Your mind constantly returns to a place that’s not so fucking cold, but on fire with war.

PROPAGANDHI, “NIGHT LETTERS”

3

THE HOPE AND THE HURT

Sri Ramana Maharshi is one of the most celebrated and world-renowned Hindu masters of all time, and his teaching of self-inquiry is easily one of the most influential elements of my own path. He was born in 1879 near Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India, and, at the age of sixteen, had an experience that shattered the foundation of his sense of self, changing the course of both his life and, later, many of his devotees’ lives forever. Regarding the experience, Ramana said:

It was quite sudden. I was sitting in a room on the first floor of my uncle’s house. I seldom had any sickness and on that day there was nothing wrong with my health, but a sudden, violent fear of death overtook me. There was nothing in my state of health to account for it; and I did not try to account for it or to find out whether there was any reason for the fear. I just felt, “I am going to die,” and began thinking what to do about it. It did not occur to me to consult a doctor or my elders or friends. I felt that I had to solve the problem myself, then and there.

The shock of the fear of death drove my mind inward and I said to myself mentally, without actually framing the words: “Now death has come; what does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies.” And I at once dramatized the occurrence of death. I lay with my limbs stretched out stiff as though rigor mortis had set in and imitated a corpse so as to give greater reality to the enquiry. I held my breath and kept my lips tightly closed so that no sound could escape, so that neither the word “I” or any other word could be uttered. “Well then,” I said to myself, “this body is dead. It will be carried stiff to the burning ground and there burnt and reduced to ashes. But with the death of this body am I dead? Is the body ‘I’? It is silent and inert but I feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of the ‘I’ within me, apart from it. So I am Spirit transcending the body. The body dies but the Spirit that transcends it cannot be touched by death. This means I am the deathless Spirit.”1

It’s extremely rare for someone to become completely awakened or instantaneously self-actualized the way Sri Ramana was. For most of us, it takes time and sincere effort (which is an interesting dichotomy because everything we’re searching for, or wanting to awaken to, is all already here anyway). That’s usually not a very popular truth—that the spiritual process takes time—because we want what we want when we want it. Right? The desire for instant gratification is a hell of a thing, and having spent so much of my life in active addiction, I understand.

Ken Wilber, while not addressing the disease of addiction and recovery specifically, but rather spirituality in general (which I believe are intertwined anyway), laid it out so clearly for us when he wrote:

Nobody will save you but you. You alone have to engage your own contemplative development. There is all sorts of help available, and all sorts of good agency to quicken this development, but nobody can do it for you. And if you do not engage this development, and on your deathbed you confess and scream out for help to God, nothing is going to happen. Spiritual development is not a matter of mere belief. It is a matter of actual, prolonged difficult growth, and merely professing belief is meaningless and without impact. It’s like smoking for twenty years, then saying, “Sorry, I quit.” That will not impress cancer. Reality, in other words, is not interested in your beliefs; it’s interested in your actions, what you actually do, your actual karma.2

For me, the first step toward contemplative development was recovery. Let’s face it, waking up in a jail cell with little to no recollection of how you got there really isn’t anyone’s idea of a good time—okay, at least it’s not most people’s idea of a good time. However, thanks to living in active addiction for many years, I’ve managed to accomplish this feat on more than a few occasions. I’ve knocked on death’s door numerous times because of my addiction and have spent more time in detoxes, rehabs, psychiatric hospitals, and jails than I care to (or can) remember.

After using from the age of fifteen until I was thirty-three, I’m grateful to be sober today. This isn’t my first time in recovery, but it’s definitely the longest and most heart-centered attempt I’ve ever made. I attribute the better part of these years of recovery to something I’m grateful to have finally learned, something I’d let slip through my ears at 12-step meetings or while listening to various dharma talks for far too long. So I ask you to please hear me when I say that the healing process—which goes for both addicts and nonaddicts alike—is always, always, an inside job. Fuck—how I wish I’d let that sink in sooner.

