“The thing I think is so incredibly ironic about spiritual journeys and personal growth is that they often begin at rock bottom, and that is a sign to me that the universe has got jokes, because sort of the definition of rock bottom is that you can’t function at all. That you are shattered, that your life has become unmanageable, that you’ve lost all faith in you and everything.
And yet…interestingly, it’s exactly there at that place of lowest, lowest rock bottom that you are asked by maybe your soul, by maybe destiny, maybe by some resilient spirit within you to find light. Enough light, that you decide to continue on.”
~Elizabeth Gilbert
She offers this up and then she quotes a line from Bill W. - the founder of AA- who said that “in order for recovery to begin, the addict must first experience ego collapse in depth.”
She goes on to say that “it is only ego collapse at depth that you can go on to rebuild your life in a different way.”
Remembering this, she says, at rock bottom is difficult but not impossible. And notes that many people have built incredible lives from this place.
I wholeheartedly agree.
And I am one of them.
Addiction makes us selfish; self-pitying, self-obsessed, and we are entirely entrenched in ego.
We are in pain too - some of it self-inflicted and self-perpetuated - there are usually other external and life things that also contributed - that we weren’t able to handle well or at all - so we drank them down or used to escape into oblivion.
But I am especially taken with - as Gilbert says - the contradiction - the brilliant paradox of it at all -
That through suffering, that through crumbling, and completely shattered, do we often find our best foundation from which to build anew.
It reminds me of when I first my own way into the 12 step rooms -
And I heard and read and saw demonstrated and - it also played out in my own life -
Rock bottom is a hell of a place to be -
But it’s the best way to build a more firm foundation.
When you really got to regut it all and establish yourself on more solid, sure footing.
For me, I am often amazed, the longer I am sober and the more I heal - I take stock of how I am not only rebuilding my own life’s foundation since becoming an alcoholic and in active addition/alcoholism -
But, as a child of an alcoholic, and as the descendent of many, many alcoholics -
I am also rebuilding an ancestral line -
Breaking a cycle and healing intergenerational trauma -
I an healing the inner, wounded child - the little girl who has the hero and the teenager who was so livid at my father for so many years and so many reasons - because of the consequences and effects on the family of his own alcoholism.
That little girl - the hero - who believed she needed to do well and be good and exceed in order to stand out and earn love -
That performer - she didn’t know how to sit with the pain and sadness of having an emotionally, absent father. So she dove into success in school and appearing outwardly to have it all together - avoidance.
Avoidance - I did it well.
But it eventually catches up with you. Emotions are meant to ‘emote’ or to move through you - you can’t stuff them away - either by performing or drinking or whatever else you try to do.
You can attempt to do so - but it’s only a temporary fix. You will pay the piper for it eventually.
Essentially, what I’m saying is this - I don’t think it’s only the alcohol abuse that makes one an alcoholic- sure, there’s a genetic component.
But I think there’s also the greater issue of not being able to sit with your feelings and understand what to do with your pain and how to cope and manage life. And the pain of your parents and the generations that came before you.
I learned that from my parents. I did it as the child of an alcoholic.
I also avoided—or tried to—a whole bunch of pain and grieving, as an adult - so I drank. It lends well to developing alcoholism or another substance abuse problem.
I can see connections now that I never was able to see - never wanted to see, probably.
Because I didn’t want to admit myself hopeless tied to my father -
Long before I drank myself - like several decades-
I detested the idea that I was shaped because of his decisions and actions and disease- it made me feel helpless.
It deeply, deeply terrified me.
I fought against it.
The ironic part of that though - I now realize, from what I’ve learned in recovery and considering my line -
Is that if I had only leaned into that - how I was shaped by him - I perhaps would have addressed some of these wounds earlier - before having to dive into my addiction to solve them.
Maybe not though -
I mean - who the hell knows?
Anxiety and insomnia and pain and an inability to understand how to live with all of the traumatic loads - made alcohol awfully enticing and helpful - to swallow down swallows of a Sauvignon Blanc and to escape temporarily.
But then -
It came back all the stronger when I sobered up - and with vengeance.
It is true though - the quote above that when you lose faith in yourself and the world that you know it - that collapse of the ego — at depth - that you are able to admit you don’t have anything figured out - you haven’t been holding it together - you never learned how - it’s all so unmanageable - and the alcohol abuse/addiction is just the tipping point.
As Dr. Gabor Mate says - “Instead of saying we don’t know how to live, to cope, to manage, we drink.” (or we use).
I was thinking about all of this tonight at a 12 step meeting where I was asked to consider and explain my own spiritual awakening - intimately tied to my own suffering and desperation and hopelessness - when I was on my knees and begging my God to help me. And I was delivered - but the obsession to drink - the madness and insanity that my life had become - revolving around alcohol - also lifted.
The spirituality and depth of spiritual awakening has continued with working the 12 steps, by humility and serving others, getting out of my head and into service, care and consideration for others -
In doing all of that, in being sober - now 500 days - today-
I now understand what was meant by alcoholics in the meetings who used to say -
You can not be drinking and still not be sober.
You can be a dry drunk.
Sobriety is often tied to a renewed sense of life and a deeper sense of spirituality and intense synchronicity with the world and other people around you.
A humility. An ego collapse. A service-[re]orientedness. Gratitude. Mindfulness. Presence. Peace.
It’s all of that -
It’s why those in recovery seemed so damned happy when I came into the rooms.
I didn’t understand why,.
I thought they were nuts.
I wanted to be happy like that but I didn’t understand how they could be -
With their stories of rock bottom just like mine -
And readily admitting that they were an addict -
The biggest lesson for me has been -
Yes, I have the family disease- I too an alcoholic like my father and so many of my relatives before me.
But there are a few key differences-
It’s not a failure to be an alcoholic.
The true test is what you do with it.
My father had his rock bottom and God-intervened to save me moment himself. He ought to have died in that hospital from sepsis and cirrhosis in 2012 - while I was in Indonesia.
But he didn’t. he got sober. I saw him sober and it was amazing.
But he didn’t stay that way.
You have to work at your recovery. You have to stay connected in service. And to get out of your head.
And we often heal and do that in community.
He did not - after leaving rehab. He never afterwards went to another AA meeting, I don’t think.
I also had my rock bottom and divine intervention -
You can always root around and dig and dig for another rock bottom.
But I made the decision that mine was my end of the road.
I spent many months ashamed of that -
And while I won’t say I’m ‘proud’ of it now-
But I also understand that it was integral to my journey, my recovery, and my spiritual awakening, and path of sobriety.
I now understand what they meant when—every meeting— we read -
“We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door upon it.”
My life having had to face my demons and my family’s dark past -
Is so so much better now than running from it - performing that all is well -
And then burying myself in performance or work or trying to find peace at the bottom of a bottle.
Life has changed so much.
My perspective is so different.
It is so baffling to me.
But - this notion - of being remade - in your spiritual awakening - in the midst of your suffering and ego collapse -
It really is integral to the process.
Maybe it is a joke of the universe -
But, ironically, when most powerless and helpless -
If we can hold on to a hope in a notion or purpose or faith or hope greater than ourselves - in removing our ego -
We often find the greatest depths and renewed sense of purpose, peace, and love, a renewed sense of why we exist.