Can You Love Someone Sober?

Addiction, the curse.  The ages-old trap of temptation.  That malady of malfunction that has derailed many a life and family — addicts and their loved ones and friends.  

The question in view is, can you love a person who is addicted to sobriety?  

Not so much can you love the person who lives in the victory of sobriety — because, of course you can.  That is sheer delight, especially when they live a true sobriety of making amends.  

But can you — by your love, your will, your intent — pray or wish or procure a sobriety for someone you love?  As a partner, parent, child or friend.  

Short answer.  No, you cannot.  

Indeed, sometimes your ‘love’ gets in their way — not that it’s your fault!  

The hardest thing about loving someone who is attempting recovery from addiction is continuing the essential tough love stance that gives them the chance to claw their way back to coming to their senses.  

I use ‘coming to their senses’ very deliberately.  

Two-thousand years ago, Jesus of Nazareth told the parable of the prodigal son.  It has eternal lessons about how we should deal with addiction.  And, in this case, I’m only using part of the story.  

Essentially, the father allowed his younger son to leave home and squander half his fortune.  Only when the younger son suffered the consequences of his folly — becoming sick and tired of being sick and tired — did he ‘come to his senses’.  

How did this younger son come to his senses?  He decided to return home.  

But not just to retain his former position as a son of a wealthy land owner.  

This is super important to understand — his repentant heart reveals he had truly come to his senses.  His attitude had completely changed!  He had no demand or even expectation that his father would restore him to his former position.  

And this attitude was important not only in anticipation of the father’s response, this attitude of an ongoing repentant heart — a complete and sustained change of mind — was needed to remain sober.  

He had come to his senses.  Sufficient that he changed his life, not just for an hour or a day or week, but for months and months and years and years, for the rest of his life in fact.  

He had come to his senses that he, himself, wanted — no, needed — to start living life as he never had before.  

It was a total turn-around!  Life begins to look starkly different.  

Sobriety is a concept that
must be embraced by the addict. 
They can never go back.  

They can never do again what they did and did and did, “as a dog returns to its vomit”* so they returned again and again to the insanity of the addiction.  

They must walk the other way and keep on walking.  

And this is nothing about just stopping engaging in the addiction.  It is centrally about beginning to live honestly, because what underpins addiction is deceit, mountains of compromise, secrets, and evil deeds that smash their loved one’s kindness against the rocks with cruel and pernicious regularity.  

The real kindness we can show an addict is to let them fall and refuse anymore to rescue them.  They may whinge and squeal and bellow and shout (or ‘withdraw their love’ from you to punish you), but we must not give in to becoming a pawn that assists them to sustain their ridiculous game.  

Can we ‘love’ them to them coming to their senses?  Rarely, if ever.  

They must come to their senses of their own volition without any ‘help’ from us.  They must see the folly in their returning to their own vomit.  They are the only ones who can drive in the opposite direction, one hour, day, week, month, and year at a time.  

They must do it for themselves, by themselves, owning their situation, and respect every bit of support they receive in the process.  

The words of Alcoholics Anonymous “How It Works” spells out the necessity of honesty — 

“Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. 

“Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it — then you are ready to take certain steps. 

“At some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely. 

“Remember that we deal with alcohol — cunning, baffling, powerful! Without help it is too much for us. But there is One who has all power — that One is God. May you find Him now! 

“Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked His protection and care with complete abandon.”

SOURCE: https://www.aa.org/how-it-works 

* Proverbs 26:11 says, “As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly.”

Blessed Are The Peacemakers

The most famous person ever said, “Blessed are the peacemakers...”

What it means in today’s terms of psychosocial hazards amid interpersonal conflict is, take responsibility for your relational behaviour.  

Years ago I was called to mediate a conflict where people were to deliver well-crafted, sincere apologies to people who were simply asked to listen and absorb what was being said. Sometimes it is as clear cut as that but not usually. Most of the time entrenched conflict involves parties who have hurt each other. It takes both to have sufficient will to own their behaviour and want to move toward the other person, to offer individual apologies initially, then there is hope of reconciliation.

As someone who has suffered moral injury and as someone called into help the morally injured, my lived experience has taught me this wisdom:

✅ as much as it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone (Romans 12:18)

✅ resolve to overcome moral injury even before it affects you... it could take years as it took me, but there is hope for recovery if you don't give up (Galatians 6:9 says, “Do not grow weary in doing good for at the proper time you will reap of harvest if you do not give up.”)

✅ try as much as you can to see the other person or parties as worthy of respect and justice as you are...

✅ and most important of all, take your own personal responsibility for your behaviour, your growth, and your recovery...

“Blessed are the peacemakers...” What I think Jesus meant by this is, blessed are those who have the capacity and humility to relate with others in such a way as they CAN genuinely see and own their behaviour and they can, as far as it depends on them, resolve conflict peaceably, if they other person or parties are likewise capable… 

God’s will is that we would sincerely live mindfully for others, even those we disagree with: “for they will be called children of God...” (Matthew 5:9)

But also in the same breath, what do we do with those who insist they have no interest in reconciliation.  We have the option of eventually “shaking the dust off our feet,” (Matthew 10:14) forgiving the one who does not know what they’re doing (Luke 23:34). 

