B2. May 19 – 25, 2011. Melody Beattie Speaks About Alcoholism and. Recovery.
BY MARTHA ROSENBERG. Self-help writing pioneer Melody. Beattie's 1987 ...
B2 May 19 – 25, 2011
Arts & Culture
THE ANTIDOTE: Classic Poetry For Modern Life
A Reading of ‘The Poet in the Clouds’ by Samuel Taylor Coleridge BY CHRISTOPHER NIELD The Poet in the Clouds O! It is pleasant, with a heart at ease, Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies, To make the shifting clouds be what you please, Or let the easily persuaded eyes Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould Of a friend’s fancy; or with head bent low And cheek aslant see rivers flow of gold ‘Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land! Or list’ning to the tide, with closed sight, Be that blind bard, who on the Chian strand By those deep sounds possessed with inward light, Beheld The Iliad and The Odyssey Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
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ho hasn’t gazed at the shifting clouds above and seen a flurry of shapes emerge from nowhere? An elephant, a hat, a flying saucer and an elusive Cheshire cat smile all tumble and turn into each other, before disappearing into the air. In Coleridge’s sonnet, the best time for watching the clouds is “after sunset, or by moonlight skies.” When light recedes and the world blurs, the imagination has the power to take over. As the outer world wanes, so the inner world waxes. Our fantasies and whims manifest before us. If we are looking for a sign, we find one. Yet our “easily persuaded eyes” learn to see the clouds through the eyes of a friend too. Our minds commune together as we dream with our eyes wide open. As the poem develops, our perspective shifts, so with “head bent low” we see “rivers flow of gold.” Are we looking at a stream in late evening, reflecting the deep amber gold of sunset, or are we still gazing at the sky? The “crimson banks” could be made of grass, water, or cloud. The earth and the sky seem to reflect each other. For a moment, we float in a world without any high or low. From this strange vantage point, we travel “from mount to mount.” We have become shamans, striding among the Olympian gods. We are in “Cloudland,” where fairy tales, myths,
and the silliest whimsy all appear to gather and disperse. As the sonnet draws to a conclusion, our attention moves from the clouds to the sea. We move from the faculty of sight to the faculty of hearing. We move from the pleasures of lazy, freewheeling fun to the abiding achievement of genius. If we walk by the shore, close our eyes, and listen to the sea, we become one with the “blind bard” on the “Chian strand.” This refers to Homer, the poet who was born, as far as we can tell, on the Greek island of Chios more than two millennia ago. He was inspired by the same “deep sounds” of the waves—deep as the soul itself. Blind, Homer “beheld” his two epic poems “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey,” which tell the story of the Trojan War, in all of its heroism and horror. The word “beheld” implies that these works were somehow given to him, fully formed. This view of creativity reminds me of Michelangelo’s startling statement: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” One of the most charming features of the poem is the way Coleridge draws a connection between the wispiest daydream and the greatest literary masterpiece. That connection is the “gorgeous land” of the imagination. It is the imagination that draws beautiful forms from chaos. It is that shared gift that binds us together in one family of readers and which binds us, right now, to the distant past. Many of us are baffled by poetry, though none of us have any difficulty finding a face in the clouds. Yet perhaps the two activities are not that far apart. Confronted by a poem, we should allow our “easily persuaded eyes” to skim across the mysterious, cloudy words and let their “deep sounds” speak to us in silence. For a few moments, we need to forget about being right or wrong and recover our sense of playfulness. We should allow ourselves the freedom to see whatever “quaint likeness” we fancy in the poem and ask our friends what they notice too. In conversation and in solitude, we learn to hear the “voiceful sea”: the collective unconscious of humanity that becomes conscious through art. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) was an English poet, a Romantic, literary critic, and philosopher. Christopher Nield is a poet living in London.
