Alan Watts and alcoholism...

Of all my posts, the only ones that have generated any real interest pertain to Alan Watts. He has truly left a legacy in his writings, still reaching people today. What an awesome thing. I didn't mean to tarnish his work by what I've written about his alcoholism. I write that more for the cult of personality that surrounds him than the man himself who I did not know.

That being said, I have been an alcoholic. I am not untouched by his struggles. I've been addicted to many, many things through the years. At some point even religion, or the intellectualization of it, became an addiction. It is only within the past few years that I've sourced my addictions at the root.

It is a disease, yes, but by and large I don't believe to can be attributed solely to chemical means. I don't believe it to be expressly genetic though perhaps genes do play a role, though not as large a role as the environment of one whose parents are alcoholics. I learned the behaviour. I found a release, a socially acceptable on at that, for my issues.

It became my release, my voice, my crutch, my personality, my identity. So too other addictions, though less so as I became aware of my addictions and attached guilt and shame to them which became a convoluted mess of a personality.

So I feel for Alan Watts and those caught in the throes of addictions, whatever kind they may be.

Though the Dao provided me with some relief from these addictions, it never reached the source. Perhaps I did not dive in deep enough or let go enough or spend as much time as I should have in working it. Ditto Zen. Though my background is in these paths and even much of my worldview today is influenced by this mode of being, it was in Christ that I finally reached the source of my addictions.

And it was in Christ that I was able to get under it and cut if off at the source. This doesn't mean it doesn't flair up from time to time. It means that I am able to recognize it and can find solace and comfort in God through Christ. This didn't come easy. In fact, for almost ten years I fought it in as many ways as I could before I learned to begin to surrender.

I didn't want something someone else had told me to believe, what some organizational body had told me I need to believe. I wanted no interference from scholars, teachers, theologians, preachers or any other intermediaries. I wanted experiential knowledge of truth, and not just the hyperemotionalism that passes for truth in far too many churches.

I wanted to know it in the depths of my being.

And this caused a roadblock as it was a selfish act. I wanted to know it all, to possess it, to be right so no one could tell me I was wrong. I wanted a response to everyone and everything. I wanted absolute certainty backed with reasons I could provide, reasons other than the seemingly irrational "faith" and "belief".

But in the end I have learned that it is only after belief, only after faith, that the proof actually comes. And when it comes it is not always an intellectual certainty, though it is not anti-intellectual, but it is a gut level certainty that changes one's understanding of things and ultimately changes my very being.

I am truly working on being re-created, on becoming a purveyor of resurrection here on earth, working at resurrecting the dead bodies of situations, circumstances and relationships.