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| June 2025 at Timothy Lake, 41 years after my last drink. Mt. Hood looms in the distance. |
What Does It Mean To
Be Truly Sober?
What does it mean to be sober, to be truly sober today? My connection with my heart, my beliefs and experiences, my spiritual practices, and my conscious awareness have all deeply evolved and expanded over the past 41 years. Today sobriety means much more than abstaining from the substances that I had once been addicted to — although that is an absolutely crucial first step. In the larger picture, for me, sobriety means to embody what we and our world most need to heal. It means to be increasingly grounded in the practice of lovingkindness. It means to embody Peace.
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| Photos are by Molly |
I Didn't Know Any Alcoholics
On June 19th, 1984 I walked into an AA meeting feeling scared, overwhelmed, confused, ashamed, and hungover. I cringed when it was asked for any newcomers to identify themselves and for the first time I spoke the words, "I'm Molly and I'm an alcoholic." I still wasn't even sure if that was true. After all, I still had so much control and certainly wasn't convinced that I was a "real alcoholic." My former husband was the real alcoholic. Not me, right...??
Because originally, I didn't even know any alcoholics.
And then on February 8th, 1983 my close friend Ann Baker told me, "Molly, Jim is an alcoholic." I remember noticing the time as we sat in her car in an Albertson's parking lot after we'd gone out to dinner together. It was 8:37pm.
And that was the beginning. That was all it took. Ann's words. I couldn't shake them. I was haunted, I couldn't sleep. And I had to find out — was Jim, my first husband, really an alcoholic?
I felt compelled to find out...
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| July 1978, six months after my twin brother's suicide |
Alcoholics Were Coming
Out of the Woodwork
Given that I had so many deep layers of unaddressed trauma, I unknowingly often saw through the eyes of delusion rather than the wisdom of my heart. I definitely had no idea how lost I was and the fog that I'd normalized living in for over 30 years. And, yet, there was this pull, this deep inner calling that I just could not ignore, and no matter my fear and resistance and the strong forces of my inner saboteur to stay put in the familiar and not risk venturing into the scary unknown.
I stepped through that initial doorway into my first Al-Anon meeting anyway. But not before sitting in my car on that dark February night in 1983 watching people walk into the church where the meetings were and sitting in big judgment. My exact thoughts were, "I'm not one of those people, those people who know alcoholics." All that I knew at that time was that I had to find out if Jim was an alcoholic. I had to get all of this understood, figured out, fixed, and under control.
So I went to meetings and soon chaired meetings and welcomed newcomers and got sponsors and read my Al-Anon books while holed up in our bedroom and self-righteously sipping on my glass of wine. But, damn, the sponsors I had, one by one, were falling through the floor into the AA meetings below that happened in the basement of the church where my home Al-Anon meeting was.
But I persisted. I put myself into two treatment programs for spouses of alcoholics and continued to read everything that I could about alcoholism. And Jim and I would argue. I told Jim that his father was an alcoholic, too. And he would argue, "If my dad is an alcoholic, then your mother is an alcoholic!" Take that!
Well, I couldn't shake that either. Now, after determining that my first husband was an alcoholic and setting about fixing him while "detaching with love," I had to find out if my mother was an alcoholic. And I had a plan. Before my mother's scheduled trip from Michigan to visit us in Oregon, I told her that "we" — really just me —would want her to come, but leave her alcohol at home in order to support Jim in his early sobriety.
And she wouldn't come. She cancelled her trip. Damn. The alcoholics were coming out of the woodwork. First Jim, then his dad and I realized both of my parents, and nearly all of our friends. Then one of the counselors in the treatment program who facilitated the women's group for spouses of those who had the addictions, looked at me and said, "Molly, well people don't marry sick people."
Well, F you I thought. But didn't say. She didn't understand that I just needed to get Jim and my mother, my real problems, fixed and then I'd be fine. Thank you very much.
And now things were really spiraling. Sixteen months into Al-Anon, my cover was getting blown! Even my counselor at that time was telling me that I was alcoholic. I was freaking out! And before I could stop myself I spontaneously called an alcohol and drug treatment program and made an appointment for an assessment. For that day. What the hell was I doing?! Was I crazy??
But I went. And the ATC counselor asked me during the assessment what I thought an alcoholic looked like? And before I could censor myself what blurted out of my mouth was SURE AS HELL NOT LIKE ME!
Oh my, life can be so humbling...
