Letting Go

Letting Go

Since becoming involved with recovery, I’ve had a theme in life of creating space for better things to come into my life.  As I’ve gained self-awareness and a better perspective on myself, it’s become more and more obvious that I carry around a lot of clutter.  What that looks like is a lot of little useless, outdated, space and time-consuming thought processes and practices. Those have the ridiculous ability of stealing me away from the way I’d rather be living.  They hijack my mind and spirit and keep me hanging on to lifestyles that are not practical and not cutting it anymore.

I’ve found that I lack direction.  I have a lot of things that I intend to do, and I’ve set up trailheads as starting points for me to forge ahead, but the distance I travel beyond the safety of home doesn’t always amount to much.  The reasons behind this aren’t as simple as ‘I’m afraid’ or ‘I don’t believe in myself.’  There are elements of that, but it’s like an underlying buzz rather than being gripped with fear or moping around dejected and hopeless.  I’m actually quite fond of myself most of the time (it hasn’t always been that way).  But there is still something abuzz that says you’re safe here.

I’m reminded of Bilbo Baggins.  He’s safe in The Shire.  He’s safe in his Hobbit-hole.  The door is strong and locked.  All the comforts and amenities are contained within.  The only reason to stray outside is to tend the verge and wave at passers-by.  Maybe an occasional casual stroll to take in the sun and tidy-up mentally.  There is sanctuary in his life.  There is no need for change or adventure.

Understand though, that change if brought to Bilbo’s doorstep.  It is a small change that turns into a larger change that has the long-term effect of saving not only his home and The Shire at large, but also the whole world of Middle-Earth.

A question in my mind is whether Bilbo had been dreaming of adventures before dwarves and wizards came knocking but had no real reason to engage in such Tom Bambadil foolery? Or did adventure come to the Hobbit out of necessity, as his role was to set off a chain of events that would change a world so desperate for balance?  Perhaps both are true.  One hard truth I’ve had to make space for is that more than one thing can be true at the same time.  Life is not a system of either/or.

Whatever the case, Bilbo would not have adventured past Hobbiton were it not because of the arrival and prompting of strange and foreign creatures and magic.  These characters came to him based on their own necessity, but the universe at large arranged for the meeting and initiation because of a greater necessity that none of the characters, including Gandalf the wizard, could have foreseen. 

The greatest standard of courage was Bilbo taking on the task beset on him and making the journey with strangers he had no reason to trust, into lands he couldn’t possibly imagine, against spiritual elements and physical foes far greater than his little Hobbit self. This is his breakout and breakthrough of leaving everything he knew behind.  His contract to leave was also his contract to abandon most everything he rested his whole life on.  Once again, two things were true at the same time.

Bilbo mentors his young nephew Frodo about this before Frodo (in turn) takes on his own adventure: It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.

It’s a dangerous business stepping outside of the comforts and sanctuary I’ve built around myself.  There’s mental scaffolding that is my belief system.  It tells me don’t step out your door, Terry, and the world will be just fine without you.

And here’s two truths that counter that.  One, the world won’t be fine without me. I have a purpose to affect the greater world around me or I don’t have purpose at all.  Two, by not taking a chance on my life, I won’t be fine with myself.

There are obviously degrees to this.  I’m not strapping up, hopping onto a pony and heading off into the wilderness anytime soon.  I will say that the prospect of that intrigues me.  So, if my wife is reading this, rest assured that my adventures include you and our family.  But adventure is an exciting word, all the same. Just as Bilbo, and ultimately Frodo, left the comforts of home at their own peril, the experience and knowledge they gained by doing that saved the world and ultimately the small and comfortable space they left behind.

Our adventures today don’t involve mythological creatures in incredible settings with our lives on the line moment to moment.  Yet, we still determine the nature of whatever adventure we want to deliver our lives into.  We make the choice to cower behind a half-opened door, only acknowledging the things that pass by peacefully and shutting our life up tight at any sign of fearful circumstance.  We also make the choice to go beyond that door and venture out into the known and unknown.  It’s the only way we can make the unknown known, and gain the insight and experience to move forward in recovery and growth.

One of the most difficult things for anyone to leave behind in their pathway toward a new identity are people and relationships.  Because the emotional attachment that exists between living creatures is so much stronger than material things, stepping away from people you’re intertwined with requires a greater force than they have to tether you in place.  Moving outside of a trusted influence, or even someone that kept you company is often like leaving behind a part of yourself.  In a way it is.  Joined thoughts, experiences and feelings are shared spiritually, and to separate those is to lose connection to a source of higher power and purpose.  Even to let someone go that is taking their own steps away, searching for a new purpose and path, is hard.  The magnetic attraction that exists between two souls is magnanimous, even when those souls are at odds.  Once again, there is safety and comfort in the places we dwell in over time.  Staying inside the familiarity of the known, even if it is also an ugly place, has a greater pull than facing the fearful presence of the unknown.

