The Alcoholic Mind

vision of the universe as an egg inside the womb of God, Hildegard of Bingen

An alcoholic relative said to me, "I don't think you understand the alcoholic mind."  From here I am just going to meditate upon this idea as the thoughts come to me. What is this alcoholic mind of which he speaks? This is a special mind, it is implied, and indeed, AA is built upon this specialness. "We alcoholics," or the self-deprecating, "We drunks..." is foundational to the program and its tome, the Big Book. There is the alcoholic we, who are understood to be all the same in a certain way and are separate from others, those who are not of the we. It is self-will and ego run amok, the program says, the absence of humility that stands in the way of sobriety. And perhaps that is indeed a piece of the puzzle.

Yet is not the overly inflated ego merely the flip side of the coin of low self-esteem? Does the Alcoholics Anonymous program actually unwittingly encourage such grandiosity/self-deprecation? Alcoholics I have known imagine themselves to be unusual geniuses. They have secret meetings, a secret code of language, and secret gods who live in the the alcoholic's personal understanding. Those in the group compose a well insulated circle, and those who have "gone back out," or were never inside it in the first place, are regarded warily.

When I felt left out of the tight circle of a certain alcoholic with his special mind, I joined my own group, Al-Anon, with its own secret meetings, secret language, and secret gods. I might even have had my own, special Al-Anon mind. Beth, a friend of mine in the program, often spoke of being "in my disease." We had our own secret disease too, it seems! We had our secret club that other people couldn't understand because they did not know the language and what it was like to be married, or otherwise closely related, to an alcoholic.

I think that all of this specialness is counterproductive. It imagines that people do not already have as the ground of their being the fact that each of us is made in the image and likeness of God. Only another alcoholic can understand, can help... Really? Other human beings are such foreigners, have such different minds, that they cannot understand simply by virtue of their common humanity?

 Jesus in Mary's womb

I once picked a woman up out of the pouring rain and offered to give her a ride home. She had been waving her arms frantically in the dark. She looked like a normal woman. But she had no home. She was outside working, in the oldest profession. So I brought her to my apartment and discovered she had been wounded, dragged down an alley and raped. Her arm and chest were becoming infected. I drove out to Kroger at a quarter to one in the morning and got first aid supplies to treat and dress her wounds. The next day at the hospital the doctor (who thought I was either very brave or crazy) looked shocked when he took off the bandages and asked, "Who dressed these wounds?" He could do nothing better for them than I had done and just put on fresh coverings. I could not know the depth of this woman's pain, yet my hands held the power to heal her.

The woman's name was Joyce. Her dad had begun to pimp her out when she was 11 years old, and she had a long scar on her belly that she said was from an ice pick. Joyce loved my cat. She looked at fashion magazines with me. We shared a time together as any two women, any two friends with common interests and taste in clothes. She was more alone than I, but still, I too was alone, living by myself with my cat. We both just wanted to be loved and accepted and to feel safe. We both had scars, hers much more horrifying than mine. I gave her a bag of clothes and shoes, and she said, "No one has never been this nice to me." My heart broke indescribably. She was a blessing to me as well. For but by the grace of God go I, I thought to myself. How quickly I could go from living from paycheck to paycheck to being destitute. But I had a good family to help me, and great friends. Was my mind so different from Joyce's? Was my heart?

It is the illusion of separateness, of specialness, that is the problem. If we can stop trying to acquire serenity and believe that God the Holy Spirit desires to live within us; if we can, through contemplation, learn to live from the heart-mind, which is from a deeper place than our transitory thoughts and emotions, then we would know we are all connected. Even those who are not Christians, who are not part of the Body of Christ via the Sacrament of Baptism, are our neighbors. We all come together as the spokes at the center of a wheel, and God is the hub. But we typically live on the outer rim, and we perceive that we are disconnected from one another.

In The Reed of God, Caryll Houselander says that we must learn to see Christ in everyone. Not in some, or in most. Not only in those who seem Christlike, but in everyone, in every single person that we meet. If we do this, then we find in this union that purest actualization of what makes us each a unique expression of humanity. We become more of who we really are, at our root. Our personalities, our so-called "defects of character" do not fall away. But we find ourselves, and God dwelling within us, when we lose ourselves. When we die to ourselves.

