She Navigates Fine By the Moon: An Autoethnography of Substance Dependency, Sobriety, and Spirituality

Abstract:

Substance abuse is a pattern which results in significant and recurrent adverse consequences. Genetics, psychological and social factors play a role in how a person may become addicted, but not every individual is affected equally by each element. Active addiction can worsen mental afflictions such as depression and anxiety, and though these symptoms may diminish with the commencement of sobriety, the more laborious work in sobriety comes with examining thought and behavioral patterns which are often rooted in a pathology of unhealthy coping strategies.  The relationship of spirituality to substance abuse recovery has been a topic of research since the beginning of the 20th century and is a subject of increasing interest to medical professionals, the mental health community, and those suffering from the maladies of addiction. Concepts and practices derived from a spiritual context seem to most commonly exist on a continuum for individuals in recovery from addiction.  In order to expand awareness of the role of spirituality, this study applied an autoethnographic approach to explore the ways in which women in recovery from alcohol/drug addiction conceptualize, practice and/or apply spiritual principles and why they may come to redefine or re-evaluate spiritual ideas in the context of recovery.

Introduction:

Psychologist Stephen Saunders theorizes that deriving concepts of spirituality involves the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of an individual that “entail concern about, a search for, or a striving for understanding and relatedness to something transcendent or beyond the tangible physical world.”[3]   Several studies reveal conceptualizing spirituality may entail focusing on “a belief in God or a power that guides the universe, faith in mystical or transcendental experiences, and adherence to certain moral values.” Other analyses define spirituality as a broadly-conceived idea that holistically incorporates such things as spending time in nature, creative ventures, self-care, healthy eating patterns, sleep patterns, boundaries, etc. Still others have theorized that spirituality comprises beliefs about relationships with our selves, other people, and/or the environment.  “Consequently, the concept of spirituality among individuals in sobriety seems to be ultimately subjective with several meanings and no widely accepted explanation or definition.” (Saunders, 2007)

Autoethnography as Methodology:  

“Autoethnography is an approach to research and writing that seeks to describe and systematically analyze personal experience in order to understand cultural experience.” (Ellis, 1995, 2004)

For this project, the decision to use autoethnography as a method of analysis developed rather organically in the early process of conducting formal participant interviews.  It quickly became apparent that certain significant aspects of the journey into addiction and subsequent sobriety would be, at best, difficult to attain, and at worst, unethical to delve into in terms of participants’ past traumas and/or possible unresolved emotional and mental issues.  Given that these factors could present psychological triggers for participants, jeopardize sobriety, or otherwise cause hardship, care was taken to eliminate them completely from the data collection process.  Though participants were extremely open about their experiences, the bulk of questioning focused on the subject of spirituality in sobriety which ultimately excluded a great deal of the backstory.  To understand better how we, as addicts, might arrive at a shift in consciousness about spiritual ideas, it is important to understand from whence we came, how we may have become emotionally, spiritually, and/or morally destitute, and how we came to realize we needed to go in search of a solution. Because I, myself, identify as female, am in recovery from addiction and draw upon spiritual principles in my own sobriety, I possess considerable knowledge of these processes and was able to use my own experiences to engage readers in a more comprehensive look at our stories as women in recovery.    

Methods continued:

Participant[4]  observation was employed to collect data among a group of women with varying lengths of sobriety, age, social class, and family structure.  This study was conducted over a period of two months, and the only requirement to participate was that participants identified as female and considered themselves recovering from addiction. 

Formal interviews were conducted with 4 women (Meghan, Kathryn, Alyson, and Phyllis) regarding the role of spirituality in the recovery process, how they may or may not construct their own brand of spirituality, and how their experiences as women shape that process.

Formal Interview Participant Chart:

Name	Age	Length of Sobriety	Gender Identity
[5] Meghan	42 yrs.	8 yrs.	Female
Kathryn	27 yrs.	1 yr.	Female
Alyson	59 yrs.	7 months	Female
Phyllis	82 yrs.	30 yrs.	Female

*Pseudonyms have been used to preserve anonymity.

