Undoing Addiction: Ending our War on God and Love

Notes on healing and the holy instant

For any number of reasons, this may be a triggering post for some folks. Forgive me. Also, this essay may be a helpful companion.

Addiction owns two main qualities in my life.

First, I want everything to be more intense - brighter, faster, louder, deeper. I want the interior amplifiers set at eleven all the time. I want the stakes to be life or death all the time.

I cannot bear - I cannot bear - the ordinary, the pedestrian, the routine and the rules.

Second, a little less obviously, I do not want to be responsible. I don't want to have to do anything that I don't want to do. Everything should be given to me when I want it the way I want it. Only then will I be truly happy and free.

This is obviously not sustainable.

Recovery communities helped. Therapy helped a lot. Entering into a new, service-based relationship with God and God's Creation helped, too.

But I did not really begin to face addiction nor undo its root causes until I began to study and practice A Course in Miracles.

More specifically, until I accepted and began to attempt to enact and embody the truth of ACIM's happy dream.

Happy dreams come true, not because they are dreams, but only because they are happy. And so they must be loving. Their message is, “Thy Will be done,” and not, “I want it otherwise” (T-18.V.4:1-3).

I realized that my whole life had been dedicated to "I want it otherwise."

When we live by the law of "I want it otherwise," we are saying several things at once, each one of which cannot help but bring us - and others too unfortunately - to grief.

"I want." The eogic concept of self is codified in this statement. Whatever happens is about me. My wants, my perceptions, my plans and my way. In any situation, all that matters is how I feel and what I want to do with those feelings. Stuff them? Broadcast them? Double down on them?

It's my call. You and everyone else - up to and including Jesus and his unreliable Dad - are along for the ride.

"Otherwise." Whatever life offered - whatever appeared - I judged against it. There were too many rules, too many requirements, the folks calling the shots were dumb and inept, the routine was stifling, schedules murder creativity, et cetera. Something was always wrong and, in keeping with the principle that I’m in charge, I refused to accept or be in relationship with any of it.

In the end, addiction is a way of refusing - of actively attacking - the healing potential of the present.

A Course in Miracles invited an accounting in this regard that made Steps Four and Nine look and feel like child's play.

Addiction is a symptom of separation. It's a symptom that can kill you faster than the disease itself. It's a sympton that can take others down with you. If you don't undo the underlying illness completely, then this deadly symptom will sprout again and again.

Addiction is effectively ego's attack on God. Addiction makes war on Love. The war cannot be won but lifetimes can be lost fighting it. Lifetimes are lost that way.

I am not speaking hypothetically.

When I began to take A Course in Miracles seriously (long after I first started studying and practicing it), two things happened.

The first was that I saw how ACIM was not perfect. It was not a scripture. It wasn't like Moses with his tablets. It was okay to write notes in the margins or spill coffee on its pages.

The course was simply the collaborative effort of two people - Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford - desperately trying to remember peace and happiness for themselves and leaving notes for those who came later with the same burning desire for a better way to resolve conflict.

In other words, I understood - I understand - A Course in Miracles as a prototype for ending separation by remembering oneness.

Prototypes are designed to be applied and changed. They're designed to be flexible in order to adapt to new situations and challenges. They aren't etched in stone, but sketched on paper in pencil. They’re meant to be interactive and permissive.

When I stopped worshipping the course - when I stopped insisting the course be the spiritual cornerstone of my living, over and against everything else - then my relationship with its content became less performative and public and more intimate and helpful. I saw its potential for healing and opened up to that potential in unexpected and life-altering ways.

The second thing that happened was that I realized I had been fucking around in the spiritual buffet line for way too long and that it was time - it was past time really - to make a decision. I had to make a commitment. It didn't even matter to what. The act of committing - not the thing to which I committed - was the point.

So I did. Rather than say for the ten millionth time "I want it otherwise," I said, "I guess I'll try this, thy will be done." And, not without a lot of bumps and bruises, false starts and wrong turns, whining and kvetching and griping, it worked.

What does that mean, "it worked?"

I mean that A Course in Miracles introduced a handful of extremely useful concepts to me - holiness vs. specialness, the importance of relationship, the vitality of the present moment - and urged me to not only become skillful in understanding them but also in - even primarily in - applying them. I learned that healing isn't a thing I do, but a process I agree to be available for and, when it is offered, to accept it.

Let me say that again:

Healing is not an action that I take
but rather a process
for which I agree to become available.
When it is offered,
I accept.

I don't set the terms, right? I don't make conditions. I simply show up.

I say yes in the deepest and most whole-hearted way I can.

Healing is collaborative but my part is really basic: I just have to be willing to be healed. The course is very clear about this. I am not in charge.

Never approach the holy instant after you have tried to remove all fear and hatred from your mind. That is its function. Never attempt to overlook your guilt before you ask the Holy Spirit’s help. That is His function. Your part is only to offer Him a little willingness to let Him remove all fear and hatred, and to be forgiven (T-18.V.2:1-5).

Let's break that down a little.

The most important part is the last sentence: all I have to do is offer the Holy Spirit my willingness. I have to realize the need for healing and be willing to be healed. It's more passive than I like; it’s way less spectacular and dramatic.

But it’s not unambiguous.

It is not my job to remove fear and hatred from my mind - I can’t do that. All I can do is notice they are there in my mind, realize they are deviations from Love, and then - this is really really important - not run away from the resultant guilt.

Because I do feel guilty, right? Why am I such a defective child of God? Why did I piss away so many opportunities for healing? For contentedness? Why did I tolerate hurting others? It was so simple and I made it all complex and difficult. Why?

If I am honest, I feel like a disappointment to Jesus, to the Lord of Heaven and to the Mother of the Cosmos. I deserve to suffer and die. I deserve to be disappeared.

I hate saying that but deep down it's the truth. Sooner or later we have to look at it.

Because it is in that space - self-convicted of crimes against God and nature, condemned to be crucified - utterly without hope for salvation, forsaken even by God - that the Holy Spirit comes and says gently but clearly, "Sean, you ridiculous beautiful goofball, you are forgiven."

You are forgiven.

I'm not saying that this work is easy. Nor am I saying anybody has to do it. There are lots of ways to peace and happiness. I am simply saying that for me it was not possible to be happy until I was forgiven by God, through the Holy Spirit, with Jesus standing by as a kind of mystical sponsor. A Course in Miracles made that possible. My gratitude is immense.

Forgiveness is no joke. It is a real healing that we experience in bodies in the world. It's a light that shines away the darkness and purifies the many sins and errors and blemishes we’ve cherished and collected over the years.

For me, forgiveness means that I no longer fear fear. I'm not afraid to be afraid anymore because I know that the outcome is sure. Love is the outcome - not in the future but now. I trust God; I trust you.

I desire this holy instant for myself, that I may
share it with my brother, whom I love.
It is not possible that I can have it without him, or
he without me.
Yet it is wholly possible for us to share it now (T-18.V.7:3-5).

I could say a lot about that prayer! I was born both curious and wordy. But mostly I want to remember that you and I go together and that our togetherness is collectively the site of healing, the means of healing and the effect of healing. Is it clear?

We are teaching each other how to be holy by having nothing else in our lives but holiness. Reality cannot be opposed, only accepted. I love you. And through our love, God.

~ Sean