Alcoholic, narcotic, opioid, sexual addiction (or even a related dependency) leaves a lifetime of hurts to process, understand, and embrace. Since we are communal beings, addiction or dependency affects not only the carrier or main person but also those who are around them as well. The hurts, especially the subconscious pains and sufferings, affect victims in complicated and different ways at different times. We are complex beings, and we process things differently, so something that seems to be so easy or straightforward for some could affect others in more traumatic ways. Therefore, the ministry of presence, especially one of patient encouragement, firm conviction, and persevering nature, is essential to help people to process, embrace, understand, and hopefully overcome past hurts caused by addiction or dependency.
Many books have been written, and many resources can be found on the Twelve Steps and its numerous offspring of recovery programs. Nonetheless, it is sobering to note that no matter how much one can read up or try to understand the subject, the hardest part has always been deciding when to get help! The decision to acknowledge the pains, sufferings, hurts, or miseries caused by dependency or addiction, whether one is the person who is struggling or someone who has been affected by it, is very hard. What seems to be easy can become very personally, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually painful. Furthermore, acknowledging and naming the pain is hard, but being willing to ask for help is the hardest. No one likes to talk about what hurt them, which is why vulnerability takes courage, humility, and transparency!
I. Overcoming Our Own Obstacles
We are often our biggest obstacle and enemy because we do not believe we can be healed, get help, or seek assistance for the current or past hurts, pains, sufferings, or traumas. We do not like to talk about what hurts us, so it becomes easier to sweep things under the carpet, bury them deep within our subconsciousness, ignore them as if they did not happen or exist, or simply not talk about them. Nonetheless, unaddressed and unprocessed matters always come out to hurt us in different ways in the end. Too many people let themselves cope with past hurts, pains, sufferings, or miseries with unhealthy measures and practices that could lead to detrimental dependency, addiction, depression, anxiety, or negative outcomes.
First and foremost, it is important to know that we must be willing to choose to live life and get help, for no one can help us until we acknowledge and open up to be helped by others. No matter how we put it, we must admit that life can get challenging, and the natural anxieties, stresses, messiness, and uneasiness can become enveloping and enslaving! We can easily let the overwhelming reality eat us alive and choke us to death instead of trying to live beyond them. We must tell ourselves that even though things may be far from perfect, we are still OK at the moment. Sometimes, we need to be very realistic and sober up to remember that (1) we are still here, (2) no one is attacking us, (3) we are not sick, and (4) there is no (real) crisis where we are at the moment.
When I say “right now,” I really means at this present moment! When we clump the past with the future or all of the what if’s and what should have been’s, we begin to worry and overplan, anxious and overcompensate, trying to control and trying too hard to have things not fall apart beyond what we are capable of at the present moment. The ability to live and will to live in the present moment allow us not to be overly anxious about the future that we are not living yet nor resentful and regretful of the past that has passed. At this moment in time, we are living, breathing, and OK… and that is enough for the moment. We are all right, even if we do not have everything in order. Life is OK even when things can get challenging at times. If we can simply be present and fine with being OK in life, we can find help and assistance, get things done slowly, and deal with problems.
II. Addiction and Its Fears
People turn to dependency or addiction as a way to escape the overwhelming struggles, pains, sufferings, hurts, or traumas that make them feel beaten down, tired, hurt, and not worth living anymore! They turn to those means to take their minds away from the crappy existence that they are in, to numb away the pains and sufferings, or to be somewhere else except the present hell. One small thing leads to something greater and more dangerous, hence making us dependent and addicted to the means that we have chosen to use to cope, ignore, or escape from reality.
Sadly, these things have done nothing more than create what seems to be an alternative reality and momentary pleasure while leaving others who love us and are affected by our actions hurt, suffering, and in pain without us knowing. Addiction and dependency make us turn to self-preservation and hedonistic escapism, yet lock us up in our very own selves as we push people away. While we might find some types of passing pleasures for a moment, the real pains, struggles, sufferings, and miseries do not go away. Ironically, by numbing ourselves to the things that hurt us, we, in turn, hurt other people who love and care for us by our own self-centered decisions, words, and actions.
Therefore, when we recognize the hurt caused to ourselves and those dear to us, we must be honest with ourselves and get help. Before it becomes too late, it is important to be humble, genuine, courageous, and transparent by naming the self-created demons that haunt and eat us alive. Until we see reality and call evil by its name, it continues to have power over us, making us lie, reject, and hide from the truth that hurts, but ending up hurting our very own selves and those who love us. The greatest love is to love oneself in all our brokenness and imperfections to find help, healing, and assistance that we cannot provide by opening up and depending on others.
