As weird as it may sound, being self-destructive can be a great signpost back to the path of healing. While we may pretend we are healthy and stable inside, many of us feel pressured and stressed about events and circumstances in our daily lives, and all of us have tried strategies to alleviate the pain.
If I think long enough I really can't think of anyone who isn't doing something to himself that someone else considers "self-destructive", as this concept is always tied in to our assumptions about the thing being "good" or "bad" for us.
And still, I had the privilege recently to learn how to navigate a fear pattern in a friend which has resulted in large-scale alcohol abuse to drown the pain away. And the fear that never stops.
The lesson I learned most of all is that there really isn't anything I can do for him to see through his fear, and I really tried. There is fear of being alone, we got that far already but he can't seem to get closer to the cause of the fear or to letting it go. Paranoia starts creeping in and becoming somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy until my friend feels he can't stay at home by himself and frantically calls his friends just to find someone who is available to be there for him.
And since we all have our own lives and stories, often times it is hard for us to be available for him because we become this odd crutch in a way that keeps the fear at bay, for a while, until he is alone again and the fear returns.
"Naturally" alcohol can work wonders in such a situation, or can it? It temporarily softens the fear and numbs the mind to a point that being in fear can become bearable as he put it. But the more you see someone use alcohol in this way the more one recognizes the questionable energetic door that is opened when the mind is under strong narcosis every day. And the fear ultimately comes back even stronger than it had been while the body simultaneously calls for both alcohol and a break from it.
A shaman friend I met this summer was quite candid about alcoholism: "You basically open the doors for dark entities". First thing I thought was "I guess they call booze spirit for a reason..."
And as unlikely as this explanation may sound to some, it always seems like my friend trades in his fear for being in this numbed state where he drags a cloud of... bad vibes with him. Like two armies battling in hyperspace over the man's heart the moment that booze enters the system.
Where at first I tried to help him understand the irrational grounds of the fear, to work out a strategy to see through the fear or to hack the whole mind complex with mere examples and logic, I had to concede that there really is nothing I can do for my friend. Especially when I become the temporary crutch to postpone his working on the loneliness- and fear-issue fundamentally.
The curious thing is, the moment I stopped wanting to make it better, and to make the problem go away, my friend initiated steps on his own to finally make a change.
Almost as if I had foreseen it, which I hadn't. Or as if he had waited for me to let it go, which he hadn't. Still, the timing of his decision was just too good and I noticed that on that day I also felt like a large weight had been lifted off my back as well, in my own life and my own story.
I realized that there never was more to be done about the thing because the thing didn't appear out of the blue for no reason. Similarly all hangups and barriers in our lives are there for a reason - to be worked on and overcome. And often the value in healing does not lie in making the pain stop, but rather to allow it to be there and to simply be with it. To just be present with the friend who hurts himself in order to avoid the pain. The presence, and the accompanying vibe of looking at the problem as a natural challenge to be overcome is what really made the shift here if I had to put my finger on it.
And how would it be different? I had been familiar with the value of being present with someone in pain for a while, since seeing the brilliant San Francisco Nonviolent Communication workshop held by Marshall Rosenberg.
I want to link this bit here for you as he really puts it better than I ever could, it's an excerpt from another seminar he gave , a clip which focusses specifically on how to encounter someone in pain and how to "enjoy it" as Rosenberg sometimes puts it:
If you feel you want to explore more of this way of being present I can fully recommend the amazing 3-hour workshop that I have linked at the end of this article for you. It really is a paradigm-buster ;)
Back to my friend: In this 'funny' way, this temporary problem of fear and pain and the resulting numbing process of self-destructive indulgence in heavy alcoholism really was the cure for him in itself. He had to realize it himself, and to choose himself to make a different choice. To work through it.
As Zen people have put it:
And as a helping friend we don't really have the luxury of making it essential he got the lesson in time. That will be his choice to make, all we can offer is our presence. All I could really do is to hear his pain and to show him that I think no less of him for having this challenge.
Months of my well-meant arguments and rationalities have done absolutely nothing to change his behavior the slightest bit, where as when he really hit a low pointhe realized there is no way to keep on living like this, so he took the steps he needed to take to get back to the road of health again.
So next time I see someone destroying himself through some addiction or hangup, I shall try less to make it better, and more to be present with him and to allow the pain and problem to arise until it becomes palpable in the room. Not to dig in it or explain it or deconstruct it but to just listen and not give the issue a name. To show him he will ultimately have to choose to change it by himself when he is ready, but that the pain is no longer only his issue to be carried around but something a good friend was invited into, to feel it and to get a sense of how challenging it is to live with the resulting energetics of the challenge.
Easier said than done, but in this way his challenge has become a learning experience not only for himself but for the whole circle of friends forced to deal with this self-destructive behavior that will either end in self-destruction or a marvellously powerful recovery and gain of wisdom. In this way our friend becomes the teacher and mirror for us in our friends circle and for our own challenges in life, challenges of a different but probably equally challenging nature.
All the best to you on your path to health and sobriety my dear friend!
We all have challenges, let us enable each other to face them as best we can, through our mutual presence, an open ear and a willingness to acknowledge the issue as something opportune that could usher in the healing which is long-overdue. And to stop clinging to things we can't cling to like solving deeply rooted issues for our loved ones, they have to solve them in their own way.
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