Dear Reader, you might be thinking, “this page has jumped the shark after less than a dozen posts. We’ve gone from the Stoics to Seuss in no time at all. You’ll have to allow me to vindicate myself. I’ll remind you, Dear Reader, philosophy translates to “love of knowledge.” Where that knowledge might come from is immaterial if we can find good use from it.
But, don’t take it from me. Seneca, referring to Epicurus and his rival school of philosophy once wrote, “’It was Epicurus who said that,’ you protest. ‘What business have you got with someone else’s property?’ Whatever is true is my property. And I shall persist in inflicting Epicurus on you, in order to bring it home to the people who take an oath of allegiance to someone and never afterwards consider what is being said but only who said it, that the things of greatest merit are common property.” In other words, Seneca recognized we could find truth and wisdom from people even outside the Stoics. So, let’s follow his example and broaden our horizons a bit every now and again.
Seneca also said, “Think how many poets say things that philosophers have said—or ought to have said!” These passages give us license, as lovers of truth and knowledge to find that wisdom from whichever source we find it. This website is all about applying philosophical principles to our sobriety, so let’s accept Seneca’s invitation to look outside of Stoicism and to a poet and for the first time I do that on this website, I’m choosing Dr. Seuss.
The quotation above is from Seuss’ “Oh, the Places You’ll Go,” one of his more well-known works. I remember having it read to me as a kid and thinking it was fun, a lot like Fox in Socks and Green Eggs & Ham. A little goofy, maybe, but Dr. Seuss often has important lessons just under the surface in his books. The Lorax hits you over the head with conservation and respect for nature. The Sneeches highlights the absurdity of conformity. Horton Hatches the Egg is a lesson on keeping one’s word and the power of adoptive love.
Oh, the Places You’ll Go, though, has some pretty dark passages. Several stanzas are perhaps about depression and the passage I cite herein is, to me, so applicable to addiction that I had a hard time reading it to my kids before I got sober.
I think of the “lonely games” we can’t win as the ones where we attempt to convince ourselves that we are not alcoholics. I think of the “lonely games” we can’t win as the ones where we set rules for ourselves about drinking that are short of full and permanent abstinence because we delude ourselves into thinking our addiction will play by ground rules. I think of the “lonely games” we can’t win as any time we turn our rationality against ourselves to deny our nature and delay our healing. We can’t, according to Dr. Seuss, win these lonely games because we play them against ourselves. They’re lonely games because we tend to not open up about our true feelings about our addiction with others. They’re lonely games because we frequently drink in secret. We hide our true selves from our biggest supporters because we know darn well what they would say if they knew the true nature of our disease. We know what they would require of us and so we don’t tell them because we don’t yet want to change.
This again, is the insidious nature of alcoholism. It separates you from your loved ones in an effort to get you all alone where it can more easily kill you. The good news is that we do not have to be cornered and out-gunned by our addiction. This is a fight to which you can call for back-up. If we alcoholics stop playing the “lonely games” and playing against ourselves, we stand a chance in this fight.
I encourage alcoholics to engage their support network in their recovery. Call a family member. Call a friend. Get in this fight and gang up on your addiction. Dear Reader, I hope you will. Defeat your addiction and oh, the places you’ll go!
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