Why does the mind circle endlessly around one face, one memory, one story? In recovery, I discovered obsession isn’t proof of love, but proof of attachment. And freedom comes not from forgetting, but from surrender and forgiveness. 🌿
If you’re anything like me in early recovery, you know that haunting. The body is sober, but the mind won’t let go. It replays scenes I swore I’d left behind, conversations that never happened, relationships that ended long ago, imagined futures I still wanted to believe in.
This isn’t nostalgia. For the alcoholic, this is the obsession of the mind.
A Restless Traveler in the Mind
The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous puts it plainly: “The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.” (p. 30).
At first, I thought the illusion was only about alcohol, maybe an occasional line of coke. But life sober revealed something far deeper: it wasn’t just the substances I was chasing; I was obsessed with the attachments, the wounds, the fantasies I thought would make me whole. And when they didn’t, all that was left was the weight of guilt and the sting of shame.
The Monkey Mind and the Obsession of the Alcoholic
The phrase “monkey mind” comes from early Buddhism, where the restless mind was compared to a monkey leaping from branch to branch, never still. In Chinese Zen, it was paired with the “idea-horse,” describing how thoughts and desires run wild, pulling us endlessly from one distraction to the next.
When I first read this, I thought: That’s my brain on alcohol, and without it too. Even in sobriety, I could feel my thoughts swinging through the trees of memory, fear, and fantasy. One day, I was obsessed with what I had lost, the next with what I hadn’t yet gained.
Jung gave it another name: autonomous complexes, fragments of psyche with a life of their own. That is exactly how alcoholism felt. My thoughts did not belong to me. They moved through me like wild currents wearing my face, pulling me where they willed. I wasn’t thinking them; they were living me. And I, captive, could do nothing but listen.
Memory as the First Addiction
A Course in Miracles says: “Memory can be used either to hold the past against the present or to be used to release it.” (T-28. I.1).
That truth pierced me. Memory is no faithful recording; it is an edited drama. I remembered wounds as deeper than they were, smiles as brighter than they ever shone. Scenes returned to me not as they happened, but as my mind re-scripted them. I thought my attachment was to a person. I was clinging to the illusion my mind had stitched together, the fantasy of memory, not the truth of life. “I wasn’t attached to the person; I was attached to my edited version of them.”
“Resentment isn’t just dangerous—it’s fatal.”
On page 66, the Big Book gives a piercing truth: “A life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worthwhile. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal.”
It doesn’t soften the blow. Resentment is more than an inconvenience; it is poison to the spirit, a thief of time, and for those who depend on spiritual growth, it is nothing less than fatal.
Alcoholism and The Mirror of the Self
Non-duality reminds us: there is no “other” in the way the self-driven ego insists. The figure who lingers in our minds is often nothing more than a reflection: the resentments, the fears, the harm we caused in chasing what we thought we needed. It is the behavior dressed up as longing: the search for validation, the ache for worth. Yet what we chase in another has always been the echo of separation, of what we’ve lost within ourselves.
The Way Toward Release
We alcoholics cannot think our way into peace. We must surrender.
On page 417, the Big Book offers the line that saved me: “Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.”
With this new awareness, I sat with the obsession instead of running from it. I stopped fighting the storm. Emphasizing a willingness, I whispered: “God, remove from me all the things that are objectionable, grant me release.” Little by little, the grip loosened. The scream of obsession became a whisper, then silence.
As A Course in Miracles teaches: “Forgiveness is the key to happiness.” (W-pI.121.1). The moment I began forgiving, not always the person, but the illness within myself, the weight started to lift.
Here’s the truth I had to face: the person who won’t leave your head isn’t your prison. They’re your mirror. Alcoholism centers in the mind, it lives in the loop of obsession, convincing us that rehearsing the past will change the present one we get there.
Freedom is not in getting there. It’s in seeing through the grasping hand that holds them.
When the hand opens, when we finally let go, we’ll realize: we were free all along.
Closing Reflection
I’ve learned tolerance from the intolerant and kindness from the unkind. Strange teachers, but teachers all the same, and I’d be ungrateful to forget them.
In recovery, we’re students again. We’re learning how to live, really live. The lessons were always there, but I couldn’t see them until I cleared away the obsessions, fears, and destructive habits that ruled me. Now, I try to keep my mind open and my heart willing to understand.
The Program gives me teachers everywhere I look. Some are new friends who show me the way. Others teach me through their mistakes and through my own. Even the faults I notice in others can turn into lessons if I’m willing to look deeper.
Funny thing: in my drinking days, I used to think my school years were the happiest of my life. I thought they were long gone. But the Program has given me that joy back, the joy of learning. And this time, I’m not just learning facts. I’m learning how to live free.
Keep the Faith
Terry