St. Paul said it, about there no longer being Jew or Gentile, male or female, etc... but only Christ who is in us. In a similar way, I do not believe that there is any "alcoholic mind" or special "Al-Anon disease" when you get right down to it. There is no "god of my understanding". There is God, and there is Christ in God, and there is me in Christ in God, and there is Christ in me. And we are all in Him, enclosed in his womb, and He is in us.

 from God Picked Me, by Louise A. Andreae

“Beautiful is God, the Word with God … He is beautiful in heaven, beautiful on earth; beautiful in the womb, beautiful in his parents’ arms, beautiful in his miracles, beautiful in his sufferings; beautiful in inviting to life, beautiful in not worrying about death, beautiful in giving up his life and beautiful in taking it up again; he is beautiful on the Cross, beautiful in the tomb, beautiful in heaven. Listen to the song with understanding, and let not the weakness of the flesh distract your eyes from the splendour of his beauty." --St. Augustine

Forgiveness and Healing, Continued

Shortly after writing my last post, when I was wondering whether forgiveness or healing comes first, I received an answer. In The Reed of God, Caryll Houselander states that the shortest path to healing is forgiveness. Well, there it is, and it makes sense. As I have written before, when Jesus and the Bible speak of healing, there is usually, if not always, a definite reference to the forgiveness of sins. And how can our own sins be forgiven, and therefore how can we receive healing, if we have not forgiven others? At the same time, I think there is a difference between resentment and grief. There are distinctive stages of grief, and we need to allow ourselves to work through them. Forgiveness may come before the grief subsides completely. We can love someone who has hurt us, and not entirely shut him out, yet give ourselves some time and distance to heal. Forgiveness may not mean an immediate resuming of the previous status of the relationship. Trust may have been broken and needs to be restored.

Recently the husband of someone who hurt me deeply was hospitalized. When I found out, I immediately called her and kept her husband in my prayers. That in itself contributed to my healing. To have ignored her in her time of need would have been truly unloving and unforgiving. I also meditated while praying the Rosary on the unfathomable depth of Jesus' forgiveness, and what horrors Mary also suffered and forgave. In comparison, I have very little to forgive.

So now I am praying for both the grace to forgive as well as my own spiritual healing. I cannot know God's will for all of my relationships, so I have to just turn it over. I have to let go and let God. I have to offer it up, in that classic Catholic way. I still have not put my problem in a "God box", so perhaps I am not ready yet to let it go. But I can pray for the willingness to write it down and tuck it safely away in God's keeping.

Dealing with the Peanut Gallery (a Depression Issue Update)

The most viewed post of this blog, by far, is titled "Depression in a Loved One."  This tells me that in the land of recovery, depression is a hot button topic. Yet when I wrote it, I had no idea how extremely hot. It all began when I did an internet search for advice on how to help loved ones suffering from grief and depression. A number of people I am close to have experienced loss, grief, and heartbreak in relatively recent times, as well as serious health problems and mental/emotional issues. The link between alcoholism/addiction and depression and mental illness is strong. In fact, a friend of mine who works at a rehabilitation facility told me that there is only one addict patient there who is not also mentally ill (keep in mind, however, that this is only the case in one treatment center; I do not know the statistics across the board). In my reading I came across research establishing the contagious nature of depression (like a psychological sneeze), and I noted the similarity between those cases and the conventional wisdom that alcoholism becomes a "family disease."

Problems with friends and family members in the areas of addiction, depression, and mental illness were not only recent. I reflected on instances going more than 20 years back, and suddenly so many things began to make sense. I realized I had been affected not only by the alcoholism of people close to me, but by their issues with depression and mental illness as well. Having put such a significant piece into the puzzle, naturally I wanted to share it. I use no real names in this blog, nor do I use my own, not even in my profile. I did, however, share the link for "Depression in a Loved One" on my Facebook wall. I share links to other websites, blogs, etc. regularly, so there was no reason to necessarily assume I wrote the post, and I did not invite anyone personally to read it. Nevertheless, and despite the fact that one can send a personal message to Facebook or post comments right here at the blog, instead I received negative responses, some attacking my character quite zealously, directly on my wall. I will call this group the Peanut Gallery, and name them Lucy, Schroeder, and Peppermint Patty (all are related by blood or marriage).

 Peanuts cartoon by Charles Schultz

Call me Marcie. Marcie wrote her book report in her typical, literary nerd type way, completely unaware that she had hidden, evil intentions. But Lucy was deeply offended, Schroeder started banging hard on his keyboard with steam coming out of his ears, and worst of all, Peppermint Patty loudly accused Marcie of writing mean things about Sally. Now, this a report about recovery, and Marcie obviously was striving for some semblance of anonymity, but Peppermint Patty blew the chances of that all to hell right on Facebook.

