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Three types of patterns structure much of our daily living.

Addiction involves multiple crisscrossing patterns that will constrain a person.

Recovery is the creation of new patterns for living more healthfully.

We humans tend to live our lives in patterns, some of which can be healthy and others not so much. Individual acts and behaviors have their meaning or significance within patterns. Games are patterns: Throwing dice and moving little metal pieces around a piece of cardboard make little sense when taken on their own. However, when these things happen playing a board game such as Monopoly, they make sense and have meaning.

Three types of patterns

It is worthwhile to pay attention to several types of patterns; they are different but related. When combined, they create a background/context against which our actions are made possible and have meaning. A pattern is simultaneously:

a repeating and regular way of something happening, such as entries in a bookkeeping ledger.

an arrangement of lines and shapes, such as what appears in a fabric design. Think of plaid.

a set of instructions for making something such as a dress. The pattern indicates what a person should do and in what order.

Our daily living patterns become invisible to us because they are habitual and familiar. To us, they just seem normal and natural. Many of us have morning routines that we follow; these are patterns in the three........

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