Upon hearing Britney Spears had left rehab early for the second time this week, I began leafing through some of the books that had helped me during my own battle with drugs and alcohol. One of those books is ”Further Along The Road Less Traveled” by Scott Peck.
In chapter one and page nineteen, the author makes the following analysis:
“When we were banished from paradise, we were banished forever. We can never go back to Eden. If you remember the story, the way is barred by cherubims and a flaming sword. We cannot go back. We can only go forward.
To go back to Eden would be like trying to return to our mother’s womb, to infancy. Since we cannot go back to the womb or infancy, we must grow up. We can only go forward through the desert of life, making our way painfully over parched and barren ground into increasingly deeper levels of consciousness.
This is an extremely important truth because a great deal of human psychopathology, including the abuse of drugs, arises out of an attempt to get back to Eden. At cocktail parties we tend to need at least that one drink to help diminish our self-consciousness, to diminish our shyness. It works, right? And if we get just the right amount of pot or coke or some combination thereof, for a few minutes or for a few hours we may regain temporarily that lost sense of oneness with the universe. We may recapture that deliciously warm and fuzzy sense of being one with nature again.
Of course, the feeling never lasts very long and the price usually isn’t worth it. So the myth is true. We really cannot go back to Eden. We must go forward through the desert. But that journey is hard and consciousness often painful. And so most people stop their journey as quickly as they can. They stay their rather than go forward thought the painful desert, which is filled with cactus-es and thorns and sharp rocks.”
There is a principle that underlies the above paragraph that Dr. Peck lays out in his book, “The Road Less Traveled.” It is that all psychosis and neurosis are caused by an attempt to avoid pain (my paraphrase). Considering the fact that Ms. Spears has recently gone through a divorce and is facing an ugly custody battle, her drug abuse is rooted in a desire to avoid the pain of those circumstances. The fact that she left rehab early is further evidence that she trying to duck the painful process of getting clean.
“Life is difficult. Deal with it.” Scott Peck
“In this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” Jesus Christ