Now, the fact of the matter is that the report was not specifically about Sally or anyone else. Marcie used a composite character name to describe her experiences with many people over the course of decades. Most specifically the composite character reflected the case of a large percentage of people Marcie had heard speak at Al-Anon meetings, people depressed and disturbed by the drinking/addiction of their children, who were in their teens and twenties. It additionally reflected various family members and friends of Marcie, including her own husband, who did not assume it had anything to do with him at all and was in no way offended by it. It included Marcie herself, who was also not offended by this report apparently written by her sinister doppelganger while she was sleeping (or at least she began to grow paranoid and wonder...)

Linus also read the report and became so vicious as a result that Marcie feared for the safety of herself and her family, and now Marcie's husband will not allow Linus to visit their home. Peppermint Patty told Marcie that someone else told her she just had to read Marcie's report. I can't help but think of rich women with servants in the 1960s who had nothing better to do than play bridge all afternoon and gossip (see the movie, The Help). I have no idea who passed the report on to Sally, who is very sensitive and who the family knew was in an intense state of grief, or to Linus, who though usually a sweet, loving person, is easily set off (both are also family members). How can the Peanut Gallery claim to care for these people yet intentionally point their attention to something they thought would be very hurtful? But Marcie, says the Peanut Gallery, if you wouldn't have written your book report and tried to be "helpful" in the first place... Yes, just call me Charlie Brown. What a stupid Christmas tree I chose, indeed!

But wait, the merry-go-round is still spinning! Because of the damage done by all the large nuts thrown at my head, I have no desire to host the family Christmas party or other gatherings of the whole clan. This would be no big deal except that the main reason I started doing this was to take the burden off my grandmother. She is worn out by health issues and her age and does not need to be frantically cleaning her home and preparing a bunch of food. She is happy to do it, of course, but it is better if she doesn't have to. Only one other family member ever hosts for the holidays, and that is not often, so since I have the large home to accomodate a lot of people and I enjoy having parties, I do it.  Now that I feel so alienated, I do not wish to do it this year, so who will take the burden from Grandma? Well, Christmas is still far away, and we should not worry about tomorrow.  The pertinent point is to expose just how far the effects of those flying nuts can reach, and what terrible bruises they leave.

Whoever read Marcie's report first might have called Marcie on the phone to talk over his or her concerns. To get some more information. To discover Marcie's real intentions. The bottom line of the report, after all, was about becoming more aware of the source of relationship difficulties and therefore to respond with deeper understanding and compassion, both for oneself and for others. And to avoid being hurt by the effects of the depression (some of which can be irrational thoughts, unhealthy behaviors, and disproportionate anger) of a loved one and its contagious nature. The tendency, unfortunately, among those affected by alcoholism/depression/mental illness is to be reactionary. They (myself included) feel compelled to respond immediately, without taking a deep breath, without waiting for the initial heat of emotion to disperse and then to attempt to objectively evaluate the situation. Technology makes this bad habit of reaction too easy, and you can't burn the letter after you write it. In the case of Marcie's report, she was not feeling angry or resentful and so felt safe in sharing her experiences. That was evidently a foul ball regardless. Caryll Houselander's spiritual classic, The Reed of God, has shed some new light on these things for me. She writes:

"People who will not compromise with Christ's values are uncomfortable neighbors for mediocrity; they are likely to be misunderstood; they are often hated...In the world in which we live today, the great understanding given by the Spirit of Wisdom must involve us in a lot of suffering. We shall be obliged to see the wound that sin has inflicted on the people of the world...And in proportion to our understanding we are likely to be misunderstood...But if the misunderstanding of the world outside our homes can afflict us, it is nothing compared with the misunderstanding of those who are very dear to us (and this is so frequent that it is almost inevitable)...Even the presence of Christ in us does not do away with our own clumsiness, blindness, stupidity; indeed, sometimes because of our limitations, His light is a blinding light to us and we become, for a time, more dense than before. We shall still be irritable, still make mistakes, and still very likely be unaware of how exasperating we are."

Marcie, for her part, went back to edit her report for greater clarity, to hopefully affect the tone and intention that she was seeking, and removed the composite character's name entirely. She informed the Peanut Gallery of her honest efforts to alleviate their misunderstanding and concern. The damage done to Sally and Linus is done. They fed off the Gallery's peanuts and thought the worst of Marcie too. I think that it would behoove all of the characters in this story to extend a heaping spoon of Grace to one another and each to drink deeply from the cup of humility. Otherwise the devil wins.