Dear Reader, are you prepared to believe this? It’s a scary thought, to be sure. But, on the other hand, there’s hope in this truth as well.
The crux of Stoicism is training oneself to not compromise his or her morals based on external events and irrational responses to them. To be a Stoic, one must consider that certain losses are unpredictable and inevitable and to not hinge our morality, character, or happiness on the persistence of the status quo.
I am going to digest this quotation in a number of contexts and to keep it concise, I will make it several entries so I do not command more of your time, Dear Reader, than you are used to devoting to me.
Today, I will limit my discussion of this quotation to the concept of mortality and relate it to our continuing sobriety. Yes, it will be heavy. Part of this may be unpleasant to you, but I hope to conclude with suggested plans of action that can help you do something productive with any negative feelings this may stir up.
We are all mortal. No one will question that. Someday, I will die. Someday, my wife will die. Someday, my parents will die. This fate will be met by my siblings, friends, and children, too. No one likes to think about this. We shove those kinds of thoughts away because they are too unpleasant. That is certainly one way of dealing with it, but we recovering alcoholics and addicts may want to consider that being blind-sided by grief is particularly dangerous for us. Grief is a powerful emotion that can cause relapse.
So, rather than turn a blind eye to our own mortality and that of the people we love the most, why not embrace it? Today is the last day everyone who is alive right now will be. Tomorrow, the human populace will be a little different. New lives started. Some lives ended. Time goes on and as it does, each day, the population will look less and less like it does right now. In 120 years or so, perhaps the entirety of the human population will have turned over the Earth to the next generation. This has happened hundreds of times before.
That makes today unique. It makes every day unique. Worldwide, approximately two people die every second of every day. We don’t know most of them, obviously. The world is a big place and there are billions upon billions of people. That said, some second will come along someday and it will usher us to whatever comes next. This will happen to everyone, including those we love and enjoy the most. Let’s not be afraid of that. Let’s be grateful for the time that we have and the unique opportunity we have to love and enjoy the people who enrich our lives.
For as long as I remember, it’s always been the practice in my family to tell one another we love them when parting company or ending a telephone call. I think a lot of people do this and the reason is obvious: if something were to happen to that person, you never have to wonder what the last thing you said to them was. It was, “I love you.” That’s a powerful way to make sure there are no preventable regrets having to do with the unpleasant subject of mortality.
But let’s move back to the subject of alcoholism and addiction. Addiction is death. Addiction to alcohol and substances is a terminal and progressive condition that leads to death. Recovery does not grant immortality, but it is a way for us to reclaim whatever life we have left to live. It is an act of survival to endure the pain of withdrawal and early sobriety in order to live a joyful life of recovery. It is a rejection of death. To become sober is to embrace life.
I have heard many times and experienced for myself people in recovery express gratitude that a loved one got to see them achieve sobriety before they died. I’ve heard as many times people in recovery express regret that a loved one did not get to see them achieve sobriety before they died. We have to get sober for ourselves, but it is a powerful motivation to achieve and maintain sobriety so that we can show our loved ones before it’s too late that we are okay, that we will be okay.
So, yes, we all die. What’s left of us when we are gone are the memories people will have of us. How would you want to be remembered? Live the life you want people to talk about when your time here is gone.
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