May 22, 2011
A Failure of Intimacy 0
Once I read in a book that alcoholism has it roots in a childhood failure of intimacy. I am sober alcoholic my self and somehow that stroke a string inside but I couldn’t really grasp it more then it felt true. What got me on the hook for drinking was surely this feeling of intimacy with life that came with being drunk. The wall of alienation between me and the world shattered and I felt alive and intimate. A wonderful feeling that usually only arrived under two circumstances, being drunk or being out at sea. No wonder I became an alcoholic working at sea, a drunken sailor. Which ended up in causing the same pain to my loved ones as I had experienced my self as a child.
Today I experience this intimacy with existence in a natural way. What I longed so deeply for is here now. It was always here but back then it was only by the chemical relaxation of alcohol that I could feel it. It is here as my self without any sense of separation. The search came to a stop when I drunk the true essence of me beyond any definitions. What I longed for was my self and I was always here. Not as someone or something in particular, simply this presence, this openness, this hereness without a centre.
Still, there is dysfunctional patterns around intimacy that plays out. One I noticed lately is the play between aggression and intimacy with people. For instance I could speak my truth in a mail to someone, then comes fear of being rejected, then aggression and frustration, projections and blame. All seems driven by the fear of loosing connection, to be rejected, the pain of separation and somehow this is connected to speaking my truth, a pendulum between being a rebel and seeking intimacy. Who knows, maybe failures of intimacy are behind most of people’s aggressions, maybe even violence and wars. The remedy for me is to stay connected with “my enemy”, to stay intimate, no matter what feelings arise. To burn the gap of separation in the fierce fire of intimacy. The rough love of existence that seeks intimacy in what ever is.
… or as David Whyte puts it in his poem “Self Portait”:
It doesn’t interest me if there is one God
Or many gods.
I want to know if you belong — or feel abandoned;
If you know despair
Or can see it in others.
I want to know
If you are prepared to live in the world
With its harsh need to change you;
If you can look back with firm eyes
Saying “this is where I stand.”
I want to know if you know how to melt
Into that fierce heat of living
Falling toward the center of your longing.
I want to know if you are willing
To live day by day
With the consequence of love
And the bitter unwanted passion
Of your sure defeat.
I have been told
In that fierce embrace
Even the gods
Speak of God.
