As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect-like creature. He was lying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes.
In many ways, Gregor's transformation and his struggles with his family closely mirror many of the tribulations faced by the addict, and my alcoholism is no exception. But those that chose recovery face a new metamorphosis - both within themselves and around them in those that they have wronged.
To further tie in the themes in Kafka with my own particular path, the idea of a metamorphosis can be viewed through a variety of lenses. The first example is a renewal of time. Most specifically is one's birthday - of which today is my 36th.
The very concept of a birthday brings to mind a renewal of sorts, that time has gifted each of us the opportunity to live another year and make the necessary steps that will allow us to either travel along the path of progress or to simply stagnate. The recovering addict, if choosing progress, must face multiple obstacles, including the potential metamorphosis of others as well as within themselves.
However, the question must be asked - are others truly changing in an opposing direction in stark contract with the addict?
To answer this, we have to reconcile the difference between perception and perspective. While our perceptions are colored by our given position in life ( like an addict believing that the world is against them because they show concern for their usage and want them to make a complete and honest recovery ) if we lack proper perspective, our assumptions are rendered moot.
In my own personal experience, I have seen some of those closest to me change the manner in which they speak ( both to me as well as others ) to the way that they carry themselves in even the simplest of physical mannerism. This can be explained due to how the addict has treated them and their own emotional states. It's understandable that a person that has been taken advantage of by a particular addict is want to remove themselves from extensive interaction with someone in the early stages of recovery, but they can also fall victim to a metamorphic state where they are putting themselves into a very specific danger. This is not to state that they are doing this willingly, but that their defense mechanism can very easily override their better and honest judgement.
This does not end with the person that spent extensive amounts of time struggling with the addict, as their own change in self becomes a struggle for the recovering addict. They, being the addict, may be trying mend the wounds of the past, to admit their missteps, but those that were victim to the addict's actions can "self-medicate" to such a degree with their conscious and unconscious defense mechanisms that they have hampered their own healing process.
Conversely, the recovering addict runs the risk of being all too willing to accept such overly heightened defense tactics as reality - thereby derailing their own healing metamorphosis. A good example of this would be someone telling the recovering addict that their sobriety is meaningless, or that time spent together with them, prior to full-throated and unchecked usage, doesn't play a part in their memory any longer. When someone in recovery hears these things, they should understand that this could well be the course of recovering from victimhood due to the addict's actions.
Change, as we all should realize, can be both positive and negative. And within the confines of addiction recovery, all parties involved ( both the addict and those that had previously interacted with them ) have to be mindful of the nuances contained within each prospective path. My own personal journey has revealed to me that the self-imposed medicated states ( through conscious and unconscious defense mechanisms ) can create a mosaic that can be quite difficult to navigate on any given day.
As each of us move through our particular station in life ( the addict and their recovery and the victim and their need to understand the addict's recovery ) we begin to see how change, or metamorphosis, is not always positive in nature but certainly not always negative. It is only through honest and open communication that all parties involved can begin anything closely resembling a healing process - which can take years. It is from that point that patience, above all, must be exercised.
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Sometimes, a given musical component to our daily lives can appear in the most unlikely of places. I wasn't even close to considering Black Sabbath as the coda to this post, but is fits so well that I had no choice:
Black Sabbath - Changes
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