Letting go is about embracing reality
Before I could, “…let go and let God,” I had to let in reality. This was back in the day when I was early in recovery from an eating disorder. I did not have a lot of resources or support, I don’t think much existed back then. I was relying as best as I could on the wisdom of God and my exposure to the 12-steps. I had become attached to my identity as a “thin” person. This obsession tied my identity to numbers - the scale, the size of my jeans, the diameter of my waist. Early in recovery I was giving my complete and entire readiness to figuring out how to eat enough to satisfy my heart specialist without losing my svelte figure.
One day I confessed this to a friend, who replied, “Calling yourself thin is like describing concentration camp survivors as ‘all muscle’ instead of telling the truth. When they got released from those death camps they were a bag of bones, one breath away from death.” Well, that was rude. But it also let in a bit more reality. I was not thin, I was emaciated. I did not look good, I looked like what I was - dying.
There is a pernicious myth that continues to circulate among families in need of recovery that says that a person suffering from a substance use disorder must “hit bottom” before they are ready to recover. Often referred to as a moment of clarity, this magical bottom is supposed to be the eureka moment when, finally, the person with the SUD agrees that they have a problem and decide they want help.
“That’s why it may be tempting to take a hands-off approach to the problem, hoping that your relative or friend’s drug or alcohol problem will just go away - that he or she is just going through a phase and will get better with time. Or you may decide that treatment won’t help because your addicted friend or relative doesn’t want to make a change. But both of these beliefs are myths that can lead to more severe addiction and to greater family disruption. Addiction is a progressive disorder - it gets worse over time.” *
At Step Six, those days of resistance to treatment may feel like they are only visible through our rearview mirror. But resistance is a stubborn booger and we battle it at every stage of recovery. When we rigidly cling to our obsessions and compulsions, it is usually necessary to “let in” more reality before we are willing to surrender to the process of transformation.
* Addiction Why Can’t They Just Stop? David Sheff, Larkin Warren, Katherine Ketcham and Katherine Eban, Rodale Inc., copyright 2007, p.157.
