Episode 255 -- January 12, 2023

You are Not Alone: Joining "The Great We" of Recovery

Too often, in our addiction, we felt isolated and alone. Using substances kept us from truly connecting with others or drove us to do so in disordered and destructive ways. Recovery includes healing our ability to have relationships; it starts by being honest about our brokenness and embracing the truth that we're part of a fellowship of people who share our hurts as well as our hopes.

In her book Mindfulness and the 12 Steps: Living Recovery in the Present Moment, Thérèse Jacobs-Stewart invites us on a journey of connection, drawing from her personal experience and an impressive range of knowledge in psychology, spirituality, and the Twelve Steps. Jacobs-Stewart offers a fresh approach to developing a spiritual path through the Buddhist practice of mindfulness or bringing one's awareness to focus on the present moment.

In this excerpt, Jacobs-Stewart points out that "we" is the first word of the Twele Steps and makes a case for the importance of fellowship and community as spiritual resources for healthy recovery. She offers a meditation practice that can help us connect to the wide circle of positivity, love, and support that always surrounds us, moment by moment.

This excerpt has been edited for brevity.

Admitting Our Suffering, Opening to Community

Perhaps many of us have dragged ourselves through the door of our first Twelve Step meeting, frustrated, impotent to change the addicts or alcoholics we love, admitting by our very presence that going it alone had failed us. Humiliated, perhaps, to let our hurt show, or to disclose we are out of control—powerless to handle our own drug or alcohol use, powerless to cure our alcoholic loved ones, powerless to manage others in any way. Striving for perfection, hiding our real self from others, or putting on a false face keeps us separate and alone.

But in the act of admitting our pain and suffering, we open up to a community. When we admit our failures, weaknesses, hurts, and needs, we find out we are not alone. A portal to connecting with others is opened.

Thích Nhât Hanh—a Vietnamese monk and, I believe, a holy person on this earth—describes it this way: "We have to recognize and acknowledge the presence of suffering and touch it. Please don't run away from suffering. Embrace it and cherish it. To do so, we need the help of friends in the practice."

A fundamental teaching of mindfulness and Buddhism is that we are interconnected with all beings, all life forces. Believing we are separate, that I do not affect you and you do not affect me, is a delusion.

This is depicted in the story of Gautama Buddha's moment of enlightenment, which goes something like this: Gautama is sitting under a beautiful bodhi tree, meditating and maybe chanting "Ohm" after years of wandering, searching, and nearly starving to death. He is wrestling with his inner demons, watching them torture his mind. He touches the ground with his fingers, and as he does, the earth rumbles, rising to meet him. All of his suffering and distress falls away. In that moment he is awakened. He avows, "I, together with the great earth and all living beings, attain the way at the same time."

Buddha's enlightenment happens in concert with all beings, not alone. He declares his understanding that we are part of the "Great We," alive in a world of "interbeing," meaning that our existence is a shared experience. When we walk into a Twelve Step meeting and take Step One, we, too, touch the ground and experience the fellowship there to meet us. Realizing we are no longer separate and on our own, the veil of delusion is torn open.

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (also known as the Twelve by Twelve) is the core text of Alcoholics Anonymous. It describes the experience of joining the Twelve Step community like this: "Through it we begin to learn right relationships with people who understand us; we don't have to be alone anymore."

Even by myself in my room, I'm part of the Twelve Step fellowship. When I sit in mindfulness meditation, noticing breath, the texture of the cushion, and the sounds of the room, I begin by thinking about being part of the Great We.

Entering the Field in the Fellowship of Others

Tenshin-roshi Reb Anderson asked us to imagine ourselves in a great field with all of the buddhas and bodhisattvas (enlightened beings and spiritual seekers) that have come before us. The picture that popped into my mind was one of a giant football field, an expanse of meditators filling every inch. I imagined that I was surrounded by beings who understood my suffering and shared in my joys.

I never sat in meditation alone again. I started visualizing the "football field" filled with all kinds of people, ancestors, and practitioners going back to the time of Buddha, all meditating together. They breathed in as I breathed in; they breathed out as I breathed out. I could almost hear them chanting softly in my mind, the air filled with the scent of cedar incense. It was soothing, sweet. My body began to unwind, release. I was held in their grace.

The pain of admitting our failures and the unmanageability of what the world gives us opens the door to joining the Great We. I entered it at the moment of walking into my first AA meeting at Saint Matthew's Church, numbed from the cold, enfolded by warmth and the sound of laughter. There are hundreds and thousands of recovering people, in the past and in the present, all holding us in their kindness. There is no separation. We are them and they are us. Gradually, the sense of being separate has fallen away. This is a fruit of the Twelve Step fellowship, and an awakening that deepens with the practice of mindfulness and meditation.

Mindfulness Practice for Step One:
Resting in the Field of Awakened Ones

When we are mindful that we share both the suffering and grace of others, we can face what seems unbearable. By opening our hearts, admitting our powerlessness over alcohol, drugs, and other people's choices, we are able to remember we are part of the great stream of We. If we let our mind rest for a moment or two (meditation), there is space for this awareness to arise.

Try this:

Take a few minutes to sit, be quiet, and rest the mind. Just rest, and let yourself notice whatever is passing through your mind without doing anything about it. Just rest ... relax with whatever arises. Notice what it's like to breathe in and breathe out ... Just rest .. Observe your thoughts, feelings, or sensations as they arise and pass through ... letting them be ... watching them pass through.

After a few moments of sitting with your breath in this way, place yourself in a great, expansive field with all the most loving people you've ever known or wish to know, surrounding you . All the enlightened people of old are sitting with you in this field, great buddhas and meditation practitioners. Imagine there is no separation of time and space, with all the energy and strength of those beings breathing with you, in each breath.

Call upon any of the buddhas, past or present, for help. Maybe you would even say, "Grandmother, grandmother, I am here ... right here ... remember me?" In your own way, let yourself see these benefactors in your mind's eye, or sense the warmth of their kindness, or notice the sweet fragrance of their presence.

Now imagine you are part of a great stream of recovering alcoholics and addicts, members of the Twelve Step program, through seven generations in the past and seven generations in the future. Follow the cascade of anonymous faces, anonymous stories through many generations. Sense their understanding of your struggles, their ability to know what it's like inside your skin. Allow the strength of their recovery to hold you up, to support you like the cushion or chair you are sitting upon.

If you wish, in your mind, call to someone in the present: a loving person in your life, your sponsor, or a person who attends your Twelve Step meeting. Imagine this person's response of recognition and kindness. Allow yourself to feel your connection to him or her, and to all enlightened beings past and present, through all of time. Draw in the strength and wisdom of these beings, joining the Great We with each breath in, and each breath out.

Continue this meditation for several minutes, one or two breaths longer than you think you can stand. In a pinch, you can use the short version from Thích Nhât Hanh: "I am not alone. Thank you."

About the Author:
Thérèse Jacobs-Stewart, M.A., L.P., has been a practicing psychotherapist, meditation teacher, and international consultant for more than thirty-five years. In 2004, she founded Mind Roads Meditation Center, a neighborhood practice center integrating contemplative practices from both East and West and home of the Saint Paul, Minnesota, chapter of Twelve Steps and Mindfulness meetings.

Jacobs-Stewart has studied with Tibetan Buddhist monks in Nepal and India, Carmelite contemplatives in a monastery in Arizona, and the Soto Zen community at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, San Francisco, California.

© 2010 by Thérèse Jacobs-Stewart.
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