Purposive sampling was employed to conduct both formal and informal interviews wherein questions addressed such concepts as gender inequality, social stigma, coping strategies, and spiritual evolution.  Utilizing an inductive approach to participant observation, informants were accompanied to group meetings and other social gatherings to gain a better understanding of how spiritual principles are derived and applied.  An interpretive approach was employed to analyze the contexts through which these women and others find meaning in their experiences and how this translates to the acceptance or denial of spiritual principles.

Navigating By the Moon:

“…and there’s this moth outside my kitchen door.

She’s bonkers for that bare bulb.

Flying around in circles,

Bashing in her exo-skull.

And out in the woods, she navigates fine by the moon,

But get her around a light bulb, and she’s doomed.”

-Ani Difranco, “Evolve”-

In my own experience, spirituality is an intrinsic quality and an ever-evolving state of being.  It cannot be standardized to accommodate a particular doctrine or ideology.   It is about seeking happiness, relief, solace, solutions, acceptance, belonging, etc. internally rather than externally. The goal is personal evolution or, quite simply, the ability to wake up each day and decide who I want to become.  It is about laying down the armor of perfectionism and picking up a realistic expectation of life.  Gratitude is the single most important spiritual practice for me.  It is the place where rest and progress coexist, where making plans does not automatically translate to forsaking the present moment, where surrender and triumph are one in the same, and where, no matter how deep the abyss of depression, grief, and trauma, I can always see how those experiences contribute to spiritual growth and can benefit others. 

My own spiritual evolution is rooted in having the capacity to honor myself for doing the best I could with what I had, in terms of my time in active addiction, and discovering, in sobriety, that place within my own soul where I may go to experience the light and love that seeking externally never availed.  It means keeping that place clean and inviolate so I can visit it anytime I want.  It means recognizing that everything I ever searched tirelessly for I possessed all along.  Consequently, I do not practice conventional notions of prayer where petitions are made to the unknown for outcomes which are none of my business.  I rarely sit silently and meditate.  Mediation most often happens in motion for me.  I make art, do yardwork, play music, roll the windows down and take a long drive, play fetch with my dogs, etc.  Meditation, for me, consists of anything which facilitates a return to the present moment, and I practice it incessantly. 

No one part of my story is any less poignant than another in terms of how I came to question, define, and re-define spirituality in the context of sobriety. For instance, as is common among addicts, various traumas contributed to my ultimate use of chemicals to cope.  It is often difficult to fully understand the healing process if we do not first know what the wounds look like, and for this reason I have decided to include some of the intimate details of my own history. 

Early childhood trauma, whether physical, verbal, sexual, etc. is prevalent among addicts, and I was certainly no exception.   At 3-4 years of age, we can only rely on guardians to provide resources and cognitive exit strategies from the aftermath of such events.  Unfortunately, these mechanisms were not available to me.  So, as is common with untreated trauma, my brain found a way to compartmentalize it, stowing the pain just far enough beneath the realm of consciousness that I might have a better chance of surviving it.  While this was effective for survival, it ultimately rendered my entire existence a perpetual paradox of conscious myth and subconscious suffering.  

At fifteen, I became pregnant, gave birth to my son, and placed him for adoption.  The resulting insomnia, loneliness, depression, grief, etc. led to more unhealthy and self-destructive coping strategies.  Then, when I was 19 yrs. old, while sitting in a college trigonometry class writing poetry, possibly the only healthy coping mechanism I possessed at the time, the words I wrote triggered a response to trauma a decade and half in the making.   I needed many things in that moment - emotionally, spiritually, mentally - but the only thing I knew how to do was run.  Like escaping a burning building, I doused my fear and loathing in drugs and alcohol for years to come, and it worked…. until it didn’t.