III. Learning to Love
Even though it is often portrayed and talked about in popular culture, self-love is hard and confusing for many. We think we can easily love ourselves, but it is one of the hardest things we must do in life! We often like to hide behind what our ego wants to portray its fragile self to be, which is often fake and outrageous. Nonetheless, the first important step to knowing and loving one’s self begins with recognizing that one cannot overcome an addiction or dependency alone because it has caused many pains, sufferings, fears, and ruptures deep from within. One has to be sick and tired of being and tired of doing and turning to the same thing that is destroying him or her! It is humbling to ask for help, to turn to God, and to be committed to recovery and sobriety. That is why the last and most important step that needs to be understood and repeated daily is to genuinely accept, understand, and be true to one’s self as to live beyond the destructive dependency or addiction.
Hence, the last thing we want to do in life is play games with the Almighty, to be someone we are not! We can lie to others, judge them to make ourselves feel superior, and feel righteous about who we think we are, but we cannot lie to God because when we try to point the finger at others to feel good about ourselves, other fingers are pointing back at us first. The greatest tragedy is to live our whole life with our own self-righteousness, criticizing others, thinking that we are better than them, and putting ourselves on a pedestal, but never humble enough to confess our faults and be changed with His grace.
We cannot go through life alone, lying to ourselves and hurting those around us. The more we try to escape and mask the pains, the more we are enslaved to the evils that grasp onto us, eating us alive and holding us down by their yokes of dependent and addictive behaviors and actions. Finding help and support is the important first step, but continuing to show up, check in, and receive help from others is a powerful tool that helps us not slip back into destructive behaviors and habits. Anyone who has worked or has any type of experience with recovery programs can tell you and me that sobriety or the desire to live free from dependency and addiction is a daily, personal, and willful choice that one has to make!
IV. Choosing Sobriety and Freedom
When we get better, the long-time struggle, disease, or sickness does not simply leave us. This brokenness is always a part of our lives, but we have to choose to be sober and realistic by being honest, genuine, transparent, and true to ourselves and those who hold us accountable. Without proper support, we will slip back, especially when times get trying, hard, or challenging! Nonetheless, with family, friends, those who struggle like us, and those who care for us, we can be honest, vulnerable, and transparent in asking for help when it gets tempting because we have people who love us more than we love ourselves at times.
Life is only worth living when we know that we are not alone, and some people rejoice, are supportive, and hold us accountable in helping us choose life. True friends are those who love us for who we truly are, with all of our brokenness and imperfections, and love us more than we can of ourselves at times, too! Indeed, true friends are hard to find, but they will be there to be our support and accountability partners so we can learn to love ourselves in all of our limitations and struggles, to see that we are worth loving and life is worth living even when it gets tiring.
It is a life-long journey to live beyond dependency and addiction for one who used to be so enslaved by them. It is worthwhile to seek help, support, and encouragement from those who might share the same struggles and be able to hold us accountable so we can process, understand, and be ourselves beyond the past hurts, pains, sufferings, and traumas that were caused by others. There will be good and challenging days, and the temptations to slip back or be dictated by what we have been used to for so long become so real and easy, but that is when we know we have to be honest with ourselves, humble, genuine, transparent, and be held accountable by those who we trust and care for us more than ourselves at times.
Overcoming past hurts and choosing to live life are personal decisions and choices that require much support and transparency, for we cannot do it alone! It is the good friends and people who lift us up, keep us grounded, and motivate us to live life to the fullest beyond the easy escape route that helps us make the right choices to embrace all messiness, challenges, and imperfections as to simply say that, “Life is OK because I am OK at the moment. It does not have to be perfect to be good because I am here, and God is here with me!” We can live not stuck in the past or too worried about the things we cannot control in the future, but simply, courageously, and humbly choose, will, and desire to embrace all matters as they are — with His grace and support of others — because life is worth living in the present moment.
No matter where you might be in your journey to overcome past hurts from addiction and dependency, I pray that you might find the needed strength to move forward and get help. Remember that you are not alone if you allow yourselves to be helped and loved along the way. Truly, life is worth living beyond what had hurt us! And… the best thing is… We do not have to struggle alone, for He is with us.
I Thirst (John 19:28) with Father Khoi 