When Awakening Isn’t Enough
Navigating the Tug-of-War Between Spirit and Self in Recovery
There’s a statement on page 58 of the Big Book that “alcohol is cunning, baffling, and powerful.” But anyone who’s lived through alcoholism knows those words barely scratch the surface. The experience of active addiction is a kind of spiritual suffocation, like being locked in a room with no windows, only to discover the key was always in your pocket.
This isn’t just about drinking or using. It’s about the obsessive mind that can’t stop thinking. It’s the restless urge of self-loathing and shame that simmers beneath the surface. And even when we get clean, when the bottles are gone, and the substances are no longer in our system, that mental obsession with resentment and fear can hang around like an echo from the past, haunting our present.
This article is for those of us who have had a spiritual awakening and still struggle. Those who’ve experienced glimpses of freedom, only to be pulled back by old compulsions, lingering pain, or the mind’s relentless chatter. It’s for those caught in the space between transcendence and obsessive behavior, between serenity and suffering.
I was in recovery for several years. My life expanded dramatically as a result of the progress I made through recovery. Through that expansion, I discovered The Course in Miracles. And what I found felt like the deeper solution I had been seeking all along in recovery. So, I drifted away from the recovery rooms, not out of resentment or rejection, but because the conversations in meetings started revolving too much around the identity of this false self, and that no longer resonated with me. I had tapped into something that seemed to bring tremendous freedom.
Still, even after the awakening, I noticed the mental obsession would creep back in at times. That’s the paradox I kept wrestling with: what's the relationship between spiritual awakening and the recovery rooms? Do we need both? Perhaps not for everyone, but in my experience, it’s essential to acknowledge that we do. Because while we can surrender to Spirit what belongs to Spirit, we also have to deal with the action figure, this very human self, where the struggles still play out. Alcoholism and addiction aren't just spiritual voids; they’re illnesses of both mind and body, showing up in our thoughts, our cravings, and the way we live. Awakening offers perspective, but recovery offers structure, and I’ve come to see how both are necessary on this path.
This body-mind, what I sometimes call the action figure, still struggles with things like food or other compulsive behaviors. A Course in Miracles speaks to the unreality of the dream, but the action figure suffers inside that dream. That’s where the contradiction shows up. Many people assume that a spiritual awakening will fix everything: depression, addiction, trauma, but that’s a dangerous assumption. I’ve seen people die holding onto that belief. The Course offers real freedom, no doubt, but it doesn’t replace the hands-on tools that recovery provides to deal with behavior on the ground level. Some things do shift effortlessly through awakening. But because of the nature of this illness, some things don’t. And for those areas, we need something more grounded, a consistent, daily way of living that helps us walk through life sober and sane.
That’s why, even after awakening, I still work with others and keep showing up to meetings. It’s not about the identity talk for me anymore; it’s about the loving presence, the shared conscience, that sense that something sacred moves through the room. Meetings have a solid batting average: most people leave feeling lighter than when they walked in. And that’s rare, especially in a world crowded with strip malls and empty promises.
The Twelve Step recovery community doesn’t try to dismantle the action figure; it shifts the spotlight away from it. It reminds me that the action figure, this body, and personality don’t need to take up the whole screen. And when it’s struggling, it only makes sense to seek help where help is offered. A Course in Miracles doesn’t disqualify me from doing that. Just like I wouldn’t try to sit through a fire quoting philosophy, I’d grab a bucket and put the fire out. That’s what I call practical wisdom.
There's never truly been a 'you'; there's just been seeing and experiencing. The sense of being 'someone' was always a mental construct, a reaction that made it seem like there was a central self. Addiction, in that sense, also depends on this illusion. It needs a 'you' to attach to, and that 'you' needs the addiction. It’s a loop.
So perhaps the first addiction wasn’t to substances at all but the mind’s addiction to the idea of being a separate self. That’s the original identification. And from that, everything else grew.
Even time behaves differently depending on our state. At a job we hate, time drags. Doing something we love, time flies. That shows time is just part of the dream; it reflects the state of the human condition, not some objective clock.
We’re not here to rise above the action figure, we’re here to take care of it. To treat our minds and bodies with the same compassion that our spirits have been longing for all along. Awakening is beautiful, but without a way of living, without a design for spiritual maintenance, it can leave us floating without an anchor.
“You are not at peace because you are not fulfilling your function. God gave you a very lofty function that you are not meeting.”
— A Course in Miracles, T-7. VI. 10:1-5
That line hits hard for many of us in recovery. It reminds us that awakening isn’t the end, it’s an invitation. An invitation to show up, to serve, to participate in life in a way that’s grounded in love, humility, and presence. It’s not just about waking up; it’s about living awake.
So, keep showing up. Keep helping others. Keep going to meetings, not because you're broken, but because you're human. In a world that promises quick fixes and shallow highs, recovery offers something rare: an honest path home.
Because in the end, it’s not about escaping the dream. It’s about waking up inside it—with eyes open, heart surrendered, and feet firmly on the ground.
Keep the Faith