On group meetings:

The place smelled of coffee brewing.  I attended the meeting with a friend, and we arrived early.  The woman who would “chair”, or conduct the meeting, was already present along with another woman who volunteered to make coffee for the group.  A table had been erected to display complementary pamphlets and short readings on the principles and resources available through the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.  Evidence that the space was also used as a nursery was noted as there were sippy cups labeled with names of children in a storage bin on the counter.  I was struck by the juxtaposition of innocence against the “hard knocks” which may be discussed in the room that evening, and I couldn’t help but think that, statistically, a handful of those valuable little lives represented on those cups would likely find themselves in the throes of addiction one day.  I hoped not, but the odds are less than favorable for some of us. 

Wooden folding chairs were arranged in a circle in the middle of the room, and twenty or so women sat waiting for the meeting to commence.  The back door intermittently creaked open and other women filtered into the space, found the coffee pot, and made their way to empty seats. Many of the women seemed to know each other and were engaging in small talk.  Located in a church commons area, the primary purpose of the space was to be used for church functions, but for our purpose, it merely provided a physical space for women to give and receive support in the process of recovering from addiction. 

When observing group meetings, this scene was typical.  Some varied in the way they were conducted but only slightly.  All but a few meetings were located in church basements/cafeterias with the exception of a couple in coffee houses and club houses, and the majority of fieldwork performed for this project was conducted in a 12-step group setting.  Primary factors in selecting such sites were accessibility and frequent discussion within the group of relevant issues related to the female experience, sobriety and spirituality.  The entirety of the group settings observed were exclusive to women in an effort to provide a “safe space[6] ”, or  a place in which a person or category of people can feel confident that they will not be exposed to discrimination, criticism, harassment, or any other emotional or physical harm.  Though field notes were largely collected in these spaces, in-depth interviews were conducted with women both currently attending 12-step meetings and not.

 The lighting was fluorescent.  The temperature was neither hot nor cold.  At the top of the 7pm hour, the chairperson called the meeting to order, commencing with a moment of silence followed by the Serenity Prayer: 

            “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.  The courage to change the things I can.  And the wisdom to know the difference.”

            The Serenity Prayer is an example of a literary fixture in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and other treatment centers, usually recited in unison at the beginning and end of every meeting.  The theme of spirituality is not only central to the concept of AA but, as highlighted in this study, is also a common subject discussed by participants as having a profound effect on the daily reprieve from active addiction.  Though AA literature was written in the 1930’s and much of the language is antiquated, it also specifies that “God” is suggested to be conjured of one’s “own understanding”, and that AA is “not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution”.  (Smith, 2013.) It is inclusive to atheists and agnostics as many of its founding members identified as such.  I personally applied the 12-steps when I got sober and for me, the word “God” was always referred to by group members as more of a generic term to denote any sort of spiritual consciousness.  Overall the vibe in the rooms of AA is not religious, and talk on specific religious ideology is generally discouraged in open discussion.  Many recovering women claim to define “god” as the group itself as there is something supernaturally powerful about sharing a burden of secrets with another woman and having those experiences reflected back to you in her own story.  This exchange of collective suffering does not emancipate us completely from sorrow, but it reminds us that we are not alone in our grief and that our tarnished and tired hearts are connected infinitely to every soul that has, does, and will know pain.  “Shame cannot survive being spoken… and being met with empathy.”  (Brown, 2017).

Though discourse surrounding 12-step programs and spiritual emphasis can be contentious, research compiled over the past 15 years “supports the notion that AA participation is associated with better short and long-term outcomes and may be a cost-effective treatment adjunct”.(Kelly, 2010) “Although these investigations have provided some insight into the spiritual principles and practices of AA there is tremendous variability among the concepts included under the rubric of spirituality.” (Saunders, 2007).[7] 

On religion:

Phyllis, who is 82 yrs. old and has been sober for 30 yrs., believes one “must accept Christ as his/her Lord and Savior to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven”, and that “there is no way to the Father but by Jesus, his son”.  Interestingly, when asked about religion in the context of sobriety, she responded, “Of course, I know what God has done for me, and long to see those blessings materialize for others, but a “higher power” can be a fence post or a doorknob if it’ll keep ya sober.[8] ” She did not seem to notice the dichotomy of her claims, and her answers were effortless, as if it all fit perfectly for her.  This is a striking example of how spirituality in sobriety is compartmentalized[9] .  Addicts, regardless of personal belief, generally understand that imposing that belief on someone else could quite literally be the difference between life and death for that person, and for this reason, group meetings are a “safe space” to discuss spirituality as there are no requirements or expectations attached[10] . 

