The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Salem, Oregon

Publications

The Monkeys on Our Backs

by Reverend Rick Davis

Undated Sermon

True confession. In the late sixties and early seventies I smoked cigarettes – about a pack a day - mostly unfiltered Pall Malls or Camels with an occasional Galouise (a French cigarette) just to add a dash of European mystique to my persona. I began in my late high school/ early college days, because it seemed to be a cool, rebellious, grownup kind of thing to do, and I was trying, without much success, to cultivate that type of “edgy” image. This was one of several ways I thumbed my nose at my strict Southern Baptist background. Predictably enough, after a couple of years I reached the point where I continued to smoke cigarettes not because I wanted to be cool, but because I was addicted to those stinking “coffin nails.”

By this time - the early seventies - I was living near the Zen Buddhist center in San Francisco and went there for daily meditation. The priests advised us that smoking was not such a great habit for those who wanted to practice a form of meditation that focused so much on breathing. I knew they were right, and after wrestling with a guilty conscience and losing, I resolved to quit smoking.

One afternoon as I walked to the apartment I shared with several other young spiritual seekers, I took out a half-smoked pack of Pall Malls, crushed it in my hand and tossed it in a garbage can. There. I had renounced cigarettes, completely, forever!

A bit later in the day, as the nicotine withdrawal began to kick in, I started thinking about life and began reviewing all the possible philosophical options I knew about and became a disciple, at least for that afternoon, of the philosophy of nihilism. Forget Buddhism or any other life affirming philosophy. Nihilism - a belief in nothing - is what made the most sense to me. Sitting there under dark clouds of grim ruminations I said to myself: “Life really doesn’t have any meaning. Not really. It’s a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. There is no real purpose here, not really. And since this is so, since it doesn’t really matter whether we live or die, doesn’t it make sense to at least grab for what small portion of comfort and pleasure we can, however we can? So really, why shouldn’t I have cigarettes? Why deny myself this little pleasure?

Which is to say that my grand renunciation of tobacco had lasted for about five hours, which was not forever, but it had seemed like it to me. The tobacco monkey had not wandered very far away and jumped once again on my back.

In my effort to break a nasty habit I had turned to the wrong faith – nihilism – and the wrong support system – just my lonesome self. I felt guilty and ashamed of my slavery to tobacco, but figured I was doomed to this smoky servitude.

Not long after this I met this young woman who was also a pack a day Pall Mall smoker and a Buddhist meditator. We often enjoyed a good cup of coffee and a cigarette together. One day we saw a man who had had surgery from some form of cancer apparently caused by smoking. His whole lower jaw had been removed. It was a shocking vision and shocked us into resolving to quit smoking.

Now I wasn’t trying to shake this habit alone. She and I were overcoming our nicotine addiction together. Late one night, just a few days into our tobacco free lifestyle, I found an open pack of cigarettes in her kitchen cupboard and couldn’t resist smoking one on the sly. The next day, she confronted me and asked, “Did you smoke a cigarette last night? I thought there were more in this pack.” In response I am not proud to say that I told a bald faced lie – “No, I didn’t smoke any. Not me. Have you checked with the cat?” This may have been the best lie I ever told, because if I had told the ugly truth she was prepared to light up again, and who knows where that would have led? That was the last cigarette I ever smoked - thirty three years ago. I wish I could say it was the last lie I ever told, but if I did that would just be another one.

Now smoking is a hard habit to break. If you do smoke and wish you could quit, you have my compassion, not my harsh judgment; likewise if you have some other type of addiction.

If you’re fortunate enough not to be trapped or never to have been trapped by some addiction, thank your lucky stars. I would advise against thinking that you are somehow superior, that you had more wisdom and willpower to avoid such pitfalls and you have the right to look down your nose at those who do struggle with addictions. Not only is that uncharitable, it probably fails to take into account certain physical, psychological, familial, social blessings you have had that helped you avoid such traps. Some people were just born on third base and think they hit a triple and can’t understand why others, less privileged and fortunate, are striking out. Or perhaps you have types of addictions that you can’t see or that are not scorned by society – say “workaholism” or obsessive shopping. Anyone who is riding through life on a high horse should resist the temptation to stay there. Even if you happen to come by your lofty status by your own singular virtue, come on down anyway. We need to walk together and see one another eye to eye and offer each other whatever encouragement we can because we face a real challenge that affects every one of us, in one way or another.

If I were to ask for a show of hands – but I won’t – of all the people in this room who have had their lives traumatized by someone’s drug or alcohol abuse, statistics indicate that well over half of us would probably raise our hands. Again, according to national statistics on addiction, somewhere between 10 to 30 per cent of us are currently struggling with addiction. We may think that we are an anomalous, especially enlightened group and that these statistics wouldn’t apply here. But addiction cuts right across the board of race, class, occupation, political orientation, whatever. The fact is that addiction affects almost every one of us, either directly or indirectly.

The range of possible addictions is daunting to consider. Of course there are the well known forms of addiction to alcohol and certain drugs – methamphetamines, heroin and certain prescription pain killers being among the most insidious. But then there is gambling and sex and food and work, and lately, I’ve been hearing about addiction to video gaming and internet use. The list is longer than this and will undoubtedly grow as new addictive options present themselves. Addiction in one form or another is a widespread disease that afflicts and affects many more than we might suspect. Addiction disrupts and diminishes all our lives, causing great pain and sorrow. How can we, as a religious community, respond?
First of all, it’s necessary to look directly at the problem to better understand it. In connection with this an image from Buddhist mythology comes to mind – the image of the Hungry Ghost. The Hungry Ghost has a body as large as a mountain – it’s huge. And it has a fiery, raging, unquenchable thirst. Yet the Hungry Ghost has a needle thin throat and can only drink water one drop at a time. This poor being can never, ever quench its raging thirst and find satisfaction, no matter how hard it tries.

