“We are going to know a new freedom” -Alcoholics Anonymous
I have always marveled at the paradox that our nation’s liberation from the bondage of slavery is marked by the quintessential period of restriction. A holiday that requires us to adhere to strict guidelines and detailed instructions with such profound exactitude and measure. To distance ourselves from something that in the rest of the year we get to engage in unconditionally.
This is freedom?
In working firsthand with individuals in addiction treatment as they battle for ultimate freedom, I now understand that the answer to this question is a resounding yes.
What Is Slavery?
The individual in addiction recovery is continually waging war against inner impulses and drives that entrap him and to which he has become “powerless” against. Forces which often pose a threat to virtually everything in his life that is of meaning and value. A person in recovery therefore knows vividly that learning to exercise restraint is his only chance at achieving redemption.
The individual in recovery will tell you that a life of following whims - a life of perceived “freedom” and permissiveness to excess - becomes the deepest form of suffocation and imprisonment imaginable.
That doing, taking, ingesting, drinking whatever I want, whenever I want - a life that knows no boundaries - is the most insidious slavery of all.
As the individual in recovery will tell you, it is the determination to stay within parameters and exert the capacity to rid something from one’s life with a fierce rigor that is the path to true freedom (and often the only antidote to toxic boundary issues such as enmeshment and enabling - which addicts and their family members tend to know all too well):
Our first objective will be the development of self-restraint…For we can neither think nor act to good purpose until the habit of self-restraint has become automatic -Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
Identifying Personal Chains
I will never forget the moment that I sat with Joseph*, a prestigious lawyer, as he cried uncontrollably in Rehab. After years of struggling, he was hit with the realization that his ambition and desire for success, while initially productive, had spiraled out of control and taken on a life of its own. He sobbed as he shared his insight that drug use had been an escape from feelings of worthlessness and shame, and the uncomfortable feeling of never achieving enough. He began to acknowledge that his limitless quest for fame and financial success took over and led him down a chaotic, destructive path.
After the opportunity to reflect he finally confronted his true reality and felt a cathartic sense of freedom for the first time in years. We were then able to carve out space for him to learn to take control of his impulses, rather than the other way around. We explored ways of directing his characteristic drive toward success and achievement to productive, noble causes. To combat the chaos created when this natural tendency reigned “free.”
By identifying this drive, regaining control and setting healthy parameters, he was liberated:
Creation gave us instincts for a purpose…yet these instincts so necessary for our existence, often far exceed their proper functions. Powerfully, blindly, many times subtly, they drive us, dominate us, and insist upon ruling our lives- Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
The Power of “Step-work” to Break Free
The individual recovering from addiction is living a life of a constant, unceasing, unrelenting battle between being governed and governing one’s behaviors and decisions. And he or she (perhaps more than anyone) knows the only way to achieve control is to break the “unmanageable” cycle of acting on impulse, and make the conscious decision to stop and surrender. To choose to give over the reins to a “power greater than ourselves.”
To begin living based upon an established program of recovery and following a set of objective guidelines, even when - especially when - it means battling the impulses that scream within that tell us to break free of all boundaries and limitations. To battle against the forces that remain unchecked and uncontrolled - whether it be our less refined characteristics or our unruled emotions - and instead surrender to serving our higher missions and Tafkidim (individual roles), our purer, selfless, cosmic goals.
It is not surprising that entering into recovery often necessitates conducting a “searching and fearless moral inventory” (Step 4 of AA) of the inner recesses of his being. A painstaking ‘Bedikas Chametz’ of the rawest kind. No corner is left unturned in confronting past mistakes and “character defects.”
And, only once these “crumbs” have been uncovered does it become possible to begin loosening the chains that he didn’t even know existed within himself. He can then begin to set goals for moving forward toward a purpose-driven, meaningful, emotionally and spiritually healthy life:
Once we have a complete willingness to take inventory, and exert ourselves to do the job thoroughly, a wonderful light falls upon this foggy scene. As we persist, a brand new kind of confidence is born, and the sense of relief at finally facing ourselves in indescribable…We ask if we have omitted anything, for we are building an arch through which we shall walk a free man at last -Alcoholics Anonymous
From Bondage to Redemption
As we learn from those battling addiction, the way out of imprisonment is not living unrestrained, but pulling back and (re)directing one’s self to that which is higher and noble. To that which is not born from one’s own instinctive behaviors, but rather to a calculated mission. As stated in Pirkei Avos (6:2), “Ein lecha ben chorin ela mi sh’eoseik b’Torah - A person is not free without Torah.”
In the process of reigning in our drives and inclinations, we are enabled to move forward conscientiously and purposelessly, rather than aimlessly. Ensuring that our various needs, desires, emotions, and inclinations are directed by us and remain valuable resources that serve us, rather than our serving them.
Individuals in addiction recovery, in the pursuit of freedom, have learned to ask themselves on a daily basis, what their personal chains have been - what desires they have unabashedly pursued, what knee-jerk reactions and instincts have gone unchecked.
So too, each of us, as we clean and search for the literal Chametz throughout our homes, can take a moment to also hold a candle to oneself - to search through and find those parts of ourselves which have become compulsive and have started to exert control over us. To examine whether we are being bound by any unrestrained inclination, characteristic, or motivation that may have gotten “out of control,” trapping us from experiencing authentic relationships with ourselves, others, and with Hashem.
Only then can we regain control, set limits around these tendencies or behaviors, and consciously decide how they are to be properly directed and channeled.
And in doing so, open ourselves up to experiencing true liberation and freedom.