Three of the four women I interviewed said they had consciously unsubscribed to any previous notions of religion, yet spirituality remained at the forefront of the conversation about addiction recovery.   For instance, when asked if religion is the same as spirituality, Kathryn expressed that she views the two as inherently separate where religion is allegory while spirituality is the embodiment of truth.  Meghan said she was raised with a “revolving door of religion and various ideologies”, but none ever resonated with her as naturally as her own connection to a “higher power” so it was e[11] asier to leave behind the ritual and doctrine of what felt man-made and gravitate toward something more ethereal.  Alyson still calls herself a Christian but does not necessarily adhere to any Christian doctrine.  She claims her faith as more of a cultural identity, keeping her spirituality separate and apart from it.  

In analyzing data collected through formal interviews and group settings on the subject of religion, there was an emergence of a common dilemma among sober women in attempting to reconcile religion and spirituality. Various aspects of this are revealed further in the sections of this paper on sexuality and gender identity.  Because I was also raised in an extremely religious environment, my experiences are similar to participants in that religion ultimately compounded the traumatic events in my life as I felt alone in those struggles. Though religion can be a spiritual facilitator for some, it was, for me, the systematic dismantling of the inherent nature of my own spirituality, and the slow chipping away of personal agency and self-worth.

“When religion leverages our fear…by extracting vulnerability from spirituality and turning faith into “compliance and consequence” rather than teaching and modeling how to wrestle with the unknown and how to embrace mystery, the entire concept of faith is bankrupt on its own terms.” (Brown, 2015)

For those of us who have believed it, the notion of “hell” is real and more terror-evoking than non-believers might imagine.  It looms over every action, word, and thought, holding prisoner the authenticity we long for and rendering us rather robotic and devoid of substance in our emotional and spiritual lives.  There is no version of “faith” powerful enough to surmount the absolute impossibility of ever being “good enough” to get into heaven, and there is no rest from the prospect of eternal punishment.  Fear is an effective tactic in enforcing obedience as it is also the most efficient executioner of any real connection to ourselves, each other, and the nature of our own intuition and discernment.

On sexuality:

Throughout my own childhood and adolescence, I noticed that I was not like the majority of my friends who had crushes boys (or the opposite sex), and though I was not willing to fully accept it at the time because of what terrible things may happen to a good Southern Baptist girl if she were gay, I grappled painstakingly with my sexual identity.  Every day, I bargained with God to make me “not gay”.  I offered everything I could possibly imagine as collateral in exchange for a hetero-normative existence.  My prayers seemed to fall on deaf ears.  I was terrified.  

In my early teens, I got drunk for the first time and remember feeling as if I had found the answer to all my problems.  I suddenly didn’t have to feel the weight of my life anymore.  I didn’t have to feel the shame, the anxiety, the fear of losing my family, my friends, my god.  I didn’t have to feel anything if I did not wish to, so I got drunk as often as I could.   More times than I care to admit, I tried to get back on the religion wagon, but after exhausting all efforts to “pray the gay away”, I desperately sought relief, and stayed drunk for the next decade.  Sadly, massive amounts of alcohol and prescription pills barely dulled the pain, and I was generally so anguished and angry that I honestly wasn’t concerned with whether I lived or died.  It all seemed the same to me. 

