A woman shared that she
stopped using heroin four months ago and she wanted to stop all her drug
habits. She remembered her grandmother’s saying: “Let your light shine and be
happy.” However, abandoned by her mother at eight, she became the caregiver to two
younger siblings. Dad was responsible and took care of his children. But when
her brother was dying, she called her mother whose reply was that she would not
be available to come and see her son before he died. The resentment and
coldness of this reply left her empty and bitter.
For more than thirty years she struggled with two
addictions: alcohol and drugs. She had them enough under control that she could
essentially hide them from her family, friends, and colleagues. She never acted
out in very dangerous ways. She was addicted, but still had good control in her
life. The problem was that she was living a double life—showing one life to her
family and friends and living another life secretly (alcohol, heroin,
marijuana) on the side. Her life slowly began to fixate around her
addictions—hiding them, lying about her activities, fiercely protecting her
privacy, resentment towards anything or anybody who stood between her
addictions, and daily anxiety, scheming about where she would go at night. She
functioned decently and raised children of her own, but her mind, heart, and
real attention were focused on something else, her next hit.
She’s not sure what the exact trigger was since there
were a number of things that hit her at a point (her brother’s death, her
mother’s lack of compassion, some real shame, some graced moments of clarity
when she sensed both her hypocrisy and the dead-end road she was on. She said
it was time to turn her life around and she has been clean for four months and
she described it that she 'can see the light and color again.' “Nothing feels
as great as honesty! I have never been this happy! I'm now living in the
light!"
We are called to live in the light. To live in
the light means to live in honesty, pure and simple, to be transparent, to not
have part of us hidden as a dark secret. We move towards spiritual health
precisely by flushing out our sickest secrets and bringing them into the light.
Sobriety is more about living in honesty and transparency than it is about
living without a certain chemical. It's the hiding of something, the lying, the
dishonesty, the deception, the resentment we harbor towards those who stand
between us and our addiction, that does the real damage to us and to those we
love.
Spiritual health lies in honesty and transparency
and so we live in the light when we are willing to lay every part of our lives
open to examination by those who need to trust us.
• To live in the light is to be able always to
tell our loves ones where we are and what we are doing.
• To live in the light is not have to worry if
someone traces what websites we have visited.
• To live in the light is to not be anxious if
someone in the family finds our files unlocked.
• To live in the light is to be able to let those
we live with listen to what's inside our cell-phones, see what's inside our
emails, and know who's on our speed-dial.
• To live in the light is to have a confessor
and/or therapist to be able to tell that person what we struggle with, without
having to hide anything.
• To live in the light is to live in such a way
that, for those who know us, our lives are an open book.
God
invites us to listen to his words: “For you have delivered my soul from death,
and my feet from falling, so that I may walk before God in the light of life.”
(Psalm 56:13).
Lord,
I pray for all my Sonshine Friends who are living in darkness. Inspire them to
seek help and trust that God wants us to be clean and free of all our
addictions and “walk before God in the light of life.”
