Leaving the Addict Island of the Misfits

I don’t know what shape you were in when you first got into recovery, but if you were like me, you fit in nowhere.

Almost nowhere. I did fit with others who belonged on the Addict Island of the Misfits.

Like many of us, my childhood wasn’t always easy. A gym teacher, a relative, violent strangers here and there, and the darkness of addiction and destitution all did enough damage to ensure I learned my mantra of “fat, ugly, and stupid, aren’t we?” very well.

So well in fact that by the time I was 25, when I saw anything that reminded me of what was missing in my life, I knew it was because I was indeed fat, ugly, and stupid. I would never be enough. This “island” was a place where all we broken humans went to be reminded of our eternal brokenness.

When I was finally beaten down and made it to my first recovery meeting, I heard only one thing: “Welcome home.” Of course, I didn’t believe anyone. How could strangers welcome someone like me?

Even in my darkest times of addiction, in every moment I closed the door on myself inside, trying to kill off parts of me, my True Self was always alive.

I sat down in the circle and listened. Someone handed me a piece of literature, and I got my first glimpse of a pathway to life. I couldn’t comprehend what it all meant, but I read through it, and I started to get angry.

I didn’t need anyone to tell me what a defect of character was! I was a giant, walking defect. I had spent a lifetime cataloguing what was wrong with me!

Then there was the part about asking God to take it all away. Really? Do you honestly think I had never tried that?! Every day of my life I asked God to make me not be me. I never remembered a time I didn’t think I was unworthy or that my existence was wrong.

And I certainly didn’t need to be told to apologize. For years I had been saying I’m sorry for everything, including my own existence.

Yet I stayed in the meetings, knowing inside it was either this or death.

Is Ego the Problem?

I started working at recovery and I began to hear warnings about my ego. Things like: I should fear my ego, not listen to it, or my ego was my “best thinking,” the thinking that had turned my life into this mess. The ego was the cause of my defects of character and the apparent root of my inability to be a “normal” person in society.

It made perfect sense. Clearly, I hadn’t made healthy choices for myself, and my thinking was distorted. It’s just who I am as an addict. Through the 12 steps I would learn to make peace with this adverse life partner—my ego—but it would always be with me.

Then I discovered the Unity spiritual movement, and at my very first church service I heard the minister say something amazing: Each of us—not just Jesus—was created in the image and likeness of God. I thought, “HOLY COW! Really? Does this guy know what he is saying? In the image and likeness, seriously!? He must be nuts because he can’t mean me! I mean really—look at me!”

I left the service and wrestled with this idea for some time. It ate at my soul, like a corrosive agent nibbling on my brain, eating away at the belief I had about me and my ego. I was seriously confused and afraid, my recovery felt threatened. How could I be divine in nature? You can’t be divine and an addict at the same time, right? Something was very wrong. Yet being a dutiful recovery person, I went to my sponsor for guidance. Ironically, he was the one who had taken me to my first Unity service.

For 26 years I have been practicing what he taught me, and I offer you my own understanding here.

True Self and Unique Self

What I had come to understand as my ego was actually my adverse ego or immature ego. The fact is, I need an ego to navigate this world, so I don’t want to drive it away. I want to continue doing my inner work in order to heal and have a healthy ego.

At the same time, there is the other aspect of my being—my divinity.

Think of it this way: What we know as the Divine within is our True Self. It is the place of our greatest potential, our Christ nature or wholeness. It is what I am, eternal and unchangeable. Even in my darkest times of addiction, in every moment I closed the door on myself inside, trying to kill off parts of me, my True Self was always alive.

Then there is my Unique Self. This is the “me” that is changeable, the expression of my personality, who I am, my humanness. In walking this path with God, myself, and another human being, I have grown up my ego and learned to embrace all that I am so my Unique Self no longer expresses the wounds of the past—my defects of character—which is the adverse ego. I have learned to love, be loved, and serve my world.

I don’t have to choose between my divine nature and my ego, I only have to learn how to put feet on my True Self, making God, Spirit, or whatever you call a higher power present in this world as my Unique Self.

Anyone suffering from addiction needs to know they are not forever fractured and broken. Living our True Self through our Unique Self, we are restored to our inherent goodness and can light the way for others.

This article first appeared in the Unity booklet The Spiritual Journey from Addiction to Recovery. All the authors chose to remain anonymous in keeping with the tradition of 12-step groups.