“A Spiritual Awakening”

                                                                                          by Marco M. Pardi

Obviously, the subject may apply to anyone. But my focus here is specific.

Shortly after I developed and offered, in the early 1970’s, one of the first U.S. courses in Death & Dying the success of the class and the phenomenal media coverage led to a significantly changed profile among the students coming to my office for talks. As an Anthropologist of roughly the same age as the average student, I had become used to students seeking discussion and advice about problems with sex, drugs, family life, career choices, and society in general. However, that quickly narrowed to issues associated with death and dying, either their own or that of a family member.

In what seemed like no time at all students began saying things like, “My father’s dying, and our family was hoping you could come over to talk with us about how we get through it.”

Living alone, except for my horses, dogs and a cat, I readily honored these requests even when they meant significant drive time. And, the numbers seemed to grow exponentially.

Although I had no thought of remuneration of any kind, I soon found myself being pressed to accept gas money, baked goods and other forms of appreciation. Feeling it improper to refuse, but also wary of State laws, I obtained a State license as a Consultant, there being no “Death Counselor” license on the books at the Department of Professional Regulation.

I welcomed these opportunities because they bolstered the real life experience I could, ensuring anonymity, bring to the classroom. Each of the many situations offered “teaching moments”. But perhaps one of the greatest such moments came when I began to realize how very many families were affected in some way by alcohol. Published numbers or percentages had always seemed abstract. Not any more.

“Alcoholism”, a term so broad it challenges reliable definition, is basically considered a compulsion to drink alcohol regardless of the consequences. The basis for this compulsion, physical or mental/emotional, is far harder to identify in a way which meets with consensus. Although drinking to the point of problems has almost certainly been common among humans since fermentation (and later, distillation) was discovered, literary and historical mention has largely relegated it to “fallen” people, people with “character flaws”. Yet, it has also been portrayed as the refuge of the abused, the solace of the bereaved, the source of courage for the soldier, the panacea for all manner of ailments and the bracer to meet the day.

The mention of alcoholism, particularly in the context of chronic illness leading to eventual death may seem obvious. Yes, there are far too many “I told him/her to quit drinking long ago” stories. And, yes, these long held feelings do erupt in various ways. But there are other issues surrounding the  deathbed of the person whose drinking may or may not have contributed to their present state. A spouse who has long resented the inability to control the other’s behavior may mask that resentment as long suffering concern for the other’s welfare. This mask may also conceal happiness at “being vindicated”, not necessarily because the drinking itself proved unhealthy but because the failure to obey is reaping the long warned of consequences. Children, who may have had other maturational disagreements with the dying parent, can easily use the drinking history as an after the fact justification of their prior adversarial stance. In either case, if the outside observer does not seem convinced, they can always fall back on the “abusive alcoholic” claim (most alcoholics are not abusive). And, spouse and/or children may go on to mask a secret gladness that their issues are now dying with a person about whom they can weave a narrative they know to be false. This is not grieving. This is nurturing a vine which will grow to strangle the host.

Of course, this is not to say there are no cases of jobs lost, finances strained, infidelities discovered, and families retreating into seclusion. These are all too common.

Other alcohol related issues arose. “Steven, our oldest, is 9 months sober now, and hoping to get his 1st year chip. How can we tell him his Dad is dying without sending him over the edge again?” “Jim’s sister, Sandra, is a practicing alcoholic, and we just know that she will show up at the funeral drunk, vomit and pass out. How do we handle that?”

So many of these real life problems arose, needing answers, I decided to go to those who face them every day. A husband, whose wife was in her last weeks with cancer, belonged to Al-Anon. I asked to go with him to the next meeting. A program for the relatives and friends of practicing and recovering alcoholics, Al-Anon is predicated on the premise that the relatives, and possibly the close friends, are “just as sick as the alcoholic” and as in need of continuous attendance at meetings. They are “co-dependents”, and often “enablers”.

That this premise did not entirely sit well with attendees was not surprising. Many seemed more interested in acquiring mechanisms to cope with the alcoholic’s illness than in those to deal with their own “symptomless” disease. But some clearly felt that reluctance to continue attendance must surely be a symptom. On balance, it was a moderately effective means of group control.

