WEEKLY MEDITATION
Strength does not come from physical strength. It comes from an indomitable will.
-Mahatma Gandhi
Indomitable is defined as, “impossible to subdue or defeat.” As important as it might be to apply this description to one’s determination to overcome addiction, it is first important to recognize the ways in which our addictions were, in themselves, indomitable. Addictions serve important emotional purposes, and because the biological mechanics of addiction employ neurological changes and can include physiological dependence, it takes a great degree of commitment to break them. But the fundamental emotional goals need not change. The underlying goal of addiction is fulfillment and an experience of connectedness and belonging—and this will need to remain the goal if successful recovery is to take place. Recovery is ultimately the process of reassigning our indomitable will from one path to another. This is the reason it is rarely enough to simply stop the substances or behaviors that manifest as our addictions. If they represent real addiction, we must follow any plans of abstinence with a commitment to developing a will indomitable enough to support a new life, one that nurtures and heals the very parts of ourselves that we inadvertently tended to with our addictions.
