Page 35 - FS-Little Prince

The excessively shy child, the under achiever, the child who will not try out for sports or ask for a date are unwilling to experience the discomfort which MAY occur and they, “Just could not stand that.” The internal language usually associated with this type of irrational belief that will cause avoidance behavior, may be something like “I did not really want to do that anyway “or, “I will call them later (and of course they never do)” or “Why would anyone want to do that (try out for a play, the team) anyway .”
Unlike in our story, where the Prince was able to eliminate the possibility of being exposed to this potential discomfort, most of us are confronted with these types of situations over and over again. If we do not learn effective, rational ways of dealing with them, we may turn to the irrational coping spectrum.
As adolescents and adults, one way of dealing with the anxiety of these situations becomes drugs and alcohol. So we use alcohol or drugs to overcome our anxiety which is caused by our thinking and we are now willing to take the chance of experiencing the discomfort (go to the dance). In so doing, we develop an additional irrational belief “Without my (drink, drug) I can’t cope with (various situations) .” One of the causes of the progressive nature of substance abuse is that as time passes, the “various situations” expands and becomes “most situations.”
In the portion of the story where the Prince finds the boys shooting arrows, we see how the behavior that often accompanies this irrational thinking, causes others to behave in ways that reinforce the irrational thinking.
32