Contemplative Practice--Obsessive Drinking, Obsessive Thinking

I am currently reading two books on the subject of contemplation from a Christian perspective:  New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton, and Into the Silent Land by Martin Laird.  I have no doubt at this point that the practice of contemplation is key to recovery.

I was thinking back today to a woman in the Al-Anon meeting that I once ran who often compared addiction to alcohol to addiction to sugar. She believed that all addictions were rooted in the same thing. The only difference was the particular substance to which one was addicted. I did not entirely agree with her. After all, I reasoned, sugar does not wreck lives and kill people. It does not take away one's ability to reason. But is that true? Scientific studies have shown that certain food products can be addictive, and sugar is the leader of this gang. If we look at rates of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and other illnesses, food addiction surely plays a major part, and the death toll rises.

In the rooms of Al-Anon, the distinction was made that the disease of the alcoholic is obsessive drinking, and the problem of the Al-Anon person is obsessive thinking. So what is the common denominator here? Obsession. Furthermore, I am aware from speaking with the alcoholic that in cases of relapse, before he begins drinking, he first begins to think about drinking. Not being able to turn off the obsessive thought patterns, he succumbs to the temptation and begins his cycle of alcoholic drinking all over again. So we can conclude that in all cases of addiction there is at the root the problem of obsession.

Interestingly, obsession is not the sole domain of the alcoholic, other addict, or Al-Anon person. It seems rather to be the plight of human nature since the beginning of time. Look at Adam and Eve in the garden and we find obsession for the forbidden fruit and the yielding to overwhelming temptation. And who was to blame? Partially, it was the evil one disguised as a serpent. Granted, he was no common garden snake. We know from the Book of Revelation that he was actually a dragon, so surely intimidation played a part. We will be looking at the role that Satan plays in taking our thoughts for a ride on a runaway train as we progress in our contemplation of, um, contemplation...

Temptation and Fall, Michaelangelo

Luckily for us, contemplative souls have provided a path out of the loop of obsession. For example, in a sermon on the Third Commandment, keeping holy the Sabbath, we have the words of St. Augustine:

"The third commandment enjoins quietness of heart, tranquility of mind. This is holiness. Because here is the Spirit of God...Unquiet people recoil from the Holy Spirit...In their restlessness they do not allow the silence of the Lord's Sabbath to enter their lives. Against such restlessness we are offered a kind of Sabbath in the heart. As if God were saying, 'Stop being so restless, quieten the uproar in your minds. Let go of the idle fantasies that fly around in your head.' God is saying, 'Be still and see that I am God' (Ps 46). But you refuse to be still. You are like the Egyptians tormented by gnats. These tiniest of flies, always restless, flying about aimlessly, swarm at your eyes, giving no rest. They are back as soon as you drive them off. Just like the futile fantasies that swarm in your minds. Keep the commandment. Beware of this plague."

The seeds of contemplation can be found in the 12 Step Program, but they are not well enough defined. Step 11 says, "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out." But how is this accomplished? Tellingly, while prayer was frequently an Al-Anon topic, meditation was rarely discussed. When I once brought it up at a meeting, people offered various ways that they meditate, and certainly many practices can be helpful. Yet I think it true that most people know neither how to pray nor how to meditate effectively. And the topic of contemplation was never explored at all.

So what I want to do here is to follow this path of contemplation in the books I am reading and share what insights I gain in a series that will begin with the first part of the title of this post, Contemplative Practice. And while I acknowledge that there are varying degrees of obsession, and that alcoholism is a particularly potent form, I want to emphasize that this problem of the obsession of the mind is basically human, common to all people, rather than a special disease shared only by the unfortunate. Let's focus on our common ground and the hope of universal solutions.