The paradoxical position and power of peace

What if everything we ever learned about peace was wrong?  What if being at peace with ourselves meant being at peace with others?  

That my peace wasn’t about me,
but how I relate with others around me? 
“As much as it depends on me,”
as Romans 12:18 puts it.

If only we could genuinely enter into others’ stories of experience and being — doing this as if it were our most intrinsic desire — then we would experience the peace we’ve always wanted.  

Yes, if only our most intrinsic desire is that we are at peace with others, that we give others no cause to be ongoingly upset with us, that we reconcile such matters quickly, again, as much as it depends on us, then we live in relative unity — and from such unity we can build something worthwhile together.  

Such a peace is an ancient law,
it’s interwoven in the fabric of life.  

My peace depends on being at peace WITH my world;
that is, with all the people IN my world…  

… as much as it depends on me;
then, I let go.

This peace is paradoxical because it’s in precisely the place we don’t look or expect it to be!  This is because it’s the most unnatural thing to be other-centred.  

Our task in this life is to enter the stories of others — be curious about their lived experience in life — as the only source needed to be convinced that they are who they are for perfectly logical and reliable and rational reasons.  

To accept they are worthy persons
as we ought to accept our own worthiness.

Anytime we have a hard time forgiving a person we would do well to enter their story and discover who they really are.  There the answer awaits to indwell our understanding.  

Empathy is driven by understanding.  Empathy is peace, whilst understanding no amount of empathy will provide us peace if we’re assaulted.  But upon the assault, we can choose our response — peace.  

Assault for assault augers assault. 
We are to be the peace
of an aggression circuit breaker.  

If a person is capable of cruelty, how is that possible?  How has their conscience been so seared?  How do they live with themselves?  How do they think they’ll get away with what they’ve done?  (Nobody does.)  Not thinking these thoughts judgementally, but thinking these thoughts curiously as if it were ourselves living their life.  

Empathising with someone being cruel to us has its limits, of course.  

Peace is IN the place we least expect to find it.  It’s in losing ourselves.  Jesus said, words to the effect, and in various ways, “If you lose yourself, you find yourself.”  

What a wonderful thing it is to lose ourselves in another’s narrative in the receipt of understanding.  Understanding is facing a truth we otherwise did not previously know.  Understanding brings US peace.  And such peace brings a paradoxical power for good.  

I’m not perfect at this by any means, and all I can say is when I practice entering IN the other person’s story, my heart softens, and because understanding ensues, I experience peace for the situation’s wisdom I have gleaned.  Forgiveness is easier, and achievable, from there.  

Hundreds of times now, as an emergency services chaplain, I have said, “If you cannot forgive, you cannot live.”  But forgive and then you have life in all its abundance.  

Let us seek peace in all its forms.  

Describing Abuse as a System

It helps I think to describe abuse as a system — so it can be seen in its entirety.  This is because isolation of the parts of a system is one of the ways we don’t see abuse for how it actually is.  

I was introduced to a system called Biderman’s Chart of Coercion, which I’d not previously heard of.  

Here are its component parts:

1. ISOLATION — this can be both overt and covert, easy to see and difficult to confirm.  Social isolation and control over the environment or engineering situations cleverly promote learned helplessness and resignation.  Love offers freedom.  

2. MONOPOLISATION OF PERCEPTION — there is only one narrative allowed in gaslit atmospheres, where memory games, cruel trickery, and one way of seeing things prevails.  The worst abuse is targeted at the mind and it breaks the spirit, harming the soul.  Good partners cherish an independent mindset in their partner.  

3. INDUCED DEBILITY AND EXHAUSTION — deprivation is soul-destroying, as are starvation and the systemic overwhelm of exhaustion.  It’s a weak and insecure person who insists their partner be weaker still, broken for being better.  Health is not a luxury afforded in a transaction for being a good partner, it’s a necessity and basic need for every good relationship.  

4. THREATS — there has to be some overt aggression as part of a system of abuse; times when it’s pure intimidation.  When manipulation doesn’t work, there is born a moment for intimidation.  Threats used in isolation from others so there are no witnesses promote a mindset of confusion and overwhelm designed to shatter a person’s will.  

5. OCCASIONAL INDULGENCES — what maddens those who look on is the subtle coercion of ‘good things’ done in the name of manipulation.  Small rewards rationed out with the control, “Oh, and be thankful (that I’m being nice to you).”  

6. DEMONSTRATING OMNIPOTENCE — the way the environment is tightly controlled, reinforcing the helpless estate of the one ‘under the thumb’ of the tyranny.  

7. DEGRADATION — humiliation and blame are the tenets of breakage needed to undermine the person at the fissures of their being.  

8. ENFORCING TRIVIAL DEMANDS — as if the foregoing weren’t already enough, when both the perpetrator and victim/survivor know what’s going on, it’s soul-destroying for everyone who witnesses the carnage, where senseless demands are insisted upon with much schadenfreude in the perpetrator on proud display.  

