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| 73 and loving life |
But it wasn't easy, this opening myself up to living sober, to self-reflection, to accountability, to feeling. I'd been so devoted to image management and looking good, to being in control and trying to protect my heart, to taking the inventory of others rather than myself. And I was deeply resistant to feeling the emotions and memories and experiences that I'd worked so hard to stuff away throughout my young lifetime. But now here I was, overwhelmed with fear and pain, sitting in this meeting and pushing the words out of my mouth, "I'm Molly and I'm an alcoholic." Cringe....
I was looking for answers. I wanted someone to tell me what to do so I could stay sober, get everything under control, and move on, graduate, and be fine, thank you very much. What was most familiar was hiding — hiding from others and hiding from myself — and yet I really had no idea that this is what I had been doing for so very long. It was all I'd ever known. This business of honesty and vulnerability and authenticity was so foreign and incredibly threatening. I would let others in, yes, but only up to a point. Beyond that, I trusted no one. I had learned well how to fortify my heart. And yet, gratefully, once the alcohol was gone, the tears kept coming. And coming and coming.
There was good reason for my disassociation and dependence on alcohol and pot and cigarettes and numerous other non-substance addictions. Today I recognize that it wasn't because I was a bad person or possessed character defects or was incapable of honesty. I understand that it also wasn't because I was born that way or had a disease or had inherited genes which brought on my alcoholism. None of that was at the root of my many addictions.
It was pain. Although addiction runs in my family, my parents and ancestors did not pass on alcoholism. They did, unknowingly and never intentionally, pass on pain. There is no blame or shame here. It simply is what it is.
And what I understand today is that it is the pain held in the ancestral and cultural legacy burdens I carried deep inside that were what drove my addictions and all of the ways that I tried to cope which caused harm to myself and others. While I was doing the very best that I could, as did my parents and the generations before me, none of us knew how to cope in healthy ways with pain and loss and fear or how to meet many of our basic needs as human beings.
It is the many faces of trauma — which when unaddressed and denied, judged and shamed, misunderstood and suppressed — are found to show up in generations of families and in our culture at large. We see this in epidemics of addiction, depression and anxiety, and countless other faces of suffering, disconnection, dehumanization, and violence in society and beyond.
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| 1978, 6 months after my twin brother's suicide |
* * * * *
Many years into my sobriety were spent supporting me in beginning to more consciously recognize and experience different parts of myself —
- the parts that are alcoholic and addicted to substances and a variety of nonsubstances
- the parts of myself that are a traumatized and abused child
- the parts of me that shut down, shut up, shut out
- the parts that are a fierce inner critic and judgmental of myself and others
- the poor boundaries and caretaking parts that use focusing on others as a way of avoiding my own deeper needs and emotions
- the parts which are perfectionistic and controlling and needing to feel better than
- the parts of me that are disassociated and isolated and alone
- the parts within myself that are easily triggered and reactive
- the parts that are full of fear and shame
- the parts of me which are angry and full of rage
- the anxious and depressed parts of myself
- the parts that feel worthless and unlovable and disconnected
- the parts within me which hold an ocean of grief
- the parts that feel separate from and deeply frightened of intimacy and vulnerability and trusting anyone
- the parts of me that have gotten sick and showed up with symptoms like fibromyalgia
- the parts of myself that are trying to manage an image and who I think you want me to be rather embodying my authentic Self
My pain was also connected to the trauma, the legacy burdens, which my parents and their parents and on back through time had carried and blindly passed on. No wonder my parents drank and fought and blamed and shamed and checked out. My dad and, even more so, my mom simply did not know how to meet my deeper essential needs or my brother's for healthy attachment and bonding, mirroring and understanding, calm presence and support, acceptance and compassion, safety and tenderness, and holding and love. No wonder. They couldn't give what they hadn't experienced themselves as children and what they had never healed or transformed within their own hearts. And while there is no justification for abuse and neglect, it is also true that my parents were absolutely doing the best that they could. As was I. As are we all.
The enormous difference for me today is that I have choices. I have choices and access to healthy coping skills and resources, including very much within my Self, that I didn't truly know existed even just a few years ago. This journey of profound healing and transformation continues to evolve and expand. And it's not only staying sober that I'm talking about here. This is much greater, much greater. Because "I'm Molly, I'm an alcoholic" is just one part of me. Only one part. And far from the whole of who I am.
