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During childhood, many of you listened to your parents lament, “I wish you would grow up!” It was a dreaded criticism that reminded you that you were not measuring up to expectations and were acting childish. Today, as an adult, you take offense to the suggestion that you need to grow up! Yet this is essentially what recovery is all about. In order not to escape with your drug of choice, you choose to take yourself out of harm’s way and listen to the cravings in order to discover the legitimate need underneath that must be met in a healthy way. Then you practice mature self parenting in order to meet that need. Avoiding the addictive behavior and replacing it with self-care is a practice of growing yourself up.
Recovery engages a cycle of self maturation. In order for you to grow in your rehabilitation, you must understand that you must bury the old and plant the new.
Joseph Campbell once spoke of the death and resurrection of Jesus as a metaphor and motif that embodies your own inner journey in recovery. First, there is the letting go of ego, your own self that will run riot. As an addict, there is a mentality that you want what you want when you want it. That has to go!
The story suggests that you have to die to the willfulness of your ways. Your best thinking got you stuck in your addiction. The story then prescribes that you connect with your core sense of self and emerge renewed (or resurrected) in your adult self.
Before you can plant something new, you have to know that the old must die. Death to the old way of thinking must die before the new life can be planted. Before you say hello to the new, you must grieve and say goodbye to the old.
Once you have stopped the runaway train going down the track, stop the negative behavior, put the cork in the bottle, it’s time to grow yourself up emotionally. This is a journey that takes a lifetime. Here are a few things to consider:
1. To come home, you have to leave home. This paradox requires explanation. Ultimately, your recovery journey will bring you home to the center of your heart. This is home, the fruit of emotional growth. There are certain things you cannot learn at home; you have to go away. It requires you to get out of your comfort zone. Leaving home means to free-fall into something new. There will be uncertainty and discomfort. Daily routines will change. Familiarity will become foreign. There will be a feeling of abandonment from all that was once routine. You will experience chaos and a desire to hang on to past experience and wish for what no longer is. When people speak of emotional growth, this is always what it entails. Peace in the presence of tumultuous turmoil. To launch into the deep for future growth, it is important to realize that your personal journey will lead you back to your heart. The journey will expand your personal freedom. This is emotional growth. This journey intensifies your awareness that you are the artist of your life. It is this reality that is home.
2. There is no growth without grieving what is old. You will have to bury old relational dynamics that don’t work for you anymore. Sometimes that means you will have to say goodbye to people or systems who won’t change their dysfunctional patterns of behavior. You will have to fight off feelings of guilt and selfishness. You must recognize the old framework of living that no longer works for you and courageously step into a new way of seeing and being. Remember, a snake that does not shed its skin is vulnerable and will likely die from infection. You shed your skin of past experience by grieving and letting go. When you park your focus in the past and insist that it remain in the present, you will emotionally stop growing. When the world around you evolves, but the mythical stories you have anchored your life do not, you will be disconnected from the dynamic of personal growth. Letting go always requires painfully grieving the old. Recovery is made up of a lifetime of goodbyes to the old and hello to the new.
3. Drop whatever it is that blocks your sense of being alive. Mark Nepo, in his book, Finding Inner Courage, referenced cell biologist Dr. Bruce Carlson, who said at the base of every leaf is the spore of a new bud waiting to grow in its place. However, it cannot grow as long as the old leaf remains in place. When the old leaf dies and gives up its space, the new leaf sprouts forth, and new life begins. Identifying what inhibits your personal recovery growth, be it fear, shame, resentment, etc., will enable you to give up what no longer works. In order for you to continue to grow in your recovery, you must bury what once was and is no longer helpful or effective. Recovery is an evolving dynamic. Old systems that no longer have life must be shed, or your recovery becomes stale. Carefully examine what it is that is stale in your life and/or prevents you from being alive. Radically drop it. You cannot let a sponsor or any other source do your thinking or recovery for you. When you are unwilling to adjust your way of thinking, you will end up clinging to forms that no longer serve your recovery life.
