The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience.
Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of not Giving a Fuck
The paradox is that hedonism ― the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake ― leads to anhedonia, which is the inability to enjoy pleasure of any kind.
Anna Lembke, Dopamine Nation
I thought that recovery was going to be a process of feeling better, only to find that it is a process of getting better at feeling, which can be, at times, very unsettling.
Patrick Little, SoberOasis
There are, it seems, two muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say, „It is yet more difficult than you thought.“ This is the muse of form. It may be then that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction, to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.
Wendell Berry (August 5, 1934 – August 31, 2026)
These past few days were spent at a multi-fellowship gathering in a beautiful eight-hundred-year-old castle perched high above an ancient village by the name of Bacharach ― yes, as in Burt Bacharach ― on the River Rhine.
I happen to live directly on the Rhine myself, at km 674, half way between Bonn and Cologne. The marker at Bacharach showed 543 km, therefore 131 km upstream from home. Going upstream for this convention turned out to have been a great decision, leading to four days of vibrant exchanges of experience, strength, hope, hugs, and smiles with participants from a wide variety of Twelve Step fellowships from all around the world.
Meetings, workshops, and conversations took place in English and German (conversations could also be overheard in Russian and Spanish) and the cultural mix was both interesting and invigorating.
At some of our meetings, people expressed their gratitude for their liberation from whatever substances (alcohol, cocaine, weed, heroin, etc.) or behaviours (gambling, overeating, porn, codependence, etc.) which had brought them to their knees. I can relate to that. When I quit alcohol and weed in 2003 ― after 26 years of continuous consumption ― and first entered the rooms of AA and NA, I, too, was relieved that the the double life of the addict, the life I had been living since my late teens, had finally come to an end.
Only now could the process of recovery, healing, and growth begin. The solid foundation on which these unfold is the foundation of abstinence. This is called Recovery Phase I.
The successful conclusion of this phase (for alcoholics ― and by inference, valid for any substance or process addiction ―) is what AA co-founder, Bill Wilson, called a „position of neutrality“, i.e. the state of recovery where a person is entirely freed from the obsession, fear, and temptation of alcohol. Instead of relying on constant white-knuckle willpower to resist drinking, the individual experiences a psychological and spiritual shift where the desire to drink vanishes, rendering alcohol an irrelevance rather than a daily threat.
This is where Recovery Phase II — and the real work — begins. The goal of this phase is the cultivation and maintenance of Emotional Sobriety. In his landmark 1953 correspondence (a reply to a letter he had received requesting advice) and published as an essay in the main AA publication („The Grapevine“) five years later, under the title: Emotional Sobriety, The Next Frontier, Bill stated that true recovery requires moving beyond physical abstinence to break deep-seated, unhealthy emotional dependencies, dependencies on people, places, and circumstances.
In his writings, Bill emphasises the importance of openness to other methods to augment the lived experience of the Twelve Step programme. Ironically, despite building an abstinence-based fellowship, he himself experimented with alternative therapies — such as targeted Niacin (Vitamin B3) protocols and clinical LSD sessions in the 1950’s — hoping to find tools to relieve severe depression and lower the barrier to spiritual awakening for suffering alcoholics.
In this short essay, he entreats future generations to build on the foundation established by the first cohort of recovering alcoholics ― a foundation clearly documented in the „Big Book“ of AA, first published in 1938. In my view, the „spirit of openness to other methods“ implies that we, today, should incorporate in our recovery regimens, practices from the vast body of knowledge and methods discovered and developed since 1938, especially in the fields of psychotherapy, developmental psychology, trauma, neuroscience, behavioural psychology, somatic approaches, mental fitness, and more.
Imagine a village in the foothills of a major mountain range, a village where time has appeared to stand still, bisected by a river, always cool from the glacial melt, framed on each bank by snowfields in winter and bright, iridescent, buzzing meadows in summer.
Life was carefree and easy in this village until a strange phenomenon arose. First, a lone body washed up on the edge of the pool right in the middle of the hamlet. The inhabitants were perplexed and shaken. This had never happened in living memory. The corpse, which could not be identified, was respectfully buried in accordance with the cultural mores and the villagers returned to their daily routines.
Soon afterwards, more bodies washed up, some already dead, others almost so. A village gathering was called, and it was decided to set up an infirmary where those still alive could be treated and, hopefully, restored to health. Curiously, when people did recover, they could never remember, no matter how hard they tried, how they had come to find themselves in the dangerous mountain torrent in the first place.
Time passed and there was a steady increase in the numbers of corpses and severely injured men, women, and children who washed up on the banks of the great pool. A new cemetery had to be opened, dedicated especially to accommodate the corpses of the strangers, and the infirmary had already been enlarged on three occasions.
The mysterious scourge had begun to consume the focus and resources of the villagers to such an extent that the old, carefree way of life seemed like an old dream, way beyond the reach of today’s inhabitants. Something had to be done, but what?
It was the daughter of the shaman who suggested the expedition. A group of twelve, equipped with the best available technical climbing gear and ample food supplies, was to go upstream to figure out how all these poor unfortunates ended up in the water.
At first, the villagers were afraid to risk losing their best young women and men, but, over time, they realised the necessity of getting to the bottom of the issue. The village resources were so depleted, and the villagers ― physically and emotionally ― so burned out, that the status quo had become intolerable.
Lots were drawn among the fittest youngsters to decide who should join the party. Once the team was assembled, they set off, after thorough training and preparations, on a cool bright spring morning. They carried the fond blessings of the shamanic council in their hearts.
For almost a month they trekked upwards, through weather both fine and inclement. They stuck to the main river, ignoring minor tributaries, occasionally spotting bodies floating by as they ascended.
