There are some who say recovery saved their lives, and for a time, that is true.
But there is another truth, spoken of rarely, and often punished when said aloud…
Sometimes what saves you becomes what cages you. Sometimes the cave you fled was not addiction, but the recovery that followed it.
Plato told of prisoners chained in a cave mistaking shadows for reality. Behind them danced a fire, and between fire and wall passed the figures of men and objects, casting illusions onto stone. The prisoners knew no different, the shadows were their world.
But what happens when one breaks free? When they turn from the wall and see the fire? When they are pulled painfully out of the cave, and into the sun?
They are first blinded, and then bewildered. But in time, they come to see—not the shadow of a tree, but the tree itself. Not the puppet of a god, but the god itself. Not recovery as mimicry of life, but life itself—alive, unruly, full of strange beauty.
And when that one returns to the cave, to speak of what they’ve seen?
They are not welcomed, they are mocked. They are said to be mad, they are said to have lost “the program.” They are said to be dangerous..
This is the fate of the one who leaves the cave—not because they hate it, but because they love the ones still chained. And this is the danger of any system that confuses safety, and conformity with soul.
The rooms of recovery can become a cave. The slogans present a wall of shadows. The group is a fire casting familiar illusions. Not because they are evil, but because they forget that the point was never to stay there forever – the point was to leave.
The soul said Hillman, is born with a daimon—a calling, a character, an image. This daimon is not satisfied with sobriety. It wants depth, it wants mystery, it wants your life—not the one you were told to live. But the daimon has enemies, and one of its fiercest is allegiance to comfort.
Addiction may begin in the refusal to hear the daimon, but so can the need for a post-recovery.
The daimon says, leave, look, and listen. Do not mistake the fire for the sun, the group for God, or reflection for transformation.
Depth Recovery asks – what if the next step isn’t up, but out? What if sobriety is the first step to leaving, not the final destination? What if the soul is calling you beyond the cave, not deeper into it?
This is dangerous work, and it will make you strange. It will make others uncomfortable, and it will cost you belonging – But it may return you to your soul…
