People Don't Change
People Don't Change
Jared Dillian Apr 11, 2023
If there is a person in your life whose behavior bothers you—
It’s probably not going to get better.
People don’t change. Someone who is an alcoholic will always be an alcoholic. Someone who is a thief will always be a thief. Someone who is a sex addict will always be a sex addict. Someone who is a gambler will always be a gambler. Someone who is an adulterer will always be an adulterer. Unwanted behavior keeps going, and going, and going.
How often have you seen this play out: parents are dismayed to learn that their 15-year-old is smoking pot. They ignore it for a while, thinking it is harmless, but then it turns into Adderall, pills and cocaine. Soon the teenager has a full-blown drug problem, and he is flunking out of school. The parents ride to the rescue, going to the school to talk to his teachers to convince them not to fail him.
The kid swears he will never do drugs again, but he is caught again within a few weeks. They take the kid to a therapist first, but 15-year-olds don’t do so well in therapy, so that eventually fails. They take the kid to outpatient drug treatment, to no avail. Finally, the kid goes to rehab for a month. Swears he will stay clean. Mom and Dad think that things are finally back to normal. Caught with drugs again two weeks later.
This continues a decade-long cycle of jails and institutions, with the parents bailing him out every step of the way. After years of this, the parents eventually tire of rescuing him all the time, and let him fail. The kid (now 25 years old) becomes homeless, where he is robbed, raped, and assaulted. Unspeakably awful things happen to him.
And then, magically, he gets sober. And it sticks.
People don’t change…until they do.
People don’t change, until they do. And when they do, it is a miracle. But inevitably what has to happen is that person has to hit bottom, where things absolutely cannot get any worse.
Bottoms vary for different people—people with a high bottom get to keep their jobs and spouses. People with a low bottom have to lose everything before they learn.
It may seem as though I am focusing on addiction. I’m talking about all behavior that we find unpleasant. It could be chewing your fingernails. It could be obsessively washing your hands. It could be yelling at your kids. It could be watching porn.
Behaviors have a tendency to continue until there is a significant emotional event. Until you lose, or are about to lose, someone or something you care about.
To continue reading, please go to the original article here: