Every few years, Dr Who regenerates. So do the Trill in the Star Trek universe (although in a slightly different way). So do alcoholics.
Why? Why can't we just get well and stay well? Not sure, except, it definitely doesn't work like that.
Part of the explanation is that it's impossible to eradicate, in the first sweep of the pantry, all of the attachments to sex, money, power, prestige, comfort, thrills, and appearance.
These are the seven Rapacious Creditors, which, like alcohol, give a little, but only a little, ever promising more, but ever exacting more in tribute to feed their engines.
A life is then constructed to satisfy them, but the fleeting satisfaction simply widens the emptiness they promise to fill, and their 'gifts' seem increasingly inadequate to the task of fulfilment. Eventually, a whole life can be consumed in devotion to their demands, and the result is utter emptiness.
The vehicle can be a job, a relationship, a home: fundamentally good things, which have been recruited by the ego as vessels for the Special Relationship: the setting for the eternal chase. Just like in dreams where the door to (what is imagined to be) release at the end of the corridor recedes ever further the faster one runs. In the most pernicious form, the object is already lost down a timeline that was never travelled, and a life is spent in regret and remorse and the 'knowledge' that happiness is never possible because the path was never taken.
Footfalls echo in the memoryDown the passage which we did not takeTowards the door we never openedInto the rose-garden. (Burnt Norton, T. S. Eliot)
These rose-gardens are the salvation promised when the next hurdle is reached, the next milestone is achieved, the next promotion, the next raise, the next, the next, the next ...
But meanwhile the antes are upped, more and more chips are piled on the table, and the high stakes exact a toll in the form of unpaid emotional bills: the slights, plights, and gripes, the grievances and terrors all arising from the attachment digging ever deeper like the wires of a rabbit snare in which the rabbit is wriggling and writhing in its death throes; everything is pushed underground, because there is no time or space to actually deal with them, to actually face the pernicious attachments at the root of the investment and suffering. Pushed underground until the pressure of the magma becomes too much, and there is the eruption to end all eruptions.
Is it always about obvious ego goals like sex or money? No: Could be the ordinary love of a relative or friend; fundamental security; physical safety: Basically anything, good or bad, subject to the volatility and mutability of the world. Nothing can be built on shifting sands. Ego goals are any goals associated with the world, the body, the identity.
Eventually, the foundations creak, the walls leak blood, there are poltergeists in the night, there is scratching at the windows, and the home becomes Amityville–Salem's Lot-uninhabitable.
So, you can just surrender, right? And move house?
The ego puts up some mighty resistance.
Let's look at the resistances and the answers.
Ego's resistance no. 1: I've never been happy in recovery, so what is there to stay sober for?
In a classic paint job, the ego takes a pot of paint selected from the current emotional colour chart and smears the whole of the past with it. All good is forgotten. Anything bad in the past that resonates with the present is amplified until it fills the space. One colour. All dark. All desperate. So why would the future be any different?
There are two glitches, here. Firstly, it's untrue. The initial years of recovery were way better than the last few years of drinking; secondly, just because all your leaves have fallen off and you're currently in winter does not mean you did not have a beautiful spring, autumn, and summer and, furthermore, does not mean that the next spring, summer, and autumn will not be amazing.
Winter is the time for regeneration work, that's all.
Ego's resistance no. 2: Does this mean I have to give up my [insert: job, house, relationship, other aspect of life]? I can't do that!
Maybe, maybe not. Maybe an external restructuring will be necessary, maybe not. But the internal work has to be performed first. Get to a place of serenity and peace first. Then decide. The attachments have to be identified and unhooked, cell by cell. Detachment is not about getting rid of the the thing; it's about getting rid of the attachment to the thing.
This is an inside job. 'The calls are coming from inside the house'. Once the internal circuitry has been replaced, this may or may not result in an externally manifested change, but no one will know what this outcome will be until the new circuity has been in place for a while. Sometimes a pit-stop for a few months might be necessary for the rewiring (I once took two months away from work for this). Sometimes there might be a five-year transition to a new life, with incremental changes rather than a huge leap. Sometimes, there is a rupture, with a sudden shift or a period of sabbatical. But let's start from the inside and gradually work out.
The important thing to recognise is that everything is up for grabs, although not right now. All that is required right now is a willingness to submit to the process.
Ego's resistance no. 3: But I can't change X because of Y!
Every aspect of a person's life (when the ego is involved) comes with a predetermined set of prejudices, resentments, excuses, justifications, understandings, defences, grievances, and explanations (PREJUDGE) whose purpose is to keep the existing system fixed in place, fully defended against challenge, protected against change.
These are the bars of the prison cell.
Slim down (humility) and slip through them. The rich man divesting himself of his goods before he can enter heaven through the eye of the needle. What is the wealth? The old ideas. Anyone sober a bunch of years with an ounce of sense and competence in affairs unrelated to themselves will instinctively assume their reasoning to be just as effective with regard to their own situation. IT IS NOT.
Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely. (Page 58)... if we had passed into the region from which there is no return through human aid, we had but two alternatives: One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could; and the other, to accept spiritual help. (Page 25)In the face of collapse and despair, in the face of the total failure of their human resources, they found that a new power, peace, happiness, and sense of direction flowed into them. ... Once confused and baffled by the seeming futility of existence, they show the underlying reasons why they were making heavy going of life. Leaving aside the drink question, they tell why living was so unsatisfactory. They show how the change came over them. (Page 50 et seq.)
The truth is:
- There will be things I believe that are untrue
- There will be things I don't believe that are true
- There will be things of which I am unaware
- The ego will collage truths into a mendacious pattern
I have to let go of everything and become an idiot child. Anything genuinely true will be returned to me, duly laundered, ironed, sorted, and stacked. I need not be the custodian of this process. The process will do this for me. All I have to do is let go.
Ego's resistance no. 4: I can't just let go!
Oh, but you can, Susan, you can.
The corrective procedure:
## At least I can decide I do not like what I feel now
This requires me to look at how I feel, ask myself whether I like it, and recognise that, if I feel bad, I must have asked the wrong guide.
## And so I hope I have been wrong
How I feel comes from how I look at things, which depends on the guide I have chosen. This step recognises that how I feel is caused by something, namely my decision.
## I want another way to look at this
This is entailed by the previous two points: if I don't like how I feel, and it's because I'm looking at things wrong, I will want to look at things right, in order to feel better.
## Perhaps there is another way to look at this. What can I lose by asking?
This point is already entailed by the other points. If I'm looking at things wrong, there ought to be a right way of looking at things. If I feel bad anyway, nothing can be lost by asking.
I am now free to ask God for direction, because I have dropped my allegiance to the ego and aligned myself with God. I can safely ask for direction without resistance.
But what do I literally have to do?
Swiftly go through the Steps from soup to nuts, cover of the book Alcoholics Anonymous until the end of Dr Bob's Nightmare, followed by a more gentle saunter through the Traditions and the Concepts to construct a new and better life.
Importantly: Drop all plans; forgive everyone for everything; make all amends.
How do I know this will work?
It will work. But, if you don't believe me, read everything Paul Martin wrote for the Grapevine. The Steps and their buddies, the Traditions and the Concepts, are the answer. There is no other answer. If they don't work once, do them again, because you missed something. And again. Eventually something gives. I once had to do the Steps three times in two years. Suck it up.
I have had four very major surrenders after the initial surrender at the start of my sobriety, plus a number of smaller ones. They're still happening. You get used to it. Each one levels me up because the previous level becomes toxic and uninhabitable. Fresh start each time. This really does work.