* * * * *
For years into my journey of sobriety, healing, and waking up, there was much that I didn't know and couldn't truly begin to grasp and understand. For one, I didn't understand that I am not my parts. Many years were spent in identities as an alcoholic, an adult child of an alcoholic, a trauma survivor. Many 12 Step programs and counseling resources do not see and acknowledge and work to address the limitations of believing our different parts are who we are. Missed here is a much larger picture of who, I believe, we all are at our core.
And so I went to AA and identified myself as an alcoholic. I did not drink. I also had other addictions pop up as I pushed the substance addictions down. I worked the 12 Steps, got sponsors, went to meetings, and was engaged in counseling. And yet, something was missing. Something crucial.
It was the pain of my exiles — the deeply buried parts that hold the deepest pain, fear, shame, trauma which began in early childhood — that drove all of my addictions and the various ways that I coped. I was also blind to how these repressed parts of myself were keeping me addicted, fragmented, disassociated, and dishonest with myself and others. Even for years into sobriety, I could not see how the legacy burdens of my exiles continued to impact myself and those around me. And this was true despite my sobriety and spending years doing "inner child work" and learning all about the impacts of the don't talk, don't trust, don't feel, don't be rules that I'd absorbed and so much more. Yet, a process of deep integration and transformation eluded me.
And then each of my three sons, when they hit adolescence, began showing up with their own symptoms of trauma. Which was indescribably painful, frightening, and shocking.
Here I was many years sober and doing everything that I was told to do and more. And yet something was horribly wrong. I couldn't understand what it was. And I had to find out. I had to go deeper into uncovering the missing pieces, the limitations of my resources of support, and why it was that our family continued to experience the struggles, the shame, the suffering and trauma which had plagued and haunted our families for generations.
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| Our family, 1990 |
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One of the things that I have been compelled to look at are the limitations of 12 Step programs. While connecting with a supportive community is essential to sobriety and to all the ways that we seek to grow and evolve, there can also be a shadow side to where we turn for help and support. Again and again, this has been my experience.
In looking more deeply at AA, we are told in this 12 Step program that we will always need to keep coming back. We hear how cunning, baffling, and powerful alcohol is and that attending regular meetings, getting a sponsor, reading the Big Book, and working the steps is the way to prevent relapse and stay sober. The readings in every meeting also include references to "character defects," how some of us are incapable of honesty and appear to "have been born that way," and how "working this simple program" is the pathway to sustained sobriety. In every meeting, we also identify and maintain an enduring identity over time as an alcoholic. Sharing in meetings primarily revolves around how our lives were before and how are lives have changed since we've been sober — and how this has been made possible because we have kept coming back to meetings, been engaged with our sponsors and recovery community, and are working the 12 Steps.
In no way am I denigrating the positive impacts that millions have experienced through their participation in AA. At the same time, I experience what can be harmful pitfalls. Of course, all of us who walk through the doors of an AA meeting have experienced trauma and more often than not are already believing that we are defective, incapable, and may have been born that way. We know and have absorbed these shameful narratives in our deepest selves. And it's certainly part of why we first picked up that first drink — to escape the pain of who we falsely believed ourselves to be.
We also often cannot imagine an identify of Self which at our core embodies Buddha nature, Christ consciousness, or however it is that we experience or think of the Divine. With the focus in AA on being an alcoholic, I believe that that identity obscures opening to moving into a greater experience and embodiment of the beauty, wholeness, compassion, clarity, and love that is the sacred core of who we are. In this way, I have experienced that we stay tied to — rather than experiencing deep freedom from and transformation of — this one part of who we are that has a history of dependency on substances.
It is my belief that this continued focus over time on this one part of ourselves — with again and again and again identifying ourselves as our addiction — that we risk staying locked into fear and blocked from more deeply healing and transforming the root causes behind all of our addictions and suffering. Cunning, baffling, powerful. Character defects. Work this simple program. Some of us are incapable. And then what happens when relapse does occur, and even after we've done everything that we've been told to do — and sometimes for years? What about the shame, the isolating, the deadly relapses that can follow? Which is what happened two months ago to someone I love... which has broken my heart and so many other hearts.
