A Submission by Cosette DeCesare
Please note that Bottomless to Sober does not endorse any specific recovery program or path to recovery. Neither does it endorse meeting or not meeting in person during the pandemic.
My story is your story, and your story is mine. I see the value in sharing them. Actually, that’s an understatement; telling our stories, that’s the lifeblood of the recovery community. When we share our stories, we are participating in mutuality. Kertz Ketcham once discussed how we give by getting and we get by giving. Not a single part of my story has NOT already been told by the women who have gone before me. Like them, I too felt insecure and uncomfortable in my skin and used my drinking and drug use to cope. Like them, I, too, have trauma and relied on perfectionism to feel some semblance of control and appear put together. Like them, I, too, ultimately engaged in behavior that is morally reprehensible.
On and on.
I regularly engaged in swaps, giving a piece of myself, of dignity, trust, or consent away to others when I was in no position to give these things away. I would give anything in exchange for whatever was going to give me that sweet, sweet buzz. People who don’t feel whole ought not to go about giving bits of themselves away. Alas, that is what we all do. What alcoholic/addict would know NOT to do this? We do not know what we do not know.
We can describe the myriad of chaos and endless examples of the insanity of the disease through our stories. Of all that we did to get that freeing feeling. Frankly, thank God for that relief. That reprieve is how I got to feel better, sometimes, back then. How could I progressively move through MY life feeling the way I did without the respite from the chaos and the insanity that being glazed provided?! Using became the only thing that provided me relief. And it did…until it didn’t.
That anyone gets and stays sober is an absolute miracle. People do it. I did it. I’ve been clean and sober as of writing this for twelve years. That is a miracle.
I needed drugs and alcohol to live. So when I stopped using them, I thought to myself, “I had better replace them with something that works, and it better feel good!” To both of these proposals, I say they do!
If sharing our stories is the lifeblood of recovery, then living recovery is spiritual oxygen. This oxygen can only be inhaled by the community.
Saint Francis, the 12th-century mystic, taught that the antidote to confusion and paralysis is always a return to simplicity, to what is right in front of us, to the nakedly obvious (Rohr, 2020).
It’s simple. We need to stop using, but we need others to help us. In turn, we need to help others so that we stay “stopped.” As trite as this sounds, we must go to meetings, get into the literature of recovery, and not drink or use in between meetings. Only then can we hear what we need to learn. We will hear what we need to do when we are ready for it. But we won’t if we are not at meetings or in recovery literature.
We live in an extraordinarily technologically advanced times. Options are infinite in terms of the recovery spaces and resources that exist today. I am not suggesting that the sheer magnitude of the amount of these offerings is a bad thing, hardly at all. Someone could get overwhelmed though looking for help.
Psychological theories and self-Help books abound. Have you noticed how large that section of the book store is? It’s huge. There are many talking heads and experts. Treatment centers are everywhere. Podcasts and Youtube channels. However, these offerings would not exist without what has been called “the most significant phenomenon in the history of ideas in the 20th century” (Kurtz & Ketcham, 1992). This, of course, is the Twelve Step recovery program outlined in The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Therefore, as St Francis encouraged, let us get back to simplicity and back to basics. Let’s get back to The Big Book.
While returning to simplicity sounds just as it is, simple, it is in no way easy. What The Big Book offers takes time and work. This is difficult to accept in this instant gratification world we inhabit. The Big Book unequivocally emphasizes the absolute importance of community. Within the community of recovery, we become acquainted with ourselves by getting acquainted with others.
Thank God we live in this technologically advanced age where we can connect with others online. That said, I would be remiss if I did not pointedly suggest that our online community must be supplemented with actual in-person connection and regular study of the literature. It is in this space where that spiritual oxygen can be exchanged. If the space is not physically shared by individuals, how then can this essence be transmitted? It can’t. It is not lost on me that as I write this, the global community has been rocked by an airborne pandemic. We have been prohibited, by law in some cases, to come together in our fellowship. All the more important that we come together again when we can as soon as we can.
One may very successfully stay dry or clean solely utilizing what is available at their fingertips and without crossing the threshold of their home. However, one might be denying themselves the opportunity of a type of quality of sobriety which creates the ultimate motivation to no longer use drugs and alcohol. That is the development of emotional sobriety. And it is this emotional sobriety that feels good. It takes time to obtain, but it is possible, and it is there for the taking for anyone who has the capacity to be honest, and works for it.
You may contact Cosette directly at cosettedecesare@gmail.com.
