 To be in Empowered Maturity, we have to be sober {sobriety: "clarity of thought and feeling"} enough to trust our own experience/reality. What’s also difficult is admitting powerlessness over someone else‘s experience/reality who matters to us. When someone matters to us it doesn’t mean that we must take on—or feel responsible for shaping--their reality. Stay focused on maintaining your integrity and self care, and extend as much acceptance and compassion to others as you can—without abandonment of authentic self. When we see and accept situations as they are, all we’re left with is the responsibility to choose a mature, empowered response to the puzzle pieces in front of us. Distorted puzzle pieces cannot be fitted together. Managing our own experience in skillful sobriety is work enough without trying to manage another person’s. All human conflict is born out of the urge to lay claim to an objective truth and to thrust it upon others. “I’m right, you’re wrong”. But objective truth is an illusion. There are no observations that can exist independently of their observers.* That’s why sobriety is so important. We are each responsible for the accuracy of our own subjective truth. Without sobriety we don’t have access to the only kind of truth with which we have the power to create our own destinies. Be clear about what you owe to others, but don’t try to give them the things only they and their Higher Power can provide them with. *For those who are philosophically inclined, this is the realization that in order to truly know anything, one must engage with it. Observation is ultimately interactive, and the act of observation disrupts or alters what is being observed. Quantum physicists discovered that the very act of measurement at atomic scales was not possible without affecting what was being measured. At a more comprehensible, human scale, we wouldn't claim to know someone without, for example, engaging in some conversation with them. But the conclusions we form about what's "out there" (the other person) are highly informed by what we brought to the encounter, knowingly or unknowingly. It's not as objective as we would like to believe.
The cub develops its potential because mother cares but doesn't rescue. Three words that are regularly used almost interchangeably in the Twelve-Step community are abstinence, sobriety, and recovery. As my clients know, I'm a stickler when it comes to distinguishing between these three terms. I find it importantly useful for recovering addicts to allow each term to have its own precise meaning.
Abstinence means the cessation of a particular behavior. So an abstinent alcoholic ceases to drink alcohol. It's that simple. But simple doesn't mean easy. So yes, we affirm and celebrate any period of abstinence because it's a considerable achievement that deserves support, but it's also merely the beginning. Sobriety is a state that emerges as a result of prolonged abstinence. It's not about behavior anymore, as much as it's about mental and emotional clarity. The reason addicts' lives are unmanageable is that they're not in touch with the wisdom of their emotions, and while their reasoning may perhaps be logical, they don't make sense. So an abstinent person isn't necessarily sensible, but a sober one starts to be. Recovery is a way of life that is formed in sustained sobriety. In recovery, we learn to maintain and endure the experience of being alive in a state of mental and emotional clarity. We learn to respond intentionally to our experiences instead of reacting to them impulsively or compulsively. Most significantly, in recovery, we develop the ability to discern between our authentic values and our acquired values, and we heal our ancient injuries; thus we discover and recover our authentic self, and we live our life in a way that manifests the meaning and purpose of who we truly are. |
Patrick Hentsch
Founder of Empowered Maturity™ 
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October 2020
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