So, for me and for so many reasons, I believe that it's important to explore and illuminate the shadow side to even revered resources which countless people swear by. That, however, does not diminish the reality that sometimes what appears to save us can at the same time cause harm and even kill us.
* * * * *
I have done a lot of personal deep inner work over many years now, including with a wise and compassionate therapist. As I've been grieving the recent tragic death of a loved one, I've needed to process why this person overdosed — and all at the same time that I experience 40 years of sobriety and a totally transformed and rich life. What are the differences in our paths, our beliefs, our supports, our experiences of sobriety, healing, and transformation?
In addition to Richard Schwartz and all that I've experienced with IFS (Internal Family Systems), it is also my therapist who spoke to me of the "misidentification" that occurs when we mistakenly believe that any one part of ourselves is who we are.
As I spoke with him about the 16 Steps Charlotte Kasl brought forth many years ago in her amazing book Many Roads, One Journey, my therapist reflected how these steps were much more feminist oriented rather than patriarchal. And then I thought of how AA was birthed 90 years ago by two relatively wealthy white men — and it totally resonated with me that one aspect to the shadow side of AA and other 12 Step programs are their roots in patriarchy.
I'm continuing to uncover more tentacles to how patriarchal beliefs are woven through myself and our culture and beyond. There are just so many ongoing opportunities to expand and evolve and open to greater consciousness and clarity, connection and compassion, transformation and freedom, wisdom and love...
It is my belief that it is healthy and necessary to examine long cherished beliefs and practices in an ongoing way. In doing so, we stay open to evolving and to better understanding what might just be missing and what might just be an alternative. For my younger friend who died, for my former husband who's dying of his alcoholism, for countless others who are lost in pain and estranged from the beauty and strength of who they are, and in celebration of my own 40 year life-changing journey, I'm moved to share this — which is something that I had framed on my wall for years:
* * * * *
The 16 Steps of Discovery and Empowerment by Charlotte Kasl reflects only a glimpse into evolving ways and resources which point to a trailhead holding the potential for greater freedom from suffering. And it's not just freedom from addiction, but also the suffering embedded in all the many forms of being lost and disconnected from our Self, from each other, and from all of life.
Without addressing the trauma held in my different parts and unburdening these parts from the pain they carried, I would have remained vulnerable to relapse into any number of addictions and distractions and unhealthy coping strategies. It's really very simple: address and embrace, integrate and heal, unburden and transform our deeper pain, or it will inevitably pop up elsewhere. This is especially true in our closest relationships. I certainly learned this incredibly painful lesson when the legacy burdens I had carried began to show up in my own children.
I need to emphasize this again: It is this pain that keeps us vulnerable to relapse into old addictions or new ones, old triggers and ruptured relationships, autoimmune and other illnesses, and on and on — not how well we are attending and working a 12 Step program, not the meditation we do or the spiritual bypassing endorsed by many New Agers and seekers of enlightenment, not the sweat lodges and ceremonies and churches and prayers we practice. While many of these can be helpful and part of our paths of healing and awakening, none in them in and of themselves will unburden us of our pain if the trauma we've experienced remains locked away deep in our bodies.
The gifts of unburdening are profound. As I've moved further and further into unburdening the legacy burdens I've carried, the old places have lost their power over me. This is genuine freedom that with each year that I am alive I experience in greater depth and consistency. This is the journey of learning how to be Self-led and bringing the wisdom and compassion and love of my Self into life's challenges and losses, mine and yours.
To further clarify, IFS defines people who are Self-led as being more rooted in our humanity and more in tune with being a part of something larger than ourselves. Self-leadership can be seen as a state of mind and heart that manifests through positive virtues such as compassion, calmness, clarity, curiosity, confidence, courage, creativity, and connectedness. Essentially, our Self is the Sacred core of our being. This, I believe, is the heart and soul of what we human beings are all born with.
These are some examples of how I experience the freedom, empowerment, compassion, healing and love held in Self-leadership:
- 40 years of sobriety and no longer experiencing any pull to go back to my old addictions. None. This is true freedom from the control this one part of me once had.
