“Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.” Epictetus

Epictetus would know a little something about freedom.  He was once enslaved and went on to become a paragon of the Stoic school of philosophy.  His quotation here can certainly be taken literally in terms of freedom from bondage, but I find it helpful to consider in the context of addiction.

We alcoholics certainly know something about the slavery of active addiction.  We know what it is like to be imprisoned by our compulsions to drink and to service that need with deception, selfishness, defensiveness, anger, and all other manner of ill thinking and behavior.   We know the torture of being betrayed by our own thoughts—those thoughts that convince us we can be nothing more than servants of our impulses to drink.  Our addictive thoughts have kept us from pursuing a life of freedom from drink or drugs.  Those thoughts have convinced us of our weakness and have dimmed our hopes of a life in recovery.  

The compulsive thoughts and bodily cravings of addiction have made many of us act in ways we regret, compromise relationships we value, and abandon the virtues of our better character.   Becoming an addict is an act of becoming ensnared by a substance.  Often, attempts to free ourselves only tighten the bonds.

Dear Reader, have you ever behaved in a way you regretted later because you were under the influence?  Did you ever confine yourself to the home because the outside world couldn’t accommodate the way you wanted to drink or use?  Did you ever avoid places because they were “dry?”  I did.  I did all of these frequently and my life began to orbit around the idea and act of getting drunk.  It consumed my thoughts.  It was my driving impulse and the other things in my life became a more and more distant second place.  

How can we alcoholics deliver ourselves from the slavery of addiction?  It’s no easy task, but the words of Epictetus, these centuries later, still offer considerable wisdom and guidance.  We must learn to confine our energy to the things in our control and learn to let be the things that we cannot.  We can drink ourselves silly fretting over things that are not influenced at all by our thoughts and our actions.  We can drink over the weather, politics, warfare, famine, or traffic on our way to work.  We can drink over the lack of common courtesy and civility in the world.  We can drink over the price of gas or the rained out game.  We can drink over the chronic illness of a loved one.  We can drink over the past.  We can drink over the future.  We’ll never run out of reasons, if we’re looking for them.

Instead, why don’t we leave the things beyond our control to occur as they will and devote our considerable talents and energies to the things we can control.  We can put down the bottle.  We can ignore the craving.  We can perform a good deed.  We can uplift our fellows.  We can provide comfort to the suffering.  We can volunteer our time.  There are so many positive things we can do that will be helpful to others and ourselves.  Not only will doing this make us feel better, it will help us draw a sharp contrast with how we spend our time in recovery versus how it was spent in addiction.

I have no interest in being a miserable ex-drinker whose life in sobriety is lamenting all I can no longer do because I am sober.  That’s not recovery.  Recovery is building a new life that is fulfilling, beautiful, and helpful.  It is happiness in the face of difficulty.  It is strength challenging times.  It is love over the temptation of hate or revenge.  It is hope.  It is promise.  It is freedom, and it is an obtainable freedom we can safeguard against outside interference because it relies not on the cooperation of the world to develop, but only our willingness to cultivate it within ourselves.  I hope you will.