Guest Blogger and long-time Council friend, Bob W. presents Part 37 of a series dealing with Alcoholism and Addiction from a Mystical, Mythological Perspective, reflecting Bob’s scholarly work as a Ph.D. in mythological studies.

The story of Homer’s Odyssey, to which we keep returning as a classic Hero’s Journey, ends with Odysseus finally back in Ithaca reunited with his family.  He has traveled all over the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas in a ten year quest to get here, suffering all kinds of ills, some incredibly gruesome, but many of his own making.  His long journey to get home has caused many to believe that he is dead and, as a result, his Kingdom on Ithaca has been overrun by young men seeking to convince his wife, Penelope, to recognize that as fact and marry one of them, so that he could become King.

These men, called the Suitors in the Story, occupy a significant part of the Tale.  Their activities in Odysseus’ Palace over the last year of the Story, begin to turn ugly as they abuse the hospitality of Penelope and engage in long bouts of consumptive behavior with food, wine and the handmaidens of the Palace.  Odysseus’ return to Ithaca, in the final elements of the Story, leads him to plan and then execute a complete slaughter of these Suitors to regain his rightful place as King.

The place of these Suitors has always intrigued me. What might they symbolize, mythologically, in the Story? It seems that they represent much of what was unacceptable in the ethos of ancient Greece of the time.  They lacked a fundamental sense of right behavior, abusing the hospitality of Penelope and her household, consuming her goods and possessions beyond any sense of decorum, and abusing the members of her household ad infinitum. They were just really bad actors, maybe not unlike all of us as we acted out in the heights of our disease.

I have come to believe that, to get sober, something inside of us has to die, at least metaphorically speaking.  Some element of our addictive selves must come to a decisive end, for us to gain Sobriety and maintain a sober state in our ongoing life. So maybe this is what we can capture from this part of the Odyssey, the need for Odysseus to engage in a brutal battle with all the elements of the wicked side of his Kingdom is mirroring what we must do in our pursuit of Sobriety.  It easily conveys to many of us the need to control, maybe destroy, through a rigorous working of the Steps, those parts of us that could re-ignite the worst elements of our disease.  Our future in the Sunlight of the Spirit only happens, and stays alive then, when the “suitors” in us are long since dead.

Guest Blogger and long-time Council friend, Bob W. presents Part 36 of a series dealing with Alcoholism and Addiction from a Mystical, Mythological Perspective, reflecting Bob’s scholarly work as a Ph.D. in mythological studies.

In 1993, comedian Bill Murray stared in a film called Groundhog Day. It is about a fictitious Pittsburgh TV weatherman, Phil Conners, who is sent to cover the events of Groundhog Day, Feb 2, in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, northeast of Pittsburgh.  Punxsutawney is the actual site of an annual event where a real-live groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil either sees his shadow or doesn’t on that day, an event which signals the remaining duration of winter. Conners is a crass, self-absorbed, obnoxious character whom no one likes and who resents horribly that he has to perform such a mundane task as traveling to Punxsutawney and covering the Groundhog Day Festival.

In the process of performing his duties, he insults and abuses everyone and tries to flee the town as fast as he can after the Festival.  A snowstorm makes that impossible so he must stay over.  But he wakes up the next day to find that it is still Feb 2…and he proceeds to re-live that same day over and over and over…every day being Feb 2 with the same things happening, and  he, and only he, being conscious of the repetition.  As it sinks in what is happening, he realizes that there are no repercussions to whatever he does because all the tomorrows will never come. He can do whatever suits him, even things that would otherwise have severe consequences.  He seduces women, steals money, and disrupts the festival.  Despair sets in and he kills himself, over and over.  Each event in such behavior just keeps happening and he wakes up each day starting completely over.  In typical Bill Murray madcap fashion, it is also hilariously funny…but, for this alcoholic it also conjures up a life in the diseases of addiction, doing the same ugly things over and over fantasying that somehow there will be different outcomes.

Finally, the pathos of some of the things Conners experiences, the trauma he sees in some people’s lives and his inability to fix some fundamental wrongs, has a startling effect…he begins to change.  He uses the fact of his recurring Feb 2 to adopt a new view and an alternative pattern of behavior.  He begins to care and the profound changes in his attitude and behavior have some startling impacts on the community.  After a particularly poignant evening, he wakes up the next day and it is finally Feb 3.  He is overcome with joy.

For me this story conveys much of what we experience in our life in our diseases and our dramatic shift to sobriety.  Once we realize what is happening, once we accept the uselessness of our constant bad behavior, once we surrender to the presence of a higher power in our lives, things begin to change…and our future suddenly takes on a brightness that is profoundly joyful.