This week, I’d like to talk about forgiveness. What I think of as forgiveness probably differs from yours, because we’re different people. Some things can exist on common ground, and maybe that’s what I aim to discover.

I am a recovering addict, and I believe addiction transcends chemical use, therefore, when an addict puts down the drugs they’re still an addict. Perhaps now worse, since their addiction has no central focus, and is chaotic and spider-webbing in all directions. It might help to think of a drug habit as the addict’s lightening rod; ready to channel the strike of addictive tendencies, and absorb in the usual manner of jails, institutions, and death. These are easy-to-understand outcomes for any addict and for the most part, their families. But what happens when the addict no longer has that channeling device, and the strike of addiction isn’t so obvious, or worse yet, it has become a more socially acceptable behavior.

The ways in which an addict can succumb to their disease of addiction, the effects that stretch out beyond that addict’s literal self, and the horrific ways it affects those close to them are too much to describe in column.

But what I would like to put focus on is how these more subtle versions of one’s addiction can manifest in a behavior, and how that can also do great insidious damage. We can without even realizing it, become the same type of marionettes to our provoking masters as we once were with drugs, by simply trying to do something as simple as practicing a positive change in our lives.

In the world of recovery, and in recovery language, there are sometimes principles that might be practiced in an effort to alter one’s attitude and behavior. When practiced well, and often, they can have magnificent positive effects. However, when practiced haphazardly, the consequences can be devastating.

Case in point: forgiveness is something we often wish to do when it comes to those who have wronged us, offended us, or been more or less than what we wished, wanted, or needed them to be. This attachment is in itself, a selfish and expectational perspective to hold on outward relationships, and is usually related to codependency, another form of addiction.

Nevertheless, when we put ourselves in a position of being the “forgiver,” we may be forgetting our own place in the hierarchy of our personal responsibilities. It is not our place to forgive because it is not our hurt feelings that brings us pain. Our pain comes from the battle between what’s true and what’s expected.

This battle wages on inside of us, in our diseased brain, and will not let up until we address it internally. In matters involving myself, where I feel like it’s me who I must forgive, the same tends to hold true. To wish to forgive implies a previous judgment, which in turn requires me to hold up an expected outcome to a natural truth, however uncomfortable, and find some semblance of peace.

The problem with either of these situations is that I am in a war, an inner turmoil over reality and fantasy, and the only way to overcome it is to just give up, to accept, to surrender to the fact that I cannot change the stupid and the wicked, just move on. I cannot force myself to like, or even love an enemy, but I can wish them peace. The truth is that I cannot be something that I am not, but I can move forward trying new things in order to gain a greater perspective on life, and no matter how I try to strangle the truth into what I wish it could be, I am only me: perfectly fallible, and restricted by gravity.