America's Addiction
We're headed for a collective rock bottom
Dear Ones,
We’re living through difficult times together.
Can we get through to the other side… together?
I’m here. I’m ready. Who’s with me?
With Love,
Cecelia 💗
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I have been reflecting on our social contract lately — especially on the degree to which it seems like many Americans would like to believe there isn't one.
This American "ideal" of rugged individualism is something that has been so cherished by so many Americans over the decades.
Yet, it is harmful to the woven fabric of our country and is ripping it apart.
We are starting to see just how harmful it is, when Americans refuse to acknowledge the "us" that exists here — the large us, the one that encompasses us ALL and is thus the priority over any one individual.
My hope is that we're willing to give up, and recover from, this addiction to individualism... before our country completely unravels.
I'm seeing the collective reality we’re in as much like the addiction process for an individual. As so commonly happens within individuals spiraling in addiction, I feel us all heading to rock bottom right now… and I genuinely hope we're willing to give up the drink (of individualism) soon... and enter into recovery.
Recovery will involve healing... cooperation... acknowledging our interdependence and individual powerlessness... and lots of love and care.
An Addiction
Addiction: such a well-known yet hard-to-fully-understand subject.
I’ll say this.
Addiction is something I’ve been exposed to for all of my life.
One of my grandfathers was pretty severely bipolar (or manic depressive, as they called it in those days) and was addicted to alcohol. My interpretation of the fact that he was addicted to that substance has always been that he was using it to self-medicate his depression and mania (as is so common).
In essence, alcohol may have been a crutch for him. Alcohol may have helped the world seem a bit less hard… the low points not feel quite-so-low… the highest points not feel quite-so-overwhelming.
Many other members of my family have also been addicted — to alcohol, drugs, and other substances. Many have actively embraced recovery, too.
In addition to this personal experience, I went to graduate school for social work and have been around addiction professionally quite a bit.
Add the fact that I have many friends and loved ones in recovery, and you could say that I’ve had quite a lot of experience with addiction.
Thinking about addiction is not just a mental exercise for me.
Addiction is real.
Addiction deeply affects human lives.
And when I think about it, I’m not just contemplating a concept — but instead I’m contemplating a three-dimensional, profound human experience.
All that said, I’ve been having a recurring thought in the past few months, especially after the results of the United States presidential election became known and a new administration began planning to take power:
We Americans are in the throes of a collective addiction right now — and we seem headed for rock bottom.
We are addicted to individualism — and its sister substances.
We are addicted to greed.
We are addicted to pride and hubris.
We are addicted to self-centeredness.
We are addicted to competition.
We are addicted to fawning over wealth.
We are addicted to exalting individual “heroes” as the key to every problem.
We are addicted to creating a hard, harsh, dog-eat-dog world.
None of these addictions are healthy and, in fact — like most addictions — they are actively harming us.
They are killing us.
And yet…
… we cling to them.
America’s addiction functions like so many other addictions do: we use these substances to distract ourselves, to fill our experiences with something other than the pain we do not want to experience.
We think the drugs are working for us.
And maybe they did, for a while.
But like every drug, these substances pretty quickly start to harm much more than they are helping anything — and, if the harm goes on too long, it starts compounding so much that it starts taking down the entire system.
Rock Bottom
You’ve probably heard the stories.
You may have even lived them.
So often, as it goes, an addiction only makes the turn towards recovery once it has reached a state of “rock bottom” — basically as low as low can go.
So often, every way of getting around the addiction, while still clinging to it, seems to need to have been tried.
The addiction is so seemingly necessary… and/or seemingly helping some things… and/or seemingly the way we want things to be… until things just get SO bad that we cannot stand them being this way anymore.
We are headed to a rock bottom, as a country.
I hate to say it, but I see it.
As this federal government chosen by the majority of Americans has come into power, and started bringing to reality the natural end-points of addictions to individualism… and greed… and pride and hubris… and self-centeredness… and competition… and fawning over wealth… and exalting individual “heroes”… and creating a hard, harsh, dog-eat-eat-dog world… the system is starting to go down.
People — all around the world, even — are starting to suffer even more than usual.
They are going without water, without food.
They are being separated from their loved ones.
They are working themselves to the bone to still not have enough.
They are feeling more alone than ever.
They are dying in droves.
The fear living within Americans is starting to balloon, too.
I can feel it. Can’t you?
If this addiction story is like so many other of these stories, things will need to get really bad — like, even way worse than it is right now, even though now is pretty darn bad as it is — before we collectively decide that anything is better than this.
And that is what it will take.
We will have to collectively decide that anything — including giving up these addictions — is better than this.
Recovery
The decision to choose something different than addiction is just the beginning…
… of a long, long journey of recovery.
The journey of recovery never ends, really.
But why would you want it to?
Because recovery is choosing life.
The journey of recovery, one usually chosen after much suffering, is one of continuously re-choosing humility… honesty… connectedness… community… love and care, for both ourselves and for the others around us… and, in general, everything that supports and encourages life to grow and flourish.
I can’t imagine living in a country making these choices — because it is so far from anything I’ve yet experienced in this life.
I’d honestly love to live in a country like that.
Wouldn’t you?
If so, when do you think you’ll start to choose these things in every moment of your life? When do you think you’ll start living those values for all to see? When do you think you’ll start encouraging your entire community to do the same?
We rise or fall together.
We are a country.
We are a tapestry of many different threads, woven together as one.
Individual threads have very little strength.
Yet, many individual threads — if they have allowed themselves to be woven tightly together with all of the threads around them — can be strong together.
So.
What do you say?
Are you ready to weave a new Tapestry of Life together — one committed to continuously choosing humility, honesty, connectedness, community, love and care, and supporting and encouraging life to grow and flourish in every way we can?
I know we can.
I know that America’s potential is to be just that.
Don’t you?
Can we help her come to life… together?
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💗