For instance, you might be resentful that you spouse doesn’t understand how bad things are for you.  Your pain, suffering, how hard it is to stay sober.  While this is understandable at some level, 12 steps moves us to a higher plane.  We might be resentful because we are really immature.  We want everyone to understand us.  Is this practical or even achieveable?  Perhaps we are self-centered or selfish.  Maybe we are too sensitive.  We feel things so deeply so we demand that people empathize with us.  Maybe we are controlling and what people to read the script we have written and to play the part our way.  “Work with me” we say to the people around us.  As long as I keep these defects of character, I will be attracting resentment in my life.  Instead, I might need to be praying for more toughness (less sensitivity), for acceptance and understanding of others, and our egos to be deflated.

So keeping fear, anger and resentment far from you will help you stay away from using your drug of choice.  Sobriety means to feel feelings, to see realistically and to hear what is really being said.  In essence to experience life with less distortion.  Drunk or high doesn’t help us see what is really going on.  Nor does being fearful, angry and resentful.  These emotions tend to cause us inebriation of another kind.  Some kind of dysphoria.  The oppositie of euphoria.  They call this a dry-bender or a dry drunk experience.

Solution:  For fear, we we must ask for courage.  We must face the future with hope.  Faith in a power greater than us, that is God, is Who pulls us out of the mire of addiction. The solution for anger is to pray for mild reactions and to see the whole picture.  Everyone has a history which causes them to do the things they do in the present.  The person I am angry at may not be actually trying to hurt me.  They are acting the best way they know how to act.  Praying for them, as mentions in the AA Big Book, will change your experience.  The solution for resentment is to pray for forgiveness, to ask God to dissolved the past hurt and to give you freedom from it.  Resentment kills.

It is important to know that the spiritual program of recovery is truly a way out.  It really does work if you work it.

Don\’t buy stuff you can\’t afford 

Amazing Program to help you deal with debt.

This is pretty funny, but really common.  Look at our government.  They set up programs we cannot afford.  I know that is is more complex than that, but the attitude is still there.  Do you hear any of the government leaders concerned about the amount of debt or tax they are creating?

Any family is like a little government.  The parents need to be on the same page if they can.

I was amazed at their exhilaration and amazement that they had done it.  What joy and huge quantum leap that took place for them.  They for years never thought they would do such a thing and now they are doing it.  It made me think about my own life, weight issues and all, how I might be holding me back from doing something I wanted to do.

I waited for the new Biggest Loser Season to start on 1-4-2010.  I saw what the pain of their addiction to food caused them.  Most of them had scene the program and had already been inspired what they saw to take the next step apply to be a contestant.  When selected they were to do their first weigh-in in front of the peers, neighbors, friends, family in their home town.  It was amazing.  How  shaming and deshaming at the same time.  People were gasping at their excess weight but also cheering them on for their determination and bravery.   They were crying and humilated, but hopeful and exhilarated because they were taking a hug step (no pun intended) to freedom.  They knew it was going to hurt and be the toughest thing in their life.

How many lessons in all this there is for recovery.  We have to get to a place where we don’t care so much about saving face.  There is a phrase in 12 steps.  “You can’t save your face and your ass at the same time.”  (sorry for the colorful language, but something is lost if it is censored)

We have to take the first step rather than just keep on wishing things would be different.

We need to realize that anything is possible.  There is something really amazing when someone who has already lost 100 + pounds is running a marathon, even though they still may be overweight, is facing their pain and breaking past the barriers that hold them back.  It makes you consider what is holding you back.

I an not saying that in a bad tone here?  I see it as a disease.  He might have an illness, not a badness.  If one know what addiction looks like it is easier to comprehend it.  The world which puts people up on pedestals is totally amazed or scandalized when they fall into addiction.

Didn’t we just recently see what drug addiction to Michael Jackson?  Earlier with Judy Garland, Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe.  When one is this famous, it is hard to live without some ‘help’ in the form of a bottle, drug or secret behavior.  It relieves the pressure to succeed.  In a way, it is like choosing to do something bad, to balance out the good they feel or the pressure to “be good.”

After years of interviewing addicts, I haven’t really met one who doesn’t have this dichotomy going on.  The minister who is hooked on opiates.  The housewife/mother who also works as a professional counselor who drinks too much.  The youth leader who looks at porn.  The successful business man who struggles with compulsive gambling.  The doctor who is hooked on drugs.  The politician who has a sex addiction and smokes pot.  Why is this?  There is such imbalance.  We expect too much of these people in some ways.  It is great to achieve and make a difference, but we have to balance it with a weak side and work these things through vs. cover them up.

Are there addicts who don’t have as much “success” or pressure to be perfect?   Maybe we just notice it more because of the dichotomy.  I do believe that there is something else going on.  I think that people who are addicts work harder to make a good impression.  We call it, “impression management.”

Many times, they are so good with people we can’t believe that they are a user or have been so irresponsible in the addiction.  But maybe there are compulsively “good.”  They have to be good.   They feel such shame.  They struggle with people pleasing.  For good recovery to occur, one has to let go of what people think.

They say in 12 step groups in a very colorful way, “You can’t save you face and your ass at the same time.”  This is really true.  One has to be absolutely honest to recover.  In any addiction, one has been hiding, typically for years.  The secret part needs to come out.  Does it need to come out in the papers, talk shows and The Tonight Show?  I don’t think so.  It might have precipitated recovery for Mr. Woods, but it doesn’t help him in any other way.

Getting to a safe 12 step meeting where it is anonymous and there is a vow of confidentiality, in fact, greater that confidentiality in that it is anonymous.  Anonymous, means that no one knows who you are.  It will be challenging for famous golfers or actors or singers to get to a 12 step where people don’t know them, let alone become not become enamored by their talent or popularity.

In 12 steps they say, “we lead with our weakness.”  This means we don’t bring our strengths to the meeting.  We bring our weaknesses, that is the weakest moments we have had this last week.  We share the moments where we wanted to use, or held a grudge or were stung by fear.  The share their powerlessness and the fear that they won’t get better or the mess is too hard to clean up.  In so doing, God meets them in their humility and the freedom begins.