Let This Circle Represent What We Can’t Do Alone 10-7-11

Anderson, South Carolina

It would be painful elaboration of the obvious to describe the profound impact to physical and emotional health deriving from social disconnection and loss of supporting and nurturing relationships. The dark side of living in a very large country with high levels of mobility is a growing pandemic of social disconnection. Millions of us find ourselves living as economic refugees in strange cities, hoping to strike it rich. As America’s economy moves into a discomfiting ‘new normal’ the loss of entire cities to financial implosion has driven this pandemic to unprecedented levels. We abandon our histories, neighbors, family, sense of place; reliving the images of the Great Depression. We are little more than 21st century hobos without the luxury of barns to sleep in or the hospitality of a good meal at the back door of a farm house.

Those who’ve survived a common peril experience a bond unlike any other. The lifelong friendships arising out of the trench warfare of WW I are legendary. Those surviving the assault of Normandy’s beaches have experienced levels of camaraderie unknown to the civilian population. Sailors returning for their ship reunions bask in a relational cohesion most of us will never enjoy.

Men and women who’ve become refugees from larger society because of their struggles with alcohol and drug addiction are at especially high risk for losing emotional, financial, and physical ground. As America adapts to its ‘new normal’ social safety nets for addicts and alcoholics are fast fraying. Detox programs, shelter homes, food programs, retraining programs, and jobs become ever scarcer. The economical and relational perils of the present day put those at war with their addictions at special risk. There are no ticket tape parades or celebrations at airports for those coming home. So often, many just get turned out from prison gates at midnight to find their way into an unwanting society with $25 in their pocket and little else.

Strangely, as my own street transitions from a once-vibrant social fabric of friendship, potluck dinners, shared child rearing, and play to a collage of anonymous economic refugees from states with burst housing markets, I become ever more grateful to the small islands of shared support and encouragement I find myself on. Paradoxically, addicted souls scrambling onto the safe shores of recovery experience camaraderie and bonding unlike any other. There’s great celebration for those gaining important beachheads in their journeys towards sobriety and re-integration into larger society.

As dissimilar people found themselves on the battlefields of Europe or Afghanistan, unlike people find themselves on the battlefields of addiction. People who’d never cross paths find themselves sharing in a mission-critical journey towards sobriety. “We are people who normally would not mix. But there exists among us a fellowship, a friendliness, and an understanding which is indescribably wonderful. We are like the passengers of a great liner the moment after rescue from shipwreck when camaraderie, joyousness, and democracy pervade the vessel from steerage to Captain’s table. Unlike the feelings of the ship’s passengers, however, our joy in escape from disaster does not subside as we go our individual ways. The feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element in the powerful cement which binds us.”

Gabon Mate in his seminal survey work on the role of emotional isolation in the genesis of catastrophic disease, When the Body Says No, cites countless studies highly suggestive of the great health hazards deriving from social and emotional isolation. In one definitive study, he describes the role of pseudo-independence or compensating hyper-independence in the genesis of rheumatoid arthritis. One could spend a lifetime reading studies offering evidence of the hazards of being self-sufficient, stoic, and emotionally isolated from others. As we become a nation of wandering economic refugees, these risks increase exponentially. For a culture in a painful economic transition with long-standing reverence for self-sufficiency and independence, hazards for pandemic disease abound.

For a mere dollar a day, and that’s optional, those struggling with alcoholism and addictions are able to join in a friendliness and camaraderie not found in larger society. In the culture of recovery, one’s successes and failures are celebrated and mourned with an emotional presence that’s sometimes astounding. The intensity of community to be found in intensive care waiting rooms as we say farewell to one who’s lost her battle is dumbfounding. The intensity of joy to be found when someone celebrates his first year of sobriety is often overwhelming. The realities of on-going life and death struggles in addiction’s recovery in a society awash in alcohol and drugs promotes a bonding not unlike that found in soldiers, flyers, and sailors returning from war.

In a consumer society that’s lost its spiritual and economic bearings, we find ourselves among uncounted millions struggling through the harsh realities of foreclosure, unemployment, forced mobility, even existential crises of life purpose. Wondering why so many of us are so sick, Gabon Mate could easily come back and say “I told you so” or “What did you expect?” but his good manners would keep him from this. In some respects we’ve set ourselves up for the perfect storm, the consequences of which may not become fully evident for some years. As a society we may pay personal costs in our physical and emotional health reaching far beyond those of losing our high-paying jobs or McMansions. For the foreseeable future health care will probably remain the one viable growth industry in America.

At the end of recovery meetings it’s traditional for participants to hold hands, say the Lord’s Prayer out loud and then declare “Let this circle represent that which we can’t do alone we can do together.” Those who find ongoing success in their recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction know they cannot do it alone. It’s a shared effort bringing together those from all strata of economic, educational and spiritual walks of life. Almost daily we get harsh reminders from those who thought they could fly solo on their journey.

Perhaps there’s a powerful message in the recovery world for those in larger society who wish to recover from the harsh realities of the American Dream which proved to be little more than a waking nightmare. In recovery we learn to turn our lives and will over to the care of God. We get His best when we let Him do the choosing for us. We also learn to hold hands with each other and look both ways before crossing the street.

We might even avoid being subjects in Mate’s case studies.