Flowers In Bloom

Recovering from a major addiction is a long and sometimes frightening process. You often find yourself alone feeling that no one anywhere could possibly understand what you are going through. The yearnings of your mind and your body for your drug of choice–whether that drug is sex, food, an illegal substance, a prescription drug, or alcohol–, becomes so great that every rational thought in your mind is blotted out by the desire for the drug.
It is in this time that you are running from any and everything that scares and hurts you into a vortex. For me, I was trying to deaden the pain of living when I became addicted to Xanax. I was feeling so sad about my life and so lost that I couldn’t fathom a world in which my drug of choice didn’t exist. That drug at that time in my life was the ONLY thing that I believed took away the pain. (Sadly, it never REALLY took the pain away; it merely postponed it.)
During this dark time of addiction, I could not see that the only way to get rid of the pain was to quit taking the drugs and face the pain, to confront it directly.
What I learned in the process was that, sometimes the only way to put out a fire is to walk through the fire first. And so I did. I still have the marks and scars on my psychological body to show what I went through, but I wear them proudly.
Not long after I began recovery, I discovered a book by renowned Buddhist author Thich Nhat Hanh entitled NO DEATH, NO FEAR. In this extraordinary book, he talks about how at times during winter he would walk through his garden and see the empty bushes without flowers on them. He wondered if they were still there, and why they were hiding. But when springtime came, they bloomed out gloriously once more. He came to the beautiful conclusion that we as human beings are like those flowers. We have a season and a time for all things. Nature dictates that winter is not the time for the flowers to manifest. It is only in spring when they show themselves in all their beauty. Spring is the time for them to manifest their beauty.
Like the flowers and all the plants and trees in nature, we too must follow the patterns and seasons of our lives. When we are addicted, we are in the winter of our lives and we are in darkness. We are not capable of manifestation–of greater life or beauty–in such a time. But when we see the darkness for what it is and the time comes when we want to contribute to the world again–to love again, to be free again–then winter turns to spring and we manifest like the freshest cherry blossoms or new roses on the vine.
May you find your moment to manifest now. May you be filled with peace and understanding.