By Dr Debabrata Roy
Many among us are at some point or the other on the road from denial to acceptance; blessed is the one who holds on to this challenging road with grit and quiet resolve and does eventually breast the tape, that is, accept him/herself ‘wart & all’ (whatever one was, is or shall be), being rewarded in the process with a benediction of self-love and introspective wisdom, a faith as well, that he/she is unique in the Grand Creator’s scheme of things and He (God as one believes in) has a purpose ordained for him/her. Such one is a privileged soul and may be said to have taken life by its horns and really ‘lived’ it. Unfortunately, and to the contrary, some of us are wont to not even step on that road and continue to merely ‘exist’ – in denial, defiance and dilemma, in self-pity, wearing masks, projecting ourselves as what in truth we are not! Whereas there may be all too many situations or predicaments in life influencing such a state of misery in a human being, one highly relatable context is that of dependency disorders involving a chemical or substance and which continues to be among the most serious of public health problems afflicting the society today. The malady has rather a predisposing web of causation, essentially but not exclusively psycho-social and which evidentially, may be difficult to categorically elicit, define and address. Even if physical dependence on a chemical can be mitigated by substituting the offending substance with other analogous chemicals over a few days, the psychological dependency component or ‘craving’ is found to persist and recur, being triggered by one too many influencers, thereby affecting recovery of a person, which is why a chemically dependent person needs a protracted therapy or care with a view to addressing this component. Drug and counsel driven neuro-psychiatric therapeutics do have their role but evidence suggests, when it comes to effectively breaking the ‘addiction cycle’ (read vicious cycle of notions/ emotions, one feeding on the other leading to abnormal behaviour patterns), self-help group therapeutics of ‘fellowshipping’ among the afflicted (read individuals and families) have set credible precedents since the1930s. It is this vicious cycle that an unfortunate victim gets embroiled in – usually a person in denial with low frustration tolerance and self-esteem/insecurity that snowball into self-pity, then anger and resentment, the mitigation of which by all means becomes the only objective of such a soul- by executing behaviours that include abusing a chemical and or emotions. The success stories and case studies of alcoholics and addicts across countries seeking recovery through 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) or Narcotics Anonymous (NA) fellowships have since generated a movement and constitutes perhaps the mainstay in planning recovery of a person so dependent and diseased across settings.
The enabling refuge of a ‘Higher Power’ in the form of fellowship of the afflicted itself has proven potential to mould a psychologically dependent victim to come out of denial and accept oneself, ‘open up’ in sharing experiences, letting out everything including resentment of any kind. Thus, once a victim to a vicious cycle perpetuating a recurring behaviour pattern, the person awakens to a purpose of life that the Higher Power has engendered, develops humility and starts growing. A community of such kind where a structured, disciplined living in ‘acceptance’ is practiced based on 12 steps of recovery may be aptly said to be therapeutic because of its potential for healing and which mostly are peer led by ‘recovering’ alcoholics/addicts.
Dr M Scott Peck in his seminal book ‘Road less travelled’ talks of a road all of us need to but travel the least, that of denial to acceptance, to self-love, to forgiveness, to life. The essential principles and steps of recovery for the afflicted, i.e., chemically or otherwise dependants, as ‘lived’ through fellowshipping do apply to one and all of us. May we all step on to and persevere on this road from denial to acceptance, from dependence to freedom.
(The author is Pro Vice Chancellor, Ras Bihari Bose Subharti University, Dehradun.)