Melody Beattie Speaks About Alcoholism and Recovery BY MARTHA ROSENBERG Self-help writing pioneer Melody Beattie’s 1987 Hazelden book “Codependent No More” has been compared to the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous for articulating a malady that affected millions of people for the first time and pointing them toward recovery. I interviewed Beattie about her new book, “Codependent No More Workbook” and asked her how it differs from other self-help books. Martha Rosenberg: You stress in your new book that recovery in the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is very different from recovery from codependence in groups like Codependents Anonymous
(CODA.) Melody Beattie: Alcoholics have usually led pretty self-centered lives and early in recovery they are told to start trying to be less selfish and help others which of course is the twelfth step. But codependents have often been “giving” their whole lives or so they think. In fact the joke goes that you can’t kill yourself if you’re codependent because too many people need you. Martha Rosenberg: So “sponsorship” risks enacting the very codependent behaviors that brought you into recovery? Melody Beattie: We can recreate
our original families! Sponsors can help compulsively and for the wrong reasons and sponsees can accept help instead of finding their own inner voice they can trust. Another danger is rigid thinking—the so-called “Back Belt” in codependence recovery where you’re afraid if you give in a little to another person, you’ll slip back into your disease. Martha Rosenberg: Isn’t the admission of powerlessness also different between the two groups? Melody Beattie: It’s usually easier for someone in AA to say, “that was crazy,” when they totaled their car, lost their job and ended
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up in jail. But codependents can look pretty good by comparison. It’s hard to give up the self-esteem connected to being codependent and appearing “right” which is probably a survival behavior learned from growing up in a crazy family. It feels like you will actually disappear. Martha Rosenberg: It’s pretty clear whether or not you’ve had a drink today and you can start counting the days. What does the codependent give up? Melody Beattie: Instead of powerlessness over alcohol, the powerless is over how hard we have been on ourselves. How we haven’t loved or trusted ourselves or spoken up for ourselves. It often happens as an epiphany or moment of clarity where you realize you’re pointing the finger at someone else or you’re ready to finally start taking care of yourself. My own moment happened when I had been married for a year but we hadn’t been able to take a honeymoon or even a trip yet. One day my husband said he wanted to go to Vegas by himself and asked if it was okay with me. I felt hurt and betrayed but I devalued those feelings and said to my husband, who was a recovering alcoholic, “It’s okay but promise me you won’t drink.” Martha Rosenberg: In the Codependent No More Workbook you write that what makes an act codependent is not the act itself but the emotions behind it. Can you give an example? Melody Beattie: I gave three years of my life to take care of my dying mother who had Alzheimer’s disease. Being there for her every need for three years might have looked codependent on the surface but it wasn’t because it was what I wanted to do. Despite the rocky road we had together,
COURTESY OF MELODY BEATTIE
I wanted her to know what it felt like to be really loved. And our time together at the end of her life closed the circle for us. I am now writing a screenplay based on how we were able to heal in the end. Martha Rosenberg: In the introduction of the Codependent No More Workbook, you mention that it can be helpful to Double Winners. That’s a new term in recovery. Melody Beattie: Ten years into my alcohol sobriety I was a counselor and I had been assigned to work with spouses of alcoholics. No one really knew what to do with them and they were not held in high regard. Meanwhile, I complained so vociferously to my neighbor about my husband’s drinking she suggested I go to counseling and I said, like millions before me, “I’m not the one doing anything wrong.” Well I finally ended up at an Alanon meeting and I was quick to tell them I wasn’t “like them”-- that I was an alcoholic. “So, you’re a double winner,” said the leader of the group which was the first time I heard the term. Martha Rosenberg: What other changes have you seen in the codependent recovery movement? Melody Beattie: Well, 20 years ago codependents didn’t have the option of treating their codependence with all the psychoactive drugs available and advertised today. People with real psychiatric diseases may need them but it’s really easy for recovery people to self-medicate emotions away. Codependents say their emotions are dulled or delayed on these drugs—and it’s like they’re in a different time zone altogether. Martha Rosenberg: You also say too many codependents have attended meetings for years or
Ten years into my alcohol sobriety I was a counselor and I had been assigned to work with spouses of alcoholics. No one really knew what to do with them and they were not held in high regard. MELODY BEATTIE
decades and even had a sponsor but are not recovering. Melody Beattie: Yes, they’re not working the steps. The steps are like cleaning house and giving ourselves a wonderful new place to live. I was never able fix myself on my own. But when you make the smallest movement toward the steps, the universe brings you the answers!
