The Words That Bind
We humans are bound by truth. What we believe determines how we react to any number of things that happen throughout our lives. We build beliefs, we abandon beliefs, and have core beliefs that could be considered untouchable.
The truths that create those beliefs are all a product of how our environment treats us and teaches us. A bad experience will teach us to avoid that scenario and we will add it to our belief system. A good experience will teach us that it’s advantageous. At the most basic level, our belief system is a collection of truths and untruths that we can use to make decisions in the present and future. We are bound to it.
Drinking alcohol affects my truth.
The main effect of alcohol is it causes people to lose their inhibitions. A first-time drinker will recall the mild euphoric effect, combined with a tickling sensation on the mind. In essence it loosened a person up. The more that was consumed, the greater those effects were amplified. Formerly established standards of action and character become increasingly outrageous performances with equally compromised drinkers. In essence, the truths one has established about proper public behavior are grayed out as more drinks are taken.
There is no universal standard of who is an alcoholic and who is not. Some ‘experts’ say a drink a day is a sign of addiction, whereas a dyed in the wool alcoholic would attest that it’s when a person can’t control the intake of it. It’s the latter that is closer to reality. When a person can’t control when where why and how much of the drink they consume, then their previously established method of control, i.e. their belief system, becomes of little to no importance whatsoever.
Something I have come to understand it is that alcohol in all its varying degrees trumps the truth. When alcohol reaches the grasping point of being in control of the addict, then the addict no longer has control over alcohol. This means that the drinker also no longer has control over varying degrees of their beliefs, such as relationships, decency, reliability, morality and character to name a few. As alcoholism progresses, the life-long established belief system becomes unraveled.
I’ve witnessed alcoholics that yearn for a relationship with their spouses, are pained by limited visitation with their children, despair at the loss of employment, and grieve the loneliness of abandonment by friends and loved ones. It’s truly tragic when I witness these scenarios, and I believe in the sincerity of the now sober drunk, but I know full well that one drink will lead to many drinks and in very little time only the drink will matter.
Alcohol is the destroyer of belief systems.
There is a way out. There is a road to recovery. It involves letting go of beliefs. It means an understanding with oneself that everything we consider true must be looked at with skepticism and released without hesitation or regret. In essence, letting go of who we were to make room for who we want to be. With dedication, who we want to be can become who we are.
This takes a tremendous and lifelong effort. What the devout religious call ‘born again’ is reflected here. It is a chance to make a second life more fulfilling than the first, and to build on it forever. It means binding ourselves to the truth of our word, and binding ourselves to words that proliferate. It means teaching our truths to others without regret, and to never shy from learning other’s truths, considering them, and then integrating that which matches up with our own model of belief.
The alcoholic identifies drinking as an acceptable part of living. It’s necessary to cast away that belief for the belief that alcohol makes living unacceptable. What makes alcohol unacceptable is that it will destroy all the truths we are establishing, and all the truths we hold on to, in one sip and swallow.
If a person binds themself to that which they know is not truth, then the only outcome can be pain, suffering and ultimately death. The alcoholic is bound to alcohol before anything else. It is a bondage only they can release themselves from, by seeking the truth through communion with truthful souls, seeking the truth in their environment, and binding themselves to that which improves their lives and the world around them.
Our word is our bond, and our words bind us to others. The words of others bind us to them. In all of this, seek growth and creativity and potential, and forever leave behind stagnation, calcification and despair. The truth is a quest that never ends. It starts with releasing a huge part of the belief system: the bonds of alcohol.