Then came a junction of two equally broad streams. They set up camp here over night to ascertain which one was divulging the drowned and drowning victims. Next morning, a young man, still alive, was scooped out of the eastern stream, so, taking him with them, they progressed up its bank. Like all the other victims, he spoke a language they did not comprehend, so could not answer any questions about his recent fate. He simply trekked with them in silence, happy to have been spared the fate of many of his less fortunate fellows.
On the second day in these higher reaches, he began to get agitated, his body language demonstrating fear of progressing any further. The trekkers sensed they were getting close to the origin of the great curse of their times. Leaving the rescued victim in the care of two of their own, the remainder continued upstream, vigilant, and somewhat anxious themselves.
At last, a village ― the first they had encountered since they set off ― came into view. They decided to circumvent it and observe the goings on from slightly higher ground further away from the river. From there they observed a strange ritual unfolding each evening.
A monster-like creature, fierce and fearsome, with distorted features, had built his fortress on the riverbank. Every evening at dusk, on his way to his sleeping chambers, he was confronted with his dastardly reflection in a great mirror, whereupon one of the many captured mountainfolk was hurled from a high precipice into the ferocious torrent by members of his private army who stood guard.
For a moment, the monster’s reflection was transformed into the image of a handsome young prince; healthy, well-dressed, and comfortable in his own skin, at one with the world. With this image in his mind, the monster sought out his bed and lay down to sleep. Without this ritual, sleep was impossible for him, and, like all sentient creatures, life quickly became intolerable after five or six sleepless nights. How this remedy to his restlessness had been discovered, nobody ever figured out.
The expedition party knew what had to be done. With elixirs prepared by their own shaman, early next morning they contaminated the water supply of the village. The effect would be to put all those who drank from this supply into a deep sleep for 24 hours. Once the effect had taken hold, they entered the village unassailed.
It was a bit like the scene in „Sleeping Beauty“. Once they found their way into the monster’s sleeping chamber, they wrapped him in all the bed sheets they could find and carried his comatose body past the cages of the misfortunate prisoners to the precipice above the river.
The glacial melt now in full swing, the water roared passed them in a mighty torrent. With all the energy they could command, they hurled the monster into the heaving current and watched as his huge frame was quickly carried forth.
Before leaving the village, they liberated the prisoners from their cages, putting the monster’s soldiers inside instead. Then, in haste, they began their descent. When they met up with the triad they had left behind, they were surprised to find that the stranger could now somehow understand and speak their language.
During the trek homeward, he related to them the story of the monster who couldn’t sleep until the reflection of (what he believed to be) his true diabolic nature was, as the result of a human sacrifice, magically transformed into one more benign, calming him sufficiently so that he could fall asleep.
On arriving home several weeks later, they were told of a strange, huge creature who had floated by some time previously. On hearing this, the expeditionists related what they had experienced, and an annual festival was established.
The festival celebrates the embracing of whatever we see reflected in the mirror ― the repulsive and the attractive ― in true compassion and acceptance. This festival continues to be celebrated to this day.
During meetings at the Recover Castle Convention, some people proudly proclaimed: „At least I didn’t drink (or use) today!“ Others insisted that those following the Twelve Step programme should strictly limit themselves to achieving abstinence, arguing that anything more would contravene the cherished „singleness of purpose“ as expressed by the pioneers of the movement in 1938. Topics such as therapy, handling trauma, nutrition, exercise, etc. would, according to this logic, be considered „outside issues“.
I strongly disagree!
Our Inner Work calls us to go upstream (in this case, to travel back to our earliest years) to identify the coping mechanisms we developed to survive the adversity of those times, patterns which today not only no longer serve us, but, in fact, hamper the unfolding of our beauty, our creativity, and our true potential as Human Beings.
This work will show us how we sacrificed our True Self for the False Self, the entity we considered had a better chance of survival. It will also help us recover our True Self by transcending our childhood wounds, enabling us thus to cultivate Mental Fitness and Emotional Sobriety. Only then can we step into our birthright ― a life of purpose, usefulness, sorrow, and joy.
We may learn some of the following lessons as we trek upstream on this „Road of Happy Destiny“. The relentless pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, both lead to increased levels of suffering. Recovery begins with abstinence which calms the brain’s reward system.
Once rewired through our daily practice of the Twelve Steps, our capacity to experience joy in simpler ways begins to emerge and grow. Awareness, followed by compassion (for self, others, and circumstances), self-regulation, and the interception of our Saboteur coping patterns, create a temporal and neural gap between impulse and response (obsession and consumption). Therein lies our freedom to choose, and thus our liberation.
Medications can restore homeostasis, but we should consider what we lose by medicating away our pain. Pain is part of the Human Condition. Suffering, which results from taking a stance of resistance to pain, is always optional. Beware of getting addicted to suffering.
Radical honesty promotes awareness, enhances intimacy, and fosters a mindset of abundance.
Compassion affirms that we belong to the human tribe, one among many. Not special yet singular, perfect in our human imperfection. Instead of running away from the world, we can find healing by immersing ourselves in it.
None of these lessons can be learned in the stance of pain avoidance, which is the main driver of the addictive dynamic. These can be learned only when we, living in abstinence, are willing to drop our denial and revisit the scene of the „original crime“ (the childhood trauma), learning first to re-feel and grieve it and, as a result, transcend it in the process of psychological and spiritual alchemy.
The lead of yesterday is thus transformed into the gold of today, which only increases in effectiveness and value when we give it away to the next wave of people who need it in the process of their own recovery. The Recovery Castle Convention provided us an opportunity to do just that.
