Being Your Own Worst Enemy

My late husband was given this cartoon by his counselor during his last stay at a treatment center. I found it the other day when going through a drawer.  It got me to thinking about what it means “to be our own worst enemy.”

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines the word “enemy” as:

1. someone who hates another : someone who attacks or tries to harm another.  If you are your own worst enemy, you act in a way that causes harm to yourself or to the people or things that you care about.
2. something that harms or threatens someone or something
3. a group of people (such as a nation) against whom another group is fighting a war —usually singular

Definition 1 tells us what is means to be our own worst enemy.  Alcoholics & addicts seem to be the worst enemies to themselves, but anyone can be their worst enemy in one area such as, say, dieting, and not in other areas.  When people are their own worst enemy, they consistently sabotage and alienate anything good in their life… jobs, spouses,  family, self-respect, health, and happiness.  I think alcoholics self-destruct because they don’t feel worthy of receiving good in their lives.  They live for the daily drink and can’t really see any future beyond that.

I know my young adult son is a product of a generation that has so many means of escaping from reality… video games, computer games, the internet, easy access to pornography 24/7.  Add alcohol and drugs as a further means of escape, and you have a generation that is totally out of touch with the real world and how to successfully live in it.  When an alcoholic finds sobriety, then they can learn to love themselves and, instead of being their own worst enemy, they can instead be their own best friend.