One of Depth Recovery’s main moves is the de-personalization of the pathology. Whether it be focused on depression, anxiety, addiction, or recovery – the grounding idea is that we are not it; it is not mine. From this standpoint, addiction (or any affliction) is not immediately vilified, and is looked at from contrasting views; light and dark, good and evil, meaningful and meaningless etc.,
We have become conditioned to so quickly see our afflictions negatively, that at least if we make our way through them, we do not grieve them. In our current thinking grieving one’s afflictions seem contradictory, however, it is the act of true grieving that allows something to be buried. That which is fully grieved remains, but does not haunt…
If what is to be grieved is unable to haunt, how does this guide us in our approach to addiction? It leads one to the act of fully grieving the life of addiction, both dark and light. In 12-step culture, only one-half of this grieving is done, through the written 4th step. One confronts how the addiction has affected multiple areas, specifically one’s relationships, and one grieves these changes, and these potential consequences.
In Depth Recovery, the idea is one must go another step further, one must grieve the loss of addiction. One must confront the positive moments it attaches to the addiction experience. Conversations that will never happen again, certain connections made, events survived and made through, and moments in which one’s character unbeknownst may have been entirely shaped. This is hard to do, as we have become conditioned to only attach negative attributes to the experience of addiction.
In fully grieving the addiction, it is put out to rest, and buried. Possibly no longer something with the ability to haunt you, linger back up, and make itself known. For, is it not the “obsession” to fantasize about the good times addiction brought you? The moments you’re laughing about not crying? The moments where you felt on top of the world, and nothing could touch you? If we don’t fully honor these experiences, they remain oppressed, not buried. And if they are oppressed, they long for a return…
If we are to change our approaches to addiction, we must begin by seeing its totality, not its one-sidedness. Seeing our afflictions in their totality is part of the way we transform through them, not become them…