It was here that I first heard mention of “spiritual awakening”.  More forcefully associated with the internal event which presumably underlies the alcoholic’s decision to quit drinking, it was more gingerly approached here. After all, perhaps one could interpret this awakening to be a realization that it was time to end the marriage and move on. Without doubt, that was an option for which there were no reliable records kept.

Although I learned much from Al-Anon, it still seemed to be one side of the story. Through Al-Anon members I was able to contact Alcoholics Anonymous members and, with no pretense or deception, attend meetings with the open understanding of who I was and why I was there. Intense media coverage of my Death & Dying activities preceded my appearance, disarming almost all concerns.

Alcoholics Anonymous, best known as A.A., is a well known 12 Step program founded in 1935 and based on the principles of the Oxford Group, a non-denominational group claiming adherence to and guidance from the precepts of “early Christianity”. While claiming in its ritualized prolegomenon that there is no official institutional interpretation of the concept “higher power”, that was rarely in evidence at individual meetings. In fact, more than once I heard a speaker say, “A person cannot work through this program unless he has one hand on the Big Book and one hand on the Bible.”

Another platform plank was the unyielding support for the disease theory of alcoholism, supported by longitudinal studies of the children of alcoholics, but still in dispute to this day. True addiction can be hard to distinguish from habitual behavior. One commonly accepted indicator is the onset of withdrawal symptoms, a syndrome which in alcoholism can prove fatal without medical supervision. In fact, it is commonly acknowledged that true addicts do not use “to get high” as much as they use to restore and maintain the “new normal” their metabolism has moved to through chronic substance ingestion. However, once the ethyl alcohol is purged (about 18 hours) and the metabolites have completely cleared and returned to normal (5 – 8 days), what explains the extraordinarily high recidivism rate even among those who were 28 day or more in-patients? 

A.A., distinguishing between “dry” and “sober”, proposes that a spiritual awakening must intervene between the two. Indeed, it posits that the idealized “serenity” can be reached only through such an event.

But, wait. At one meeting I heard an oft repeated claim that “God does not want me to die drunk” rejoined by another’s claim that “God does want me to die drunk, as an example to my children of what not to do.” Is one right and not the other?  The answer was readily forthcoming at that meeting, and all the others where I repeated that scenario. So strong was the support for the former that I frequently heard people say, “I’m glad I became an alcoholic because it led me to this fellowship.” Being in a group from which (it is claimed) there is no recovery, only recovering; is that an awakening? Or, is it switching one addiction for another?

Except in the large percentages of court ordered attendance at these meetings, continued attendance is hard to quantify. It is, after all, anonymous. This raises the question of whether a spiritual awakening, unlike the “come to Jesus” overtones in A.A., has actually occurred for many, enabling them to walk away from the compulsion for or the addiction to drinking and all things and behaviors associated with it, including A.A.

I ceased my observations of these groups when I felt I had acquired sufficient understanding to help patients and families as they worked through the process of dying and death. But I also saw “spiritual awakening” parallels to the process I was encouraging them to develop, the opening up of and letting go of the myriad feelings which had been shaping the family narrative for so long, in so many ways.

That can mean telling Steven of his father’s and Sandra of her brother’s impending death without automatically grasping and holding the responsibility for whatever choices they make and outcomes they reap. Steven and Sandra can be reminded that families are entitled to establish boundaries, not just of what someone else cannot cross but also of just how far a family will reach out to respond to the behavior of a member. In fact, spiritual awakening seems much larger than just the self oriented liberation from responsibility; it seems to fully include the commitment to be open and honest and to give other people what they have had a right to all along. The right to live their own lives and to discover themselves.

In the many years I have been involved with Death & Dying, as a teacher and/or as a therapist I have heard many people say they want to die instantly, or in their sleep. I can imagine only a few worse endings. This is like studying all your life and skipping the Final. I can think of no more clear and certain time in which to become “spiritually awake” than the time in which you definitely know you have the end in sight. Only when you see the last stop can you say what the ride has been all about.