And where do you find the Hungry Ghost? The Hungry Ghost can be found in any person, for this tormented mythological being describes a state of mind to which any one of us can fall prey. The Hungry Ghost mind is trapped in a cruel paradox – it has an insatiable appetite, thirst, desire, yet every effort to satisfy this desire brings no satisfaction and only serves to strengthen the desire even more. Like a fly caught in a spider web, the futile efforts of the hungry ghost only serve to further enslave it. That describes the trap known as addiction.

The Hungry Ghost feels a great emptiness – it does not have what it feels it needs, and yet it doesn’t know exactly what that is, so it grabs for whatever familiar anodyne can bring temporary relief to fill the emptiness – it may come in a pill, a bottle, a casino, a shopping cart, a job, a refrigerator - anything to fill that dreadful emptiness. Most likely, this feeling of emptiness can be traced back to some earlier trauma or prolonged ordeal – perhaps as a child you saw your father beating their mother, or you saw the gruesome horrors of war up close or you felt they were never loved or accepted or perhaps you were sexually abused or you landed in a place in society where hope and opportunity were strangers and poverty and despair hung overhead like a permanent cloud cover. There are countless harsh ways that the inner selves of vulnerable people can be badly damaged and distorted, which leads people to seek relief in addictive and self destructive behavior.

We live in an society that encourages us to keep emptiness at bay – as writer Wendell Berry puts it: “We seem to be living now with the single expectation that there should and will always be more of everything, including life expectancy.” This insatiable desire for more is the result of an overwhelming sense of incompleteness, which is the result of the insatiable desire for more. This is the wheel of death.”
Which is to say, addiction leads to a dead end. Once you travel this path far enough, you find that nothing is new and fresh and creative and life affirming – it’s only the same old, soul deadening story if servitude to inordinate, insatiable, harmful desire. It is a trap.

Once I posed this question to psychologist friend who worked with veterans struggling with substance abuse problems: “If you had to say just one piece of advice to offer your clients, what would it be?” He responded immediately: “Don’t run away from your pain and feelings of emptiness. Just stay with it.”

My friend went on to explain that you begin to take the road to recovery when you don’t react but you choose – you choose a new way, a new response. Change is never easy, and in regards to overcoming an addiction it means facing the pain instead of running away. If you don’t choose to take that step, over and over again, there can be no recovery. Such change is up to each person and not someone else. The Hungry Ghost has to give up trying to quench its thirst, desire, need for a fix, a drink, whatever, and wait for something new.

But that must sound like cold comfort to someone trapped in the iron grip of an addiction. What is called for here is a vision – a vision of land of freedom and some technique for getting there, step by step. Without such a vision, it is hard to have hope and the temptation to run away from the pain back into the arms of addiction will be hard to resist.

Here is where spiritual disciplines can come to the rescue – psychiatrists, clinicians, researchers are discovering that such disciplines can be an effective tool to help recovering addicts resist the temptation to relapse, because they offer a compelling vision of something better – peace, acceptance, enlightenment, wisdom, wholeness – that feels lacking. And these disciplines provide some step by step directions on how to make that journey of transformation – through fasting, prayer, meditation, chanting. In this regard, spiritual discipline can be seen as an act of pumping spiritual iron, exerting some self control. Through such regular, disciplined practice of self control a certain skill and strength are cultivated and increase the likelihood that this strength will come into play when you are faced with temptation. You will have the strength to ignore the pleadings and clever rationalizations of the hungry ghost and exercise self control, let go of that habit you know in your heart of hearts is destroying you. What a great power we have – that power to let go. Cultivate that power to let go – of whatever ill serves you, be it anger, fear, hatred, unhealthy desires - let go and so many of life’s problems will drop by the wayside, including addictions. There isn’t a soul in this room who can’t let go if you really choose to do it.

But it’s much more like that you can let go of a spiritually damaging addiction if you don’t have to do it alone.

As some of you know, our recent custodian and good friend Dennis Harrison died from a heroin overdose. This was devastating news, and there have been many tears shed by those of us who knew and loved him. He was a good, dear person. We miss him so much. When we hired Dennis we knew that he had spent of good deal of his adult life in prison for crimes committed to support his deadly habit, but we hoped that this was all behind him. Yet he struggled, privately, and deep feelings of shame kept him from letting us know of what he was going through until he was too far gone. He so deeply appreciated the chance we had given him and he felt such guilt at the thought that he was letting us down that he could not bring himself to be open and honest and tell us that he had fallen down and needed a hand. He felt that admitting this need would mean a loss of his dignity. And for that, I am deeply sorry. Perhaps if I had been more sensitive, if I had been more aware it could have made a difference.

It’s too late to make such a difference for Dennis, but it’s not too late to make a difference. That is why we want to make an offer to the members and friends of this congregation. If you are struggling with an addiction – and the likelihood that some of you are is statistically significant because so many millions of us do in this country – we want you to know that acceptance of one another is not contingent upon being perfect. We all have our struggles and pains and sorrows, and for some of us, that means struggling with an addiction. There need be no stigma and shame attached to this. Such feelings only drive us apart and deeper into despair and denial.

So we want to do something altogether new. Many Unitarian Universalist Congregations are beginning “Addiction Ministry” programs to provide a mutual network of encouragement and support. If you are struggling with an addiction, perhaps today is the day when you will make the decision to walk away from this to a place of freedom. Maybe today is a day when we begin to grow as a congregation, opening our hearts and our minds to one another in new ways, being ever more sensitive to the ways we can reach out, connect and support one another as we walk this path together.