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Sister Karen is a highly intelligent, educated, and accomplished woman. She is recognized as an expert and a leader in education and healthcare. She stays so busy and has achieved so much that she seems to have a touch of workaholism as well as a tendency to define herself not by who she is, but by what she does. She is also a self-reliant woman who does not find it easy to ask for or accept help. Doing and giving are easier for her than receiving.
As a young sister, Sister Karen was sexually abused. She confronted the abuse forthrightly, and she did not hide the experience from friends or her sisters in community. She worked with a therapist to deal with the trauma. However, the experience still left her with deep pain, and she became more and more dependent on alcohol to numb the pain. At the encouragement of her community, she enters a treatment program.
In treatment, Sister Karen works extensively with a spiritual integrator in addition to other therapies. Much of her recovery journey is accepting that she is good, worthy, valued, and loved—not just for what she does, but for who she is. This is quite a challenge for someone who is very sensitive to rejection.
In her prayer life, there is anger at God that she is reluctant to admit fully. She goes through the motions of a prayer life in community, but her private prayer is nearly nonexistent. Sister Karen tends to be very private, not easily sharing the depths of her spiritual life, although it has clearly been very deep at earlier points in her life. Her spiritual integrator tries to point to the grace that is evident in her story, but Sister Karen does not readily do that herself.
Karen’s affective experience in prayer has been numbed by alcohol for a long time, and the return of that affective experience takes time. In fact, it is ongoing for Karen. Her spiritual challenge is to focus more on her private, interior prayer, as avoiding it has been a way of keeping her alcohol use compartmentalized and separated from her spiritual life. In that stillness and silence, she can confront the fact that she has been hiding from God. Even though it is difficult, especially at first, she is willing to keep going through the motions, which speaks to her strength and determination.
When someone lets go of an attachment, something they have been clinging to as a way to cope, they can experience what feels like a an empty space within. Karen’s spiritual integrator reminds her that God is there, even in what can feel like a void. This is not to diminish her need for therapy to deal with the trauma, or her need for the support of an Alcoholics Anonymous group. Her spiritual integrator’s role is to hold out the light of hope, the light of God’s love, and to help her to see that alcoholism does not have to define her. It is not who she is.
Over time, Karen becomes more expressive of her emotions. A spiritual life that has been somewhat frozen begins to crack and thaw. She shares that it is difficult to hear positive things about herself apart from her achievements. It is an ongoing challenge to accept and value herself for who she is, not just what she has done. It becomes easier as she comes to believe that God sees her that way.
Friendships formed in treatment remind her that people love and accept her for who she is. She reflects on a comment by another person in the community that alcoholism is a gift for which he is grateful. Karen does not see alcoholism as a gift, but she has found that grace can be experience in its acceptance. She finds one of the AA prayers especially meaningful:
God, I offer myself to You, to build with me and to do with me as You will. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do your will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of your power, your love, and your way of life. AMEN.
For confidentiality, reasons, names, identifying data, and other details of treatment have been altered.
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