We have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.
Joseph Campbell

The more I think about the process from active substance dependence to abstinence and recovery, the more it reminds me the Hero’s Journey as described by Joseph Campbell. The journey to recovery seems to be full of perils, lapses and relapses, errors, frustration and dark places. However, it is also full of hope, of wise person to help the addict in the way and the promise of a boon if and when the hero or heroine (our recovering addict) reaches a full recovery.

I. The Drinking Stage

Departure and Call of adventure
As many “adventures” the adventure of our heroine begins in the ordinary world. One tends to imagine heroes as knights it shining armor, bold beings that courageously plunge into the deep of the battle, however many times they do not even know what they are getting into (just as an alcoholic or addict when she begins using of drinking). Our heroine begins the journey following the lure of a deer or animal (in our case the substance or alcohol) which carries her into a rain or forest where she has never been before. There the animal changes into a mythical creature or a monster, and even without knowing it, the heroine has started her journey. Some other times, the heroine is thrown in the journey due to circumstances completely beyond her control and usually not of her choosing (users never plan nor choose to become addicts; the disease just slowly creeps in until it becomes “stronger than the will and more cunning than the mind”). In any case, in a twist of fate, the addict finds herself in a position where her using has been increasing to a point where it has become a problem for her and those around her (although she is still not aware that the problem is caused by the substances, but blames some other external cause). In a way, she has no choice (Of course, she always has the choice of not choosing at all, and many decide not to face the challenge and sink to the bottomless pit, remain stuck or simply die) but to live up to the circumstances and begin a journey that –if successful– will take her to her death (the death of her old self) and rebirth.

Refusal of call
In the drinking stage, “the individual needs to drink more and more alcohol while maintaining that he or she has not problem with drinking”*.

For a time, our hero will go by trying to slain monsters and dragons in the outside world. The alcoholic will projects the problems without, being unable to accept that the source of all (or most) of his problems lies within, to accept that he has a drinking problem.

In this stage, the alcoholic will refuse the call to the adventure, by denying that (i) he is an alcoholic, and (ii) that he cannot control the way he drinks. Instead, he will find thousands of reasons of why he drinks, and those reasons –in the alcoholic mind– are the “real” problems to solve (the dragons to slain). The “illusion of power” creates the false belief that; “something is being done to address the real problem”*, meanwhile he will continue drinking.

Supernatural Aid
Thus, even against our hero’s desires, the adventure has begun. At the beginning of the journey, the hero will encounter with a protective figure or a mentor, who “provides the adventurer with amulets against the dragon forces he is about to pass”. It is usually in this part of the journey that our addict, whether voluntarily, by court mandate, or family pressure, decides to see a therapist (although in his mind he is still thinking that therapy will help him to solve the “real” problems).
The first goal of therapist is to develop a therapeutic alliance with the client, aimed toward dismantling the defenses of the disease, toward establishing a climate of safety (avoiding both collusion and confrontation) where the client may feel open to explore her behavior and accept a challenge of the defenses, usually via pointing out the relation between cause (alcohol) and effect (problems in the client’s life) her life. The “amulet” that the mentor/therapist is aiming to bestow is a deeper awareness in the client, where she can start discussing the role and impact (both positive and negative) of alcohol in her life and its relation with her problems. Such amulet will be extremely valuable in later stages of the journey towards recovery.

II. Transition
Crossing First Threshold
Regardless of how skilful is the therapist / knowledgeable the mentor, he can only take the hero so far, it is the hero’s job cross the first threshold on his own. The hero must face the unknown world by himself.

Therapist and client have been challenging the defenses over and over, until “cracks in the rigid system of logic, rationalization and behavior” begin to appear*. The impossibility to keep denying an addiction causes a breakdown, a point of despair; the addict “hits bottom”. At this point, the heroin finds herself face to face with the threshold guardians. These custodians stand at the limits of the heroine life horizon, “beyond them there is only darkness, the unknown and danger”+ but also the promise of a place of greater power. Our heroine is faced with a new path, the end of drinking and the beginning of abstinence. The task in the transition stage is to cross the threshold, to move from the point of despair, which “if successful, leads the individual from drinking to abstinence”*. However, crossing such threshold is not an easy task; our hero has to leave behind his old beliefs and defenses and start seeing himself in a new light, as an alcoholic who cannot control his drinking. He has to surrender and accept (in terms of AA’s

End or part One…

+ Joseph Campbell
For a brief description of the Hero’s Journey, go to http://www.mythsdreamssymbols.com/heroadventure.html
* Stephanie Brown’s Treating Alcoholism