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The Way It Is
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
— William Stafford
In February 1983 I was a 31 year old young mother to 6 month old Kevin and 3 year old Brian. Matthew hadn't been born yet. I could not have begun to imagine at that time the profound challenges and changes that would evolve once Ann Baker's words lodged in my mind and I couldn't shake them. Just that one sentence — "Molly, Jim is an alcoholic"— would become a radical intervention on the entirety of my life.
That was when the thread appeared and I grabbed on for dear life. And, no matter what, I didn't let go.
What followed was the bottom of my life as I knew it was falling out from underneath me. Again and again and again. Delusions were loosing their grip on me as layer after layer of deep intergenerational and cultural trauma was being revealed, held with compassion and love, and unburdened and transformed. I was making the long journey from my head to my heart.
And there was this thread that I followed.
First there was Al-Anon, followed by AA and ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics). For years, there was counseling, but often — tragically, for the first many years — with counselors and therapists who had not done there own deeper work and were, therefore, both limited in empowering myself, my first husband, and our children to heal and often caused more harm. That said, through it all there were deep lessons to be learned. And I never let go of the thread.
There were also women's groups and retreats and intensives. There were conferences and workshops and trainings. There was trying on different spiritual communities and beliefs and practices. And there was the healing of my injured instincts which empowered me to gradually recognize what did not serve me. I found myself walking away from teachers I'd once held in high regard like Eckhart Tolle and discarding New Age and other practices which I'd come to realize could keep me stuck in spiritual bypassing (https://mollystrongheart.blogspot.com/2025/12/what-is-spiritual-bypassing.html). And there was the pain of letting go of old friendships and the deep rewards and blessings of cultivating new ones. So many authors, visionaries and wisdom-keepers, and spiritual teachers and others entered my life. There was fluidity and impermanence, synchronicity and grace, grief and gratitude, and one vital lesson and teaching followed by the next.
Everything was shifting, evolving, taking me into new territory that I had never walked before. Scary, painful, unsettling, humbling, and transformative times. There were so many fragmented and exiled parts of myself that I had buried out of my conscious awareness. And while I was unknowingly disassociated, addicted, and fragmented, it was these exiled parts that were the ones who were driving the bus — not my Self. Not this core essence of who I am which is interwoven with what I believe is the essence of compassion, peace, wisdom, and love woven through us all.
Over this time, my high tolerance for inappropriate and harmful behaviors and beliefs — that were all rooted in delusion — came to gradually cease to dominate my life. And, finally, at some point I crossed over a line where the pull of living a rich full life grew stronger than any pull to go back.
This is just a very small glimpse into my journey, into the thread that I followed and will continue to follow throughout my lifetime. No two paths of awakening will look the same. That said, what is common to all is connecting with that thread which calls to us, calls to our deepest heart and soul, and leads us out of the root causes of our suffering and into ever expanding beauty and joy, compassion and courage, vulnerability and intimacy, authenticity and truth, community and connection, and wisdom and love.
Ultimately, I have been learning how to love myself. And make peace with the way it is. This is the sacred path that I have discovered which offers a pathway to Love and to being peace.
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We Are Here To Awaken From Our
Illusion of Separateness
— Thích Nhất Hạnh
While I acknowledge that being alcoholic is a part of me, today I recognize that this is just one part. It is not who I am any more than any other symptom of the ancestral and cultural pain and trauma that I've inherited. These legacy burdens no longer define me.
Today I also no longer differentiate between addictions. You may disagree, but I believe that, on a continuum, we all have them. So there is no us and them. Because trauma is woven through and deeply embedded our culture — a culture that has always been rooted in imperialist white-supremacist misogynist capitalist patriarchy. And this is what has impacted us all.
This is why we see epidemics of addictions of all kinds, depression and anxiety, dehumanization and all forms of subtle and blatant violence. Everywhere. Unaddressed pain, not genetics, is the root of all addictions. Yes, genetics can make us more vulnerable and predisposed to addictions and different forms of physical and mental illnesses. That said, it is the deep unaddressed pain and trauma that gets passed down, generation after generation, that is the root of our suffering and separation — separation from within ourselves and others.
Today I have personally come to define addiction as anything in which there is a pattern of our using as a coping strategy to distract and disconnect us from the deeper painful emotions and experiences that we carry and have buried and exiled within ourselves. This includes substance addictions and a whole host of non-substance addictions — to work, social media, exercise, food, religion, shopping, compulsive cleaning, hoarding, gambling, caretaking, sex, people, cults, gurus, greed, guns, war, unhealthy relationships, political polarizations, image management and perfectionism, anger and chaos, power and control, judgments and dehumanization, harmful mental and emotional states, projections and ideologies of separation rather than connection. And the list goes on.
