Believing A Cure Is Possible
What Does Your Therapist Believe?
Pay particular attention to what you're about to read, for it will lay the groundwork not only for part of your cure, but also for your continued state of well-being throughout the rest of your life.
If you're not familiar with the term metaphysics, meta means "more than" or "beyond," and physics has to do with the physical world. So metaphysics is concerned with what's "more than" or "beyond" the physical world. Metaphysics is part of our effort as humans to reach beyond what we see, touch, taste, smell, and hear, to intuit what is beyond nature as we perceive it. Through metaphysics, we discover the true nature of things, their ultimate essences and reasons for being. For me, metaphysics is a philosophy that incorporates the Universal laws that govern everything in the physical world. It also has to do with the unseen but perceived laws that regulate and control the world beyond the physical.
Here's a bit of metaphysical law regarding our topic of cure that relates to one of the basic and most important aspects of our Universe - cause and effect. Simply stated, the metaphysical law says: "Every action produces a reaction, and that reaction is in exact accord with the action." (Do not confuse that metaphysical law with the physical law that states that "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.")
The metaphysical law of cause and effect applies to your beliefs in the following way. Every belief that you hold manifests itself in some manner by either causing you to take some form of action or by preventing you from taking action. When we apply this metaphysical law to the cure of addiction, we see that healers and therapists who don't believe that a cure is possible will not talk about a cure, will not look for a cure, and will most likely fail to bring about a cure.
Worse than that, they'll poison your mind with the belief that a cure is impossible and that you're doomed to be an addict or alcoholic for the rest of your life. That belief results in a self-defeating attitude that undermines the great gains that are possible. The only time that this poisoning would have any positive effect would be if you got angry when told that rubbish, refused to accept that belief, and set out to prove the therapist wrong.
Would you really do your utmost to succeed in the treatment of any ailment if you believed that you were beyond all hope of recovery? What caliber of treatment would you expect from a therapist who believed that? How do you think your body and mind would respond if you were surrounded by psychologists, psychiatrists, or drug and alcohol counselors who subscribe to the belief that "Once an alcoholic or addict, always an alcoholic or addict," and that your current stay in rehab will be one of many? You would be immediately deprived of hope.
Those misguided "helpers" poison the minds of those who come to them. It's not that they're doing it deliberately; they don't know any better. That is sad, because hope - the hope for a cure, the hope for a bright, clean future free of addictive drugs and alcohol, and the hope for a return to a normal, healthy life free from the excessive fear of relapse - is the most powerful stimulus for complete recovery.
Compare those misguided healers with healers and therapists who believe that a cure is possible. They will talk about a cure, will look for a cure, and will be more likely to bring about a cure. Most important, they will instill in you the belief that a cure is not only possible, but probable, and that you are definitely going to be among those who will be completely cured. That belief alone results in the self-empowering attitude that sets the stage for your recovery.
The First Glimmer of Hope
Confucius, who lived 2,500 years ago said, "It is the saddest of all things, when a person gives up." One of the most comforting and important messages we offer those who contact us at Passages for the first time is hope - the hope that they or their loved one will be cured. We can hear the relief in their voices, as if they had been suddenly pardoned from a long prison sentence. The treatment program for that caller or that caller's loved one begins with that first phone call. At graduation ceremonies, graduates frequently refer to that first telephone conversation with Pax or me as the moment they felt their first glimmer of real hope. They also talk about the first fellow client who greeted them when they arrived at Passages.
Meeting someone who is also in the Passages program is an important moment. When clients first arrive and walk through that huge front door and someone who's been in treatment for a week or two or three comes to greet them and tells them that they're in the best place in the world, that they'll be helped, and that they themselves are experiencing a miraculous cure . . . well, it makes all the difference. And because all our clients have had the experience of being welcomed, they're eager to pass along the comfort to another.
Clients and others have also told me of the despair they felt, the same despair Pax and I felt, when they heard for the first time that addiction or alcoholism is a disease, that it is incurable, and that they would be addicts or alcoholics for the rest of their lives. Those statements make us feel as if we've been sentenced to a cold, dark prison cell.
It is essential to your complete recovery that you surround yourself with people who believe that a cure is possible for you. Your therapists should speak quite naturally of a cure and how to achieve it. The people who offer us love and hope when we come in for treatment are supplying us with courage and enthusiastic support at a time when courage and enthusiastic support are crucially needed. It's like being released from that dark prison cell and walking out into a ray of warm sunshine. You may step out of that cell now, because you're being exposed to that ray of healing sunshine in this book.
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