“Freedom to Be Myself”
My 12-step sponsee was writing about how recovery from addiction feels so free and good. I responded with the aphorism, “To be free of self is to be a self that is free.” I am not sure if this is original. I kind of doubt it. More importantly, I believe it is true.
Since I was probably about 14 or 15 years old, I have realized that there were several different “selves” living in me, some of which I liked and was proud of and some of which I didn’t and wasn’t. Over the years, the selves I didn’t like became more and more prominent. I suspect that this is not a totally unfamiliar dynamic to some of you. As someone has said, “We don’t become better with age, just more so.”
Speaking to some Jewish folks who had (at least tentatively) believed in him, Jesus said, “If the son sets you free, you are free indeed.” (John 8:36, my translation) Jesus had just spoken to these sort-of believers about freedom. Immediately, there was a problem. They thought that they were already free. After all, they were the offspring of Abraham. How could they be anything other than free.
But Jesus wasn’t buying it. He pointed out to these “free” people that anyone who sins is the slave of sin. This is certainly true of the patterns we call addiction, but it is true with any and every kind of evil thoughts and behaviors. Yes, we are free to sin. No, we are not free once we do. And with every wrong-doing, the next wrong-doing becomes soooo much easier. Perhaps our friends and loved ones—and even strangers—can see our chains and hear them rattling, but we cannot. Ignorance doesn’t make the chains unreal. Ignorance just makes us unreal.
But there is a way out. Jesus claimed to be that way. We forge our own chains, put them on, and then trudge through life, less and less alive. We forged the chains and put them on, but we can’t take them off. Addicts who are in recovery know this. In some ways, we are the lucky ones. “Normal people”, if such people even exist, may fool themselves into thinking they are free. Recovering addicts know better. We know that, without a Higher Power, we continue to be slaves. Not every recovering addict knows that this Higher Power is manifested in Jesus, but there are many who do believe this. I am one of them. And when I am living the Jesus-way, I do indeed find that I am free from self and free to be my self.
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