My head was so far up my ass that I would actually believe that whenever I’d made it to around six months clean, and begun getting material things back in my life like a job, car, and apartment, that I was fine, I was cured. I had the warped idea that I was “recovering” because I was abstaining from drugs and alcohol. If I had money coming in through steady work, was somewhat accountable to people, had a girlfriend, and was on good terms with my family, then in my mind I was recovering . . . except the thing was, I wasn’t, not even a little.

Sure, I was going to some 12-step meetings while also frequenting various meditation groups. I certainly talked the talk, but by keeping my “recovery” material-based and never cultivating the courage to look at and work with the real problem—the residual mental, emotional, and spiritual mess left inside of me—I was only prolonging the inevitable, which was picking up and using again.

Today, while recognizing that recovery is only a day-at-a-time reprieve, I’ve finally come to know better. Through the 12-step fellowships as well as various spiritual teachings and practices like meditation, mantra, and self-inquiry, I’ve learned that in order to heal, I have to fearlessly and intimately sift through the wreckage of my past—something that can be terribly scary, difficult, and entirely unpleasant. In order to have a fighting chance at saving my life, this is a decision that I have to make on a daily basis; and today, I choose life. I choose to be fearless in the face of adversity. (Please note: The 12-step fellowship and various spiritual practices and teachings mentioned throughout this book are simply what work for me. I encourage you to find whatever model works for you, whether it’s yoga, refuge recovery, integral recovery, or whatever other means resonate for you and allow the healing to begin.)

I feel blessed to be a part of the miracle of recovery, a miracle that continues to unfold not only in my life but also in countless other lives everywhere. At the same time, the nightmare of addiction is still very much alive for many suffering addicts—and not only the addicts themselves, but their loved ones too, who can do little more than watch helplessly as the life of the person they love deteriorates.

In 12-step fellowships, there’s a saying, “We do recover,” which I love, because it’s a beacon of hope for the hopeless. I remind myself of this sentiment quite often. At the same time, to say, “We die,” would be just as accurate a statement. Morbid as it sounds, it’s the reality of this disease. I’ve seen so many wonderful lives end before they’d been fully lived, and it’s fucking heartbreaking; but to keep our recovery in order, we can’t forget this sad truth, because if we do, we could be next.

A few years ago, on the day my first book was released, I received an email from a friend whom I hadn’t spoken with in quite some time. We had gone our separate ways because we were both dealing with issues that made our relationship toxic. (That’s the really neat and tidy version.) My friend’s words really touched me, particularly the following:

I just got home from an incredibly emotional experience. I stopped into the bookstore tonight to buy your book. Johnny Cash was playing, and I nearly lost it when I found you in the stacks between A Course in Miracles and Ram Dass. I thought to myself, “I used to look through the obituaries for your name, and now I’m looking through the stacks in a major bookstore for you.” My God, I don’t have the words . . . I’m just so glad that you’re well.

The sad thing is that she was totally justified in looking for my name in the obituaries because on any given day there was a very real chance she could have found it there. Reading my friend’s words made me think back to the countless times I’d cried while holding a bottle of alcohol, or looking at a line of coke (or Ritalin) on a table, not wanting to drink or snort it but still doing so—a slave to a disease that was destroying me.

You may not be able to relate to any of this, but I would guess that, even if my specific experiences aren’t yours, you still have your own emotional scars, your own painful memories. If so, I want you to know that you’re not alone. There are many of us here with you, right now and in this very moment. We may not be physically present, but at the level of the heart, and in the place of Everything Mind—the place where we feel both the most excruciating pain and the most overwhelming love—we’re right here, side by side.

There are times when I still feel guilty for having survived when so many others didn’t. It’s at those times, though, that I have to give myself a reality check and recognize that while yes, I’ve done some terribly shitty things in my life when under the influence, I’ve also been blessed with the opportunity to help others in their own process of recovery (and not just from addiction). For me, there’s no greater gift than that—the chance to be of service and help others help themselves.

I hope anyone who’s struggling with addiction, depression, self-loathing, or feelings of hopelessness finds some semblance of hope in my words, some way to engage their “contemplative development” or, at the very least, learns from my past mistakes and saves some time and pain in their own healing process . . . because we’re all human, we’re all recovering from something, and we’ve all hurt enough already, haven’t we?