Rock Bottom

I recently read an article from a woman who was married to a guy addicted to painkillers. After an accident in their restaurant kitchen in which his hands were severely burned, he suffered for months in pain. As a result, he was prescribed numerous painkillers.
 
She writes that for years she had no idea he was addicted. It seems to be a common trend that addicts are amazingly good at hiding their addiction. He seemed to function on some level, even though he had refused to go back to work years later, and still seemed to be traumatized by the accident. Even with all of these symptoms and more, his wife never suspected that he was abusing pills.
 
It turns out that he had gone to eight different people at his shul and had them ordering refills online for him. He was taking over 100 pills every day. It’s a miracle that he didn’t die from overdose.
 
Eventually, his strange behaviors turned downright violent and scary. He began abusing his wife, and caused tremendous damage to the children with such escapades as wandering around outside in his underwear, in a complete daze. One son was immediately kicked out of his school, and the daughter’s school tried to work with her and get her much-needed therapy.
 
Years later, the wife finally got the courage to divorce him. His life was so completely focused on getting his next fix that he didn’t even apply for partial custody of the children. It was as if they didn’t matter to him anymore.
 
After several years on his own, being supported by his family, he drifted from one rehab program to the next, always leaving when it got too uncomfortable. He died in a halfway house.
 
What an utterly tragic, avoidable end to a person’s life.
 
The wife learned many lessons from this challenging time of her life, and wisely used her insight to get certified as a case manager in helping other addicts break free from their inescapable prisons.
 
The biggest lesson she learned is that addicts must hit rock bottom before they can begin to overcome their addiction.
 
She now understands that all of her efforts to make his addiction go away were only enabling him. When she secretly threw away his pills, she enabled him. When she paid cash for the fender-bender he caused so they wouldn’t call the police on him, she enabled him. When she didn’t change the locks on her door so he could come back whenever he wanted, she enabled him.
 
What she should have done, she admits, was let him hit rock bottom. If that meant that he would need to sleep in dirty alleyways with other homeless people, so be it. Or if he had to go through withdrawal and get himself to the hospital without her help, so be it.
 
What is the secret of hitting rock bottom? How does it apply to our spiritual endeavors?
 
The secret, she explains, is that the addict becomes so disgusted with himself, so intolerant of his own behavior, that he willingly and desperately wants to change who he is. In other words, he just can’t stand another minute of being the desperate, out of control addict that he is.
 
Doesn’t it sound like a similar battle that we all go through? We all have serious character flaws that need refining. Some have a bad temper; others can’t stop overeating. Others are lazy. Even depression can fall into this category- Rav Arush explains it’s a result of a severe lack of emuna.
 
Whatever the flaw is, how hard do we work to change it? I have no doubt that all of us really, really want to get rid of our Achilles’ heels. I know I do. So what’s stopping us?
 
We haven’t hit rock bottom.
 
Sure, we have moments of disgust with ourselves and our behaviors. We may cry to Hashem about it. We may beg Him to help us get rid of these undesirable traits. But what happens shortly after?
 
We fall back into the same addictive patterns.
 
Over and over again.
 
We may experience some relief. We may think that Hashem has finally answered our prayers and rid us of our unwanted traits.
 
But then what? The issue comes back 100 times harder. All of a sudden, challenges we thought we were completely over now come back to haunt us. We’re not only caught totally off-guard by the reappearance of our reactive behaviors, but we fall into a genius trap set by the Yetzer.
 
We begin to persecute ourselves for not having passed the test. We thought we were over it; why couldn’t we just pass the test??
 
Rebbe Nachman explains: when we advance on our journeys of soul corrections, it’s like we’re advancing from level to level. When we meet the challenges that we faced before, they are no longer the same intensity. They are also advancing level to level; therefore, we are fighting at the advanced level instead of the intermediate level.
 
Even if we fail at this level, we shouldn’t despair! We shouldn’t beat ourselves up about it. It takes years and years of going through the same tests over and over again until we finally can overcome them.
 
So how can we guarantee that we will keep progressing forward and eventually destroy our enemies?
 
Only, only, only with consistent, ongoing personal prayer do we stand a chance at being victorious. Any other victory against our inner demons is only temporary.
 
So keep praying, asking, crying, yelling, begging to Hashem to help you- eventually, you will overcome your personal addictions. Devote at least 30 minutes a day to each issue, and don’t try to overcome more than one issue at a time- as per Rav Arush’s advice.
 
And always remember, even when you fail: Hashem doesn’t give us tests that He knows we can’t overcome. May we all merit to be victorious against our personal challenges once and for all, Amen.