The roots of this self-avoidance is always found in pain, in these legacy burdens, in the illusion of separation. There are pathways that lead us into deep healing, transformation, and freedom from all forms of addiction and ancestral and cultural trauma and pain. Heal the pain of the legacy burdens that we carry and our former addictions lose their power over us. It's that hard. And that simple.
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Nothing Ever Goes Away
... until it has taught us what we need to know. If we run a hundred miles an hour to the other end of the continent in order to get away from the obstacle, we find the very same problem waiting for us when we arrive. It just keeps returning with new names, forms, manifestations until we learn whatever it has to teach us about where we are separating ourselves from reality, how we are pulling back instead of opening up, closing down instead of allowing ourselves to experience fully whatever we encounter, without hesitating or retreating into ourselves.
—Pema Chödrön
And this is the lesson, isn't it? The invitation to connect with the sources of wise, compassionate, and loving support that we need to stop the endless running — and Awaken.
In June of 1975 I moved with my first husband from Michigan to the Pacific Northwest. And I brought everything with me — the addictions, the fear and shame, the image management and defended heart, the disassociation and fragmented hurting exiles, the pain and trauma carried by my parents and brother and ancestors.
I had long ago abandoned little Molly to survive. When given the choice as tiny vulnerable children between abandoning ourselves — and our authentic deepest emotions and needs and sense of self — or the illusion of attachment, we will always choose attachment. This abandonment of ourselves drives our addictions, our triggers, our unskilled actions and harmful beliefs and patterns.
The journey of sobriety, the pathway of awakening and shedding the obstacles to peace and love, is coming home to ourselves. To our authentic Self and who we were born into this world to be before we became lost and hurt and ashamed and so very scared. And so very importantly, this sacred journey is about coming to know and befriend and hold our many parts.
With every year that I am alive, I am increasingly embodying the essence of who I am. And I'm recognizing the essence of who you are. And when we see and experience the sacred wholeness and interrelatedness within ourselves with all of our human and nonhuman relatives, truly see, then who can we harm? No one. Because the illusion of separateness that is the root of our suffering — the delusions, hatred, and greed — no longer holds power over us.
Today I have befriended and unburdened so many of my exiled parts and the old deep pain that they've carried. And those parts — the alcoholic, the terrified little girl, the shame and the fear, the fragments and triggers, and on and on — no longer drive the bus. No longer do I blindly throw out of my heart into that place of unexplored darkness what I had once rejected, split off, shamed, abandoned. Little Molly has needed to come out of the shadows and be held with the deepest empathy and compassion and love.
This is sobriety. This is the peace and equanimity found within awakeness. This too belongs. All of my different parts belong. And, oh!, what a joy it is to come out of hiding, to stop the endless running, and to belong!
These are profound life lessons. That nothing need be rejected. My triggers, shame and anger, fears and projections, and human imperfections and struggles — all can be welcomed and held. And in the holding, these parts lose their power and are freed from their old roles. They are unburdened. They can relax and no longer feel compelled to be the one trying to drive the bus and get everything figured out and under control. What a relief! What a heavy load to put down!
Everything is impermanent and rises and falls and ebbs and flows when we recognize and hold all of who we are. When we allow what is to simply be what it is. And follow the thread. And hold with presence and unconditional tenderness, compassion, and love what arises. There is nothing to get rid off. Nothing to split off and be ashamed of.
Yes, all this said, the work with the inner judge and critic continues. This is a lifelong process, this journey of awakening. And today I don't need to get caught up and stuck in the pain that once drove my addictions. This unburdening of the deep old pain embedded in the legacy burdens I'd inherited has freed me from any chance of relapse. I am not my addictions. We are all so much more than the pain and trauma we carry. So much more.
And, with practice and with the support of loving community, true peace is always possible. It is. We can free ourselves to Love deeply and to be Peace. This is what sobriety means to me today.
And little Molly is so grateful. And gratitude is held in all of the lives that we touch with presence, equanimity, and an undefended heart. 💜
Bless us all on our sacred journeys,
Molly
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| Little Molly, 1952 |
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Suggested reading:
The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness,
and Healing in a Toxic Culture
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No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness
With the Internal Family Systems Model
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