Now, all of this isn’t to say that we should all just drop everything and head out the door.  Most people have worked their whole lives to obtain a state of comfort and balance that has a variety of features built into it to weather the storms, keep life inspiring and offer continued, sustainable purpose. But this blog is about recovery.  Recovery becomes a necessity when imbalance is thrust upon us, either of our own doing, from the unsatisfactory actions of others, or from nature herself.  When an imbalance comes into play, there are times when it’s necessary to move from a world of discomfort and pain to a world that is wide open and waiting to be filled with things that are not uncomfortable or painful.  We change out position on the teeter-totter to keep it from tipping too far to one side or the other.

When it comes to addiction, it’s been my experience that people embroiled in abuse have surrounded themselves with enablers.  This could be dealers (and a bartender is a dealer, no offense to bartenders), fellow users, tolerant loved ones, or society at large.  There is an increasing societal attitude toward helping addicts and less fortunate people by gifting them with things like free food, money and shelter.  Those are great and empathetic ideals, but without requiring a person to leave behind the things that are causing the issues with self-destruction, all of those good-natured gifts are enabling the problem.  This is also true of families that focus all of their efforts on a single addicted family member in deference to the family as a whole.  All that attention gives support and credence to the very thing that they want to prevent.  This is especially true of parents.  Rather than offering only the bare minimum of attention and sustenance, they keep playing the back-and-forth game of lies and promises, followed by theft of material and spiritual elements, then destroying the health of the family as a whole.  The inability to leave behind the destructive elements, with only support for recovery-oriented practices, makes the family unit an enabler of self-destructive actions that will ultimately lead to horrible outcomes for many more people than just the addict and a parent.

There is a great deal of shame in addiction.  This shame creates a need for escape.  It creates a bond with destructive elements.  The monumental amount of shame that is attached to the addict’s entire life is astounding. There are shameful elements that begin with the initial use which morphs into the addiction. Then there’s also the shame of the catastrophic outcome of a life embroiled in addiction. Any level of clarity or sobriety results in an urge to use, since using is what makes the bad feelings go away and replaces those with the high.  When the high wears off, the pain returns, which triggers the need for the high to also return.  It’s a cycle of dis-ease that won’t ever end until some type of transformational event occurs, which oftentimes skates close to death, unfortunately.  The reason addicts must reach a ‘bottom’ is because there is no place to go to for support in the addiction any longer.  But if family and society are constantly providing an out from that bottom, the addiction will be tolerated and accepted, and the shame of it can be constantly pacified by more and more substance abuse.

One of the greater things that recovery can provide is identity change.  If I identify as a drug addict, I’m going to live my life devoted to drugs and drug usage.  I’m going to associate with people that accept me as an addict.  That may mean a family that keeps putting me through 30-day rehabs, showering me with praise for making it through the program, and then wondering why a week later I’m back in the game.  As a continuing addict, I’ll associate with them because they give me little addiction vacations and money. The still support me despite my dedication to destroying myself.  I apply words like ‘love’ and ‘change’ and ‘sorry’, but those are words used to keep support systems of addiction in play. I’m still going to have dealers and fellow users on speed dial.  I will continue to grift and steal and lie, because these practices lead to having drugs available.  I’m going to do everything I can to be a drug addict because I identify as a drug addict.  No degree of people telling me that I should do this or that will make a difference.  The choice to change has to be made by the addict themselves.  If a person is willing to destroy themselves, then proclaimed loved ones are welcome to come along for the ride.

Letting go of that identity is the hardest thing to do.  For an addict to go completely sober and practice permanent recovery, all of the things that were enabling them to cover up their shameful life have to be removed, by them.  That means no more contact with any person that has drugs, knows others with drugs, or otherwise triggers nefarious actions.  It means never frequenting old haunts, bars and living spaces ever again.  It means associating all of these things, and drugs in general as toxic poisons that will kill.  It means all the practices of nefarious action with suspect characters become a thing of the past so there can be room for a new future. 

Many addicts believed they were strong enough to endure old ‘friendships’ and let old addicts have access to their mind.  Letting go means letting go entirely.  It means enduring the hollow pain of a life being torn away.  It means under no conditions accepting tolerant or aberrant behavior toward usage, and if that happens, moving away from it without conversation or explanation.  Being in recovery and benefitting from the growth it provides is the antidote to the behaviors that stifle it.  We must keep the weeds out of our garden by building barriers and tending our soil.  The weeds will try to come back around out of their own volition.  If we let them back into our lives their attempt will be to block out the sunlight, choke out the fruits of our labors and poison the soil.  The marvelous form of life that is us will wither and die, and because of our own sickness, the lives around us will be greatly diminished.  It ultimately comes down to finding a place where the only choice is returning to life and health and an existence that includes body, mind and soul as the marvelous form of life we nurture.  Three in one, manifest.

Recovery is an upgrade of life conditions.  Growth can only lead to better circumstances, particularly in the long term.  But in order for growth to occur, those things that inhibit growth have to be eradicated.  This takes a good but hard analysis toward what we are holding onto, and what must be left behind.  We let go of many things to open space up in life to add value to our existence.  What we abandon can survive with or without us.  What we seek can create a life that we only imagined.