Beyond Ice, from the Wangaratta Chronicle, 20 October 2017

We live in an addictive world: whether sex or sugar, fitness or food, money, nicotine, alcohol, ice or other drugs; it can be very easy to get hooked into habitual pattens of behaviour that start out offering appropriate rewards and end up with diminishing returns. But it is important to remember that these dead end options can open to life-changing opportunities to change, grow and thrive.

Many years ago a friend of mine went to a very wise person to ask where he could find happiness, wholeness, health. She told him to go to where the tension was hiding in his life. As the Chinese language translates the word “crisis” as “dangerous opportunity,” so anyone can find new strength in looking at the issues that surround addictive or habitual behaviour. They can be the raw fuel that opens our lives to new opportunities for mental, emotional, intellectual and spiritual growth.

Both the crisis and the opportunity can happen to anyone, we’d all be surprised by the number of people who’ve found a lingering problem with habitual substances. To quote a clergyman I’ve known for a few decades:

You don’t think you really have a problem, you smoke weed, or you enjoy a drink or drug, or food feeds you, or sex, coffee, relationships, whatever. It isn’t a real big deal, it is a safe little corner for comfort and self-care really and you aren’t hurting anybody, except yourself maybe, much. But there have been a few folks making little remarks, and you notice that schedules and laundry and appointments and expectations get put off, and you really hate that fuzzy feeling some mornings and let’s face it, more and more afternoons, and what used to be a little safety valve has gotten bigger now, and it feels like something that you used to think was important might leak out, like your life, except that your life is now deeply  tied in with this most intimate refreshing little rite, ritual, relationship with a substance, and you wonder sometimes if you use it or it uses you. And you never expected to see yourself on this corner, really at a dead end, wondering where to go from here. 

What happened to him can happen to anyone. And what he found was that that dead end was also an open door to a new beginning!

So if you worry about the way you use substances or relationships, see it as a new opportunity! Explore your options by meeting with other people who can talk honestly and openly about their experience, both failure and success, and can share what its like to deal with old limits and find new freedom; check out options in substance and behaviour management; whether mindful using, harm-minimisation, abstinence. I’ll bet you’ll see lives changed, options opened, miracles happen.

It’s a dangerous opportunity for growth and change and it is a chance too good to miss!

Robert Whalley is a retired Anglican priest from California, where he worked for many years with people recovering from substance abuse. He can often be found around Holy Trinity Cathedral in Wangaratta.