Ordinary Recovery: Mindfulness, Addiction, and the Path of Lifelong Sobriety by Kevin Griffin

Author:Kevin Griffin
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780834822726
Publisher: Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Published: 2011-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

God’s Will

AFTER I HAD BEEN SOBER A WHILE, I attended the Advanced School for Addiction Studies at Rutgers University. I was one of the few students there who did not work “in the field”; that is, although I was a qualified addictions counselor, I did not work as one. For two weeks I was surrounded by well-meaning people, almost all of them recovered or recovering addicts and alcoholics. There was a very vocal, generally young, minority who insisted, with one voice and loudly, that they had been chosen by God not to die from their addictions. One fellow in particular told an assembly of several hundred, during an outdoor AA meeting on a beautiful and sunny day, that he was one of “the chosen people.”

I do not believe this. I believe as well that such an idea is dangerous to the addict and to the larger world. I reject the idea of chosen people; our human history, at play in the world, is too rich for such arrogance. Our mutual heritage is thinned by the presumption of superiority, based, as it is, solely on superstition. By superstition I mean a murky understanding of cause and effect. I can believe, if I wish, that I was saved from death by alcohol by some power greater than myself. In fact, I have such a belief. It does not follow that I was somehow chosen as especially worthy of saving, worthier than others. I believe that my sobriety is a matter of what Buddhists call karma. I believe, that is, that the sum of all my thoughts and actions brought me to that stunning moment of realization, my own subdued white light, when I saw clearly that I did not have to drink. The veil of addiction was lifted, just for a moment, when I happened to be looking. I also believe that I did not have to follow that light; karma is not determinism or my old Presbyterian superstition of predestination. I merely saw an option, with my heart, and chose it. My sobriety was the flower that, growing in the darkness for over forty years, suddenly bloomed, all of a sudden, in a breakthrough that has forever altered the course of my life. Often one hears that the alcoholic or addict does not come to recovery “on the wings of victory.” I disagree. We come to recovery on just those wings. We are, for a moment, victorious over thirst, fear, and ignorance. That awakening is not an event. It is an opportunity. Rather than determinism or being chosen by a capricious God who has, by extension, killed a number of my relatives and friends, I see the moment of realization as the result of karma and the continuity of sobriety as the ongoing results of that moment.

In each moment, we plant new seeds of karma in the old ones. Infinite change is possible through the simple desire to change. As in Thomas Merton’s prayer (see the chapter “How to Build a Cathedral”), “I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.