Stoicism for Addicts and Alcoholics

Stoicism for Addicts and Alcoholics is an eight-week conversation about how this ancient philosophy can help people recovering from substance abuse. It is not meant to take the place of 12-step programs; rather, the concentration of stocism on acceptance and dealing with our lives as they come to us can meaningfully gaurd against stressors that might lead to a relapse. In that way, stoicism is a complement to other recovery work.

Stoicism teaches the development of self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions. It holds that becoming a clear and unbiased thinker allows one to understand the universal reason (logos). Stoicism's primary aspect involves improving the individual's ethical and moral well-being.

The sick man is "like a dog tied to a cart, and compelled to go wherever it goes." A Stoic amends his will to suit the world and may remain, in the words of Epictetus, "sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and yet happy."

If you’ve seen the movie “Gladiator,” you already know a little about one of the greatest stoics ever, Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (played by Richard Harris). He is known for his promotion of the four virtues of the philosophy—strength, courage, wisdom and temperance—which when executed through seven principles can help anyone live a more peaceful life.

We’ll talk about the four core virtues to prepare our walk through the principles.

No one enjoys contemplating the certainty of death, but facing the inevitable unflinchingly can change the way we view present struggles—encouraging us to do the most knowing our time is finite.

We’ll talk about the necessity and the benefit of acknowledging our mortality, as well as nihilism and absurdism as common responses to the finitude of life.

From Friedrich Nietzsche: "My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different: not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. [We must not] merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—but love it.”

We’ll talk about how to love your fate even if at the moment you despise it.

The contemplated blow falls more easily than the uncontemplated one. “What is quite unlooked for is more crushing in its effect, and unexpectedness adds to the weight of a disaster,” wrote Roman philosopher Seneca. “This is a reason for ensuring that nothing ever takes us by surprise.”

We’ll talk about why considering the bad and being mindful of its potential is different from expecting the bad. Another point of discussion: the toxicity of hope.

Program veterans will recognize this stoic principle in the 12th Step and in much of the literature of recovery: “Revere the gods and look after each other,” wrote Aurelius. “Human beings have been made for the sake of one another. Teach them or endure them.”

What we’ll talk about: Whether we have been designed so by an omniscient power or contain coding to be altruistic deep in our DNA or what Jung called “the collective unconscious,” we seem to do better when we help others do better.

In all that we do, stoicism teaches, we should aim for the most virtuous outcome possible. Trouble is, discerning what good outcomes are is difficult enough; deciding which is the best can be very difficult. No matter. The important thing is to decide to do the right thing.

“Just that you do the right thing,” wrote Aurelius. “The rest doesn’t matter. Cold or warm. Tired or well-rested. Despised or honored. Dying…or busy with other assignments.”

Included in this topic will be a discussion of what it means when we tell ourselves to “do our best.”

Each of has a road before us, and each of us will confront obstacles on it. We get into trouble, however, when we think the obstacle is somehow not part of the road, that it is somehow an interruption of it.

We’ll talk about obstacles and how to be worthy opponents of the foes—animate and inanimate—along the way.

Ego is no more than the sense of oneself. By focusing on it—whether we think too highly or too lowly of ourselves—the true danger is thinking too often of the self, putting it too much in the center of our worldview.

We’ll talk about the differences between ego and the concepts of arrogance and humility, as well as the practical reasons an over emphasis on self can be—and usually is—destructive.

Host or Publisher Joseph Grove