When Sad, Be Sad

Be true to your emotions.  That’s the invitation of the Bible.  

Indeed, facing our emotions, being truthful about how we feel, is the first important step in healing grief, trauma, and mental, emotional, and spiritual pain of any kind—yes, it’s essential if we ever wish to “consider it pure joy when we face trials of any kind,” as James 1:2 puts it.  

The vast majority of the verses in the psalms are tearful laments; even those who finish with joy ordinarily have shards of pain uttered within.  

So, when sad, we ought to BE sad.  

There are times in every week, certainly every month, of my life where I’m inexplicably sad—in an otherwise blessed life.  I have learned to pray the psalms, that is to read them aloud, to add some of my own words to the lines, to bring meaning to what I feel.  

Even if that doesn’t “fix” me, and typically it doesn’t, I know that crying out to God in tearful, groaning lament is how I connect with the Divine.  

Such a faith as a lament to tearfully utter my sorrow before God, I know is the activator for a healing that ordinarily comes the following day—when perspective and hope return.  

One of the keys to humility, according to Dallas Willard, is to refuse to pretend.  That means I must be honest about how I feel if I’m to reconcile it and turn sorrow to a deep joy—even in the midst of circumstances that cannot, for now, be changed.  

The miracle of a well-placed truthful lament is the healing that psalms like Psalm 51 exemplify.  David starts out spiritually broken having betrayed his God.  He finishes that psalm in the 17th verse restored spiritually—actually feeling never closer to the God of his salvation.  

If you’re sad and you don’t follow God, please know that faith will lead you to the healing you so need and ought to experience this side of eternity.  

So, if you’re sad, be sad.  If you’re joyful, rejoice.  These two emotions run along a continuum, and only in faith can they be brought together; we have capacity to take joy into the sorrowful place, and to take a measured sobriety into our celebrations.  

Mastering the emotions is simply being truthful IN them.  

Being truthful in our emotions certainly requires vulnerability and integrity, courage and strength… 

Yes, being sad takes strength,
enough to surrender to how we actually feel,
and enough strength to imagine the encouragement we are to others who are sad, even as we may risk the judgement of others.  

Being authentic is being brave, and it is easier to go with how we truly feel than we realise.  If you find it hard, practice.  

Our hearts are protective for good reason, whether it’s trauma or we’ve never felt safe enough to be true to our emotions.  It’s never too late to work on being more emotionally true.  

When sad, be sad.  

When overwhelmed, sit and be.  

When angry, be curious about why, without judging ourselves.  

When confused, acknowledge we don’t always know why.  

When in pain that cannot be rationalised, go gently.  

And when in doubt, let the tears flow when they will come.  

Find your therapy and engage in it.  

The peace in accepting others’ perceptions

One thing we have no control over is how other people perceive their world, or how they perceive their perceptions — they see how they see, feel how they feel, think how they think, and respond based on these.  

The spiritual path of life is perspective enough to see and accept that others’ perceptions can only be respected as the way they see.  

We all think, feel, speak, and act out of our perceptions — occasionally reflecting, considering wisely, before, during, or after; perceiving our perceptions, moderating our behaviour — but also on occasion reacting out of those perceptions.  

We all think, feel, speak, and act out of our perceptions, which are filters for life based on our lived experience, our upbringing, the culture we’re immersed in, our biological personality, and many other factors.  

Of the over eight billion sets of human senses on Planet Earth, as much as our faces are unique, and as much as our senses ‘see’ and define our being, the mystery of perception is enigmatic to even ourselves.  

Do any of us have any idea of what’s coming and how we’ll perceive it?   

None of us do.  None of us know the terrors or ecstacies that lay in wait.  We would all like to think we could predict how we would react.  

All these concepts of truth help us empathise with our fellow humans, for surely we empathise with ourselves.  

Each of us has battles the next person knows nothing about.  No matter how well they know us.  For, how well do we even know ourselves?  How well (or not) we’ll respond to the challenge five minutes from now.  

A level of anxiety threatens ever-presently out of the constancy of the uncertainties of life.   Life can be a battle for the mind.  

Being kind to one another is surely the right response.  Being kind because we know how tough our lives can be.  Being kind as to not be unfair, even if others are unfair to us.  

We are existentially all alone, cosmically separated even from ourselves in so many ways.  What makes sense of all this is it’s our common lot.  You read these words and have some assurance that, “this guy senses the world the same way I do.”  

So we can empathise with the next person, for they have only as much control over their perceptions as we do — maybe more, maybe less.  

None of us can judge but God alone for why another person responds the way they do.  It’s not for us to pretend we have the market cornered on truth — all knowledge as only God does.  

And it’s a gift to our sensibilities to acknowledge what little we know about life, let alone what little we know about others.  To say “I withhold judgement because I don’t know the whole story” is wisdom.  

This is wisdom each other person needs us to live — for their sake.  And actually, by default, for our own.