In this article I will look at how Stoics could possibly view the bottoms that we hit when we are in our addiction as something that is a benefit to us rather than a curse.
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
William Shakespeare – Hamlet
One thing that can be easily seen throughout the works of Williams Shakespeare is that he was a reader of stoicism and that this can really be seen in his work Hamlet. In this quote from the play, he is alluding to one of the main beliefs within the Stoic philosophy. The idea is that when things happen to us in our lives, the events themselves are not good or bad but it is how we judge them to be in the end. And often times when we look at things as being bad from a different perspective their might actually be something positive in the experience.
The rock bottoms that we can hit when we are in our addiction are quite difficult times in which we can see the path of destruction that our abuse has carved through our lives. Often times we can find ourselves focusing on the bad of the situation that we are in which can heighten the depression that we might be going through. However, Stoics would tell you to take a moment and examine the situation and see if it is our own judgements of being at the bottom that make us seeing it as a bad thing. And if we could take a step back and look at the situation that we are in, is there a possibility that it is a blessing in disguise?
Many times a calamity turns to our advantage; and great ruins have but made way to great glories…One man’s life is saved by disease: another is arrested, and taken out of the way, just when his house was falling upon his head.
Seneca – On the Happy Life
Could anything better describe the feeling of a bottom in our addiction then that image of the house falling on our head? Now ask yourself, where would you be right now without that bottom that you went through? Would you be sober and in recovery? Or would you still be in the midst of your addiction?
Stoics believe in the idea of Fate. Now this can be due to divine origins such as God or could be due to the power of the universe itself with the laws and cycles that flow through it. Nevertheless, the view becomes that things that may seem to us as being a calamity may actually be the thing that we need the most in life. If it is our judgements that determine if something is good or bad we may find that something that we could first see as being a bad thing is actually the exact thing that we needed in our life at that moment. Was your bottom what Fate brought to you at that moment in life to shake you out of your addiction?
For people early in recovery, it can be difficult and a struggle to deal with the depths that our addiction had us sink to which can bring on a depression as these thoughts plague our minds. So it becomes necessary for your own recovery to begin to not see the bottom that you may have hit as something that is bad but as the wake up call that you needed to get better. That the great ruin that our lives became can now become great glories as we recover.
He that is not content in poverty, would not be so neither in plenty, for the fault is not in the thing, but in the mind.
Seneca – On the Happy Life
One of the major struggles that we come to encounter is the loss of so many things in our lives. We may have lost relationships, friends or family. We might have lost the job that we had, money saved in the bank, the place where we lived and all the possessions that we had. My own bottom actually led me to the point where I just had a single trash bag of clothes remaining and nothing else. I can look back to a time in life when I had the career, the house, the family and anything that should have made me happy but for some reason it was not enough. I had no appreciation of these things in my life.
Stoics have the view that poverty can actually be a blessing for a person. All those things mentioned above can easily be lost just as they were gained (and this can be seen on how easily we can lose them in our addiction). We can get lost in a world where we begin to see happiness being equated to the things that we possess. It is no fault of our own. We live in a society that tells us what we need to be happy. We need money…the house…the family. We are bombarded with commercials that tell us if we own this or that then we will be happy. But even if we have all those things we can find this emptiness inside of ourselves as if something is still missing.
What is missing is simply being content with ourselves. Nobody and no possession can give that to you.
Through the losses that we suffer in our bottoms, we have the opportunity to reset our lives. We can now see what truly is important for us in life and what are the true paths to a lasting happiness. Yes you might have lost so much in your life but guess what…you are still alive and made it through. Our bottom allows for us to become content with our lives and our selves without all those possessions so that we can be more grounded and appreciative if we get them back.
In the end of the day, everything is about perspective. Stoicism is a philosophy that focuses on how to live your everyday to the fullest. We get to decide how we choose to view what happens in our lives and it is in our power to decide how we see things. So if you ever come to thinking that something that happens is a bad thing try to take a moment and see if you can find anything positive to learn from it.
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Derek Castleman: The Sober Stoic 