Kathryn, who identifies as bisexual, said she knew she was queer when she was 8 yrs. old and was “completely devastated, humiliated, ashamed, disgusted, and terrified.”  She watched her father, a Baptist preacher, lose everything significant in his life (his job, his family, his house, his friends, and ultimately his sanity) when he came out as gay.  She described feeling “tortured with empathy for him”, and that she believed God loved her and her dad anyway, but she wasn’t convinced they “wouldn’t end up in hell”.[12]  

Participants Alyson and Phyllis, who identify as heterosexual, were less likely to take issue with the concept of “God” as the protestant Christian, male-gendered version of deity.  Though they expressed some of the same disillusionments with the patriarchal construct of religion, they seemed more willing to adhere so they may keep the institution of values and rituals to which they were accustomed.  Whether straight or queer identifying, all women I interviewed expressed some notion of shame around sexuality rooted in religious/social stigma.

Based on the experiences of the women I observed, female sexuality and common experiences of shame, fear, objectification, exploitation, vulnerability, distrust, physical violence, etc. can become factors in defining spirituality.  Self-love, self-worth, forgiveness, healthy boundaries and empowerment are overarching themes in the discussion of spiritual matters among women in recovery.  Sharing these experiences in a group setting seems to help women become vulnerable and courageous in their quest for peace and understanding or as some refer to it, spiritual healing.  Much of the process of defining one’s own spirituality in relation to religion and/or sexuality is r[13] ooted in the need to be autonomous and liberated from someone else’s ideas of who we are or who we should be and the shame of failing to meet such expectations.

On gender identity:

In the analysis of data collected both through interviews and fieldwork, it is clear that participants’ experiences as women have shaped their view of spirituality and the way they choose to practice or not practice it.  Many women who participated in group meetings were quick to share their own personal experiences as women, whether in the context of spiritual matters or not.  Some shared stories of inequity in the workplace/society, sexual assault, etc., but at the root of all these experiences is a patriarchal power structure[14]  which permeates many, if not all, aspects of female existence in America. 

When asked how her experiences as a woman have shaped her notions of spirituality, Meghan said:

“That’s something I’ve struggled with.  I started to realize that men and women definitely have roles.  I’m told what to think.  I’m told, in some cases, what to wear.  And to me, that doesn’t have anything to do with spirituality and it totally blocks you from having any sort of relationship with god.  I’d had that relationship at one time, and I couldn’t feel it in that construct.  It took me a while to figure out what was happening because I was trying to fit in to it, but in that environment, I was essentially a second-class citizen and anything I was thinking or feeling was put on the back burner to what men are thinking and doing.  Women are told and men are usually doing the telling.  It’s not about whether it was fair or not, but that’s just how it is.” 

                                                                                              

In contrast, Kathryn said she believed that being a woman affords her a kind of cultural flexibility to explore spirituality on a deep emotional level without as much scrutiny as male counterparts may endure.  On the other hand, she conceded it also comes at a cost as it may add to the notion that women are not to be taken seriously, and practicing spirituality can be considered evidence of a woman’s tendency to be irrational/overly emotional/etc. 

On one occasion, at the beginning of a meeting, while reading the selected passages from the AA literature, a participant took the liberty of changing all pronouns in the literature referring to “God” from “he/his” to “she/her”.  Though this was subtle, it was a blatant departure from the male gendering of God and a common feminist practice which seemed to be readily accepted by the other women in the room[15] .  The aversion to the “God” concept seems to primarily be tied to negative past experiences with religion and the oppression of a patriarchal society.  Many women spoke of their own spiritual experiences in terms of self-efficacy or the feeling of “wholeness”, and often these concepts were not tied to any notion of “god” but to a personal cognitive process of dealing with issues of “self-worth”, “forgiveness”, and “spiritual healing”.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, whether discussed in the context of treatment, religion, sexuality, or gender identity, the data reveals a notable sense of autonomy, or self-directing freedom and moral independence, attached to defining one’s own spiritual identity in recovery from addiction.  Sobriety, as described by many of the women who participated in this project, is a labyrinth of emotional quandaries[16] , but the consensus is that the profit far outweighs the cost.   After all, the alternative is an entirely different kind of suffering to which the end almost inevitably involves jails, institutions, or death.  Several women described feeling “empty inside” during active addiction and feeling more fulfilled in sobriety.  Matters of spiritual endeavor are often this simple for many of the addicts I spoke with.  One participant shared that her feelings of emptiness, whether the result of a ravaged body, a mentally ill mind, intense self-loathing, abject loneliness, etc., seemed to culminate in a desire to regain the essence, or spirit, of who she is or might become without the burden of addiction.