- I am empowered to better understand, befriend, love, and hold with compassion the different parts of myself and others.
- My own trauma has been transformed into the capacity to bring wisdom and compassion, healing and helpful support, clarity and authenticity, tenderness and kindness to my working relationships over the span of 30 years with abused preschool aged children, first time parents, and as a caseworker with Child Welfare.
- I was able to bring compassion, love, and healing to my once severely mentally ill and alcoholic mother during the last seven years of her life —something I had been told for decades was impossible. I was able to forgive and hold with compassion the large role that my mother had played in my twin's suicide and my father's death at age 60. Over those last seven years and until her death at age 94, my mom and I were able to share a loving relationship — which was an extraordinary miracle.
- I have been 20 years free from all symptoms of fibromyalgia.
- I am able to work with triggers and old pain, judgments and resentments, blame and shame, fear and control, anger and separation as these old places arise — which happens less and less — and not get stuck in them.
- I am able to experience healthier boundaries and loving relationships, including with my beloved husband, with children and grandchildren, and with our many dear friends.
- I am able to hold deep grief in one hand and deep gratitude in the other and be stretched large by them; I can cry, I can laugh, I can feel.
- I can ask for help and support when I need it and give loving support to others without resuming my old addiction to using caretaking as a way to avoid my own deeper emotions and needs.
- I am able to work with my different parts and recognize this path of healing, evolving, and growing into my wholeness as being a lifelong journey.
- I am able to experience this deep caring and sacred connection with all of life.
This is but a glimpse. There is so much more.
* * * * *
Decades ago I read somewhere that there would come at time when the pull of living a rich and full life would grow stronger than any pull to go back. At that time, I could not imagine such freedom. Today I can. Today, with each year as I grow older, I experience more and more of this freedom.It is my belief that this freedom that comes with unburdening, befriending, and holding ourselves with loving compassion is the essential gift that inevitably comes with living our lives from a place of increasing Self-leadership.
Internal Family Systems (IFS), developed by Richard Schwartz and now practiced worldwide, holds many profound and life-changing gifts. This has been one essential part of my journey, which is best illustrated in a video interview with Richard Schwartz which I posted here: https://mollystrongheart.blogspot.com/2024/06/an-excellent-interview-with-richard.html. This is the clearest summary of what I have experienced as one important pathway into freedom from the suffering we humans experience.
So many years went by in which there were vital missing pieces to my journey of healing and transformation. Illuminated here is what was missing: https://mollystrongheart.blogspot.com/2024/05/no-bad-parts-healing-trauma-and.html.
Another empowering and treasured gift in the practice of IFS are the 8 C's: compassion, curiosity, clarity, creativity, calm, confidence, courage, and connectedness. Without exception, I have grown and continue to grow in my capacity to experience the 8 C's. This is a particularly beautiful and related conversation on Becoming Our Compassionate Self: https://mollystrongheart.blogspot.com/2024/05/highly-recommended-becoming-our.html. There is so much unburdening and freedom that comes with learning to truly and deeply hold ourselves and others with compassion and loving-kindness.
Gratefully, there are so many changes that are unfolding and evolving in addressing and treating addiction, depression and anxiety, and all of the many faces of trauma. This is one more link to an invaluable conversation between Richard Schwartz, Gabor Mate, and Marc Lewis: https://mollystrongheart.blogspot.com/2024/05/highly-recommended-gabor-mate-richard.html. It is long past time for us all to be rethinking addiction. As we do, lives will be saved. And the potential to heal and grow into our greater wholeness as fully embodied human beings will expand exponentially.
Today my outer life is a reflection of my inner life. And as I celebrate and give deep thanks for this 40 year anniversary, I recognize that it is about so much more than sobriety. Putting down the drink, the joint, the cigarette, and other addictions which had plagued my young life was only a beginning. Only a beginning. At 73, I am able to move well beyond sobriety and into an extraordinarily rich life that for years, including years into my sobriety, I could not have imagined.
This is the pathway that I have discovered into greater wholeness, peace, compassion, and love. This is the solid ground of inhabiting my Self. This, to me, is the birthright of us all — to live in this kind of authenticity, wholeness, beauty, joy, compassion, wisdom, and love. Deepest bow of gratitude.
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