In March of this year I decided it was time for me to explore a space of abstinence from alcohol. Throughout the madness of 2020 I got to the point of offering myself an extravagant amount of permission to have a drink or three on most evenings.
I consumed enough bourbon to the point where my attention and intention to my family and parishioners felt questionable at best. And I’m sure it didn’t help the growing inflation rate of the spare tire around my mid-section.
I decided it was time to try my hand at alcoholics anonymous. I decided on a local group, settled past the stigmas and began drinking coffee out of a Styrofoam cup while huddling up with drunks in a musty smelling church basement.
In all honesty, in that moment, it was better than good. The decision to not drink barely felt like a challenge and walking into a meeting where I felt the freedom to be an ordinary knucklehead like everyone else felt like a new angle on salvation.
I was over six weeks into this newfound sobriety when my healthy 77 year old dad got body slammed by Covid-19 and died quite suddenly. My memory of playing nine holes of golf with him just one month prior was still so fresh. How does anyone prepare for something like this?
After several days with family and a funeral I returned home, the adrenalize began to subside, the restlessness picked back up and, of course, I wanted a drink.
So, I did.
After eight weeks of barely sniffing the desire for a cocktail, the streak ended.
I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about it. Am I ashamed? A little, but my relationship with grace quickly talked myself out of the shame.
The reality of addiction is not about the object of our attachment. Addiction stems from a mental sickness that in layman’s terms is referred to as “all or nothing thinking” or “either/or thinking.” It’s a mental dualism that separates us from reality and keeps us from exploring how deep love can go.
In the church world, “either/or thinking” is a justifiably religious thing called a dogma - an established authoritative tenant of truth. With dogma, there’s no room for amorphous gray colored stuff. There’s no negotiation or possibility of it being anything other than THIS ONE VERY SPECIFIC WAY. As the rappers Black Sheep would say, “You can get with this. Or you can get with that!”
A dogma, by definition cannot be a both/and.
My relationship with dad was not a dogma. Throughout life we struggled mightily at times. At his passing, however, I was awakened anew at how sturdy and steady of a dad he truly was. I never felt insecure about having my practical needs met. No doubt about it, he was one good and trustworthy man. He modeled for me what it meant to be a person of character. Just solid.
But sometimes being a solid person means being excessively conservative and can leave some people like your children feeling constricted and disapproved of.
It was like that sometimes with dad. And yet I miss him dearly. The relationship was evolving and it felt like we were just beginning to truly see and appreciate one another.
Our relationship was a both/and.
Actually, I can’t think of any genuine relationship that isn’t a both/and at some level. Human beings by nature are not static nouns. We are verbs, therefore we evolve. We grow.
Relationships are evolutionary. There’s no room for dogmatism in a healthy growing relationship.
This is what breaks my heart about so many people’s experience of the Christian faith and its church. More than ever, so much of present day notions of Christianity is nothing more than the butt of a bad joke. How are we ever supposed to take it seriously? But the damage it’s caused to the human psyche has to be taken very seriously and is keeping therapists fully employed.
All or nothing thinking.
The type of thinking that reveals a psychological bi-polarity where acceptance and approval hinges on how loyal one can be to the illusion of black and white certitudes. Within these circles of puckered up piety and constriction this unwavering behavior is perceived as a virtue. And because there’s no space for grey, no room for questions, no appreciation of doubt, and no honest self-critique those who leave find nothing redemptive about church and have little to no curiosity to keep exploring the expansive mystery of Christ.
And what I’m finding more and more common is that when folks become wounded by this environment their departure simply trades one form of addiction for another.
This is dogmatism.
Over the years my faith began to evolve into one that seeks solidarity among our poorest neighbors and something I learned is that this way of social justice and rooting out oppression as an expression of faith can just as easily become yet another brand of dogmatism. Anything meant for redemption and healing can turn toxic when the mind remains in a state of addiction.
For those wrapped up in either/or thinking as a way of faith, surrendering control looks and feels like apostasy, abandoning ship, and betraying everything you’ve ever worked for. Like a death.
But our faith just like our dearest relationships and attachments are like possessions inviting to be released.
One of my favorite authors talks about this releasing in light of the parenting journey,
The difficult task of parenthood is to help children grow to the freedom that permits them to stand on their own feet, physically, mentally and spiritually and to allow them to move away in their own direction. The temptation is, and always remains, to cling to our children, to use them for our own unfulfilled needs and to hold on to them, suggesting in many direct and indirect ways that they owe us so much. It indeed is hard to see our children leave after many years of much love and much work to bring them to maturity, but when we keep reminding ourselves that they are just guests who have their own destination, which we do not know or dictate, we might be more able to let them go in peace and with our blessing. A good host is not only able to receive his guests with honor and offer them all the care they need but also to let them go when their time to leave has come.
Recently, I, the child, was forced to let dad go when it was his time to leave. Now, I may talk a good game, but the truth is I havn’t fully let dad go yet. I have moments like last night at 1:23am where I find myself fiercely clinging on. Somedays are prettier than others. Grief is not either/or, not a zero sum game, and it’s impossible to make sense of it.
Circling back and concluding with my relationship with alcohol…
It didn’t take me long to see that while I loved the people and space for alcoholics anonymous, it quickly began to resemble the same way of thinking that brought people to the point of opening the door in the first place. I observed an either/or mindset that produces dry drunks along with the preaching and fundamentalism that could be found on Sundays upstairs on the main floor.
If nothing else, dealing with the death of my dad and my responses surrounding this season, is teaching me that the sojourn toward wholeness and healthy attachment is a long circuitous hike and the most dangerous approach is telling ourselves the journey must look a certain way in order for it to be the right way.
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