In my own experience, this process is about peeling back enough layers of pain and fear to reveal that a soul/essence/spirit still exists and can thrive if given the opportunity.  All the women I observed in groups settings spoke of learning how to cope with the things in their lives that kept them drunk/high for so many years, and sharing their experience, strength and hope with one another is key where emotional and spiritual healing is concerned.

The data collected in the course of this study aligns with the theory that concepts and practices derived from a spiritual context seem to most commonly exist on a continuum for women in recovery from addiction.  Alyson described her practices in spirituality as primarily via prayer and service to others.  Kathryn practices yoga and meditation, as does Meghan.  Phyllis goes to church/AA meetings/and prays intermittently throughout the day.  Communing with nature was a popular practice among all the women I interviewed, but no matter how spirituality was practiced, the result was the same:  Some degree of spiritual transmission occurred.

 In as much as connecting with nature, fellow humans, and “God” or a “higher power” were a part of the spiritual process, a theme also developed around connecting to one’s self or going inward to explore an inherent divinity as a way of experiencing true belonging and acquiring a respite from the social challenges, inequities, and dangers we face as women.  As aforementioned, self-love, self-worth, forgiveness, healthy boundaries and empowerment were overarching themes in the discussion of spiritual matters among women in recovery, and the reclamation of personal agency and autonomy often underly definitions of spirituality.  For many of us in recovery from addiction, the spiritual process is akin to taking the long way home, and it is most often an arduous trek.  Still, no matter how long it takes, home awaits and is at once a familiar and foreign place, transcendent and real, and the bravest and most sacred place we will ever be.  (Brown, 2017)

“LOVE AFTER LOVE”

By Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

~~~

Works Cited

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Ellis, Carolyn, Tony E. Adams, and Arthur P. Bochner. 2011. Autoethnography: An overview. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research 12.

Miller, W. R. (1998). Researching the spiritual dimensions of alcohol and other drug problems. Addiction, 93(7), 979-990.

Carroll, S. (1993). Spirituality and purpose in life in alcoholism recovery. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 54(3), 297-301.

Kelly, J. F., Stout, R. L., Magill, M., Tonigan, J. S., & Pagano, M. E. (2010). Spirituality in recovery: a lagged mediational analysis of alcoholics anonymous' principal theoretical mechanism of behavior change. Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research, 35(3), 454-63.

Foltz, T. (2000). Women's Spirituality Research: Doing Feminism. Sociology of Religion, 61(4), 409-418. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3712524

Galanter, M., Dermatis, H., Bunt, G., Williams, C., Trujillo, M., & Steinke, P. (2007). Assessment of spirituality and its relevance to addiction treatment. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 33(3), 257-264.

Saunders, S. M., Lucas, V., & Kuras, L. (2007). Measuring the discrepancy between current and ideal spiritual and religious functioning in problem drinkers. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 21(3), 404.

Smith, B., & Wilson, B. (2013). The big book of alcoholics anonymous. New York: Createspace.

Nealon-Woods, M. A., Ferrari, J. R., & Jason, L. A. (1995). Twelve-step program use among Oxford House residents: spirituality or social support in sobriety? Journal of Substance Abuse, 7(3), 311-318.

Brown, B. (2015). Daring greatly: How the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent, and lead. Penguin.

Brown, B. (2017). Braving the wilderness: The quest for true belonging and the courage to stand alone. Random House.