Waiting by Hornbacher Marya

Author:Hornbacher, Marya
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-61649-190-1
Publisher: Hazelden Publishing
Published: 2011-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

The transformation from spiritual sickness to spiritual growth is a transition that requires us addicts to work Step Five. This Step puts an end to the isolation we’ve both sought out and suffered through, the alienation from the world that we have unnecessarily brought on ourselves. The silence and loneliness of secrets, shame, and lies create a state of existential despair; from this place of absolute isolation, we are unable to reach out. We are also unable to face ourselves. We spend our time hiding our face from the world and refusing to look in the mirror.

When I was in the heart of my addiction, I could not be alone with myself. The sound of all I wasn’t saying made an unbearable roar in my head, and the only thing that tuned it out was alcohol; gradually, even that didn’t do a very good job. But I couldn’t be with anyone else, either—I felt like I was choking on my secrets, afraid at every moment they’d find out what a fraud I really was, what a failure, what a waste. And so I spent my days in increasing isolation and in increasing silence, more and more poisoned by all the things I refused to say. I lay in bed drinking, literally sick with scotch and shame.

Had I known then that all that would be required of me to find some measure of spiritual comfort would be to speak—and put down the scotch—I might have done it sooner. Hard to say. At that time, the concept of telling someone else, or even admitting to myself, the person I believed myself to be, was beyond frightening. It was an impossibility. I felt certain I would be struck dead by a God in which I didn’t believe.

Which is to say, I felt certain I would lose whatever love I had left.

When I finally came clean, though—when I finally listened for and then spoke up with a spiritually alive voice—I found I was nothing special. It was a mind-boggling relief. I wasn’t so awful. I wasn’t required to be great. I was simply a human like any other, a pastiche of assets and flaws.

Spirituality based in an honest assessment of self is a humble spirituality. I’m not sure there’s any other kind.

Step Five puts into action the humility we began to gain during our work of self-knowledge in Step Four. And when we put humility into action, we finally reenter the human race. No longer tangled in our own self-hating pride, no longer swallowing secrets we should not keep, no longer isolated by our own fear—when we find the spiritual peace of humility within ourselves, we find our way to the humanity of which we’ve longed to be a part.

Without humility, we cannot fully connect with other people. Step Five brings us out of isolation and into relationships we need for reasons we may not have been aware of prior to sobriety. When I was in active addiction, I saw relationships primarily as a condition of vulnerability that I couldn’t tolerate.

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