First, the hopeless hole is all too common. We all have our pits, our dungeons of despair. It's not limited to any one group of people because suffering is one of the common denominators of the human experience. Secondly, no matter how hopeless it may seem, it's not. Others have gotten out of their holes, some after digging them much deeper than they were at the start, and so can you. Third, the idea is a common one that we are to help each other and that no one who hasn't been in our shoes will really care enough, understand enough and be able to help us from our hole. Seriously, we get in that mindset. Only another alcoholic can help and alcoholic. Only a rape survivor can really help someone who has been raped. Only a soldier who has been to battle can help the man who can't escape the war.
Before I go any further there, let's revisit that second thing. It's important. You can get out of that hole you're in. I don't care if it's chemical, emotional, habitual, or what. You are not doomed to spend the rest of your life in the dungeon looking up from the bottom of the pit watching other people pass by and wondering why they can be free from the bondage that keeps you in the hole and is slowly killing you. I don't care if you were born in the hole, tricked into a trap and fell into the hole, slipped and fell in or jumped in gleefully and with a shovel to make it roomier and deeper. How ever you got into your hole, and whatever the nature of your hole, there is a way out. It isn't hopeless.
I want to get this very clear. No matter if you've lived in your hole so long you can't remember what it feels like to be free, or even if you never have been free. No matter how many times you've tried to climb out and failed. Regardless of if you have been set free from the hole and jumped back in of your own free will and don't deserve to be anywhere else but the bottom of that hole, you don't have to stay in there any longer. It doesn't matter who you are or what you've done or why you're in the hole. The hopeless hole has never been the only option.
But here's the thing, the thing the parable of the pit conveys that is most certainly truth. You can't get yourself out. You might climb close to freedom, but you'll fall or, tired of climbing, choose to drop back down. No matter how we would wish to be self sufficient, no matter how hard we try, we can't free ourselves from the holes of hopelessness. Not the ones we are chained in. We can't set ourselves free from our bondage. We need help. With help there is hope. Without help there is no hope.
But where does our help come from? What kind of help is more than false hope? Basically, there are two kinds of help we can choose to look for or ask for. Human help and non-human help. Personally, I tried non-human help first, but I did it in a not-so-good, OK, the wrong way. I asked God for help while refusing to believe that He wanted to help me, cared about me or that I would receive His help. Because of this, I always came at it from the wrong way, either trying to manipulate, trick or bargain with God for His help, Lord, if you will just help me, get me out of this, I won't ever... I promise I will do.... The 911 emergency prayer style is not unique to me, and usually has false assurances and promises of change in exchange for deliverance because we all know that we don't deserve to be helped, that even if it's not our fault that we found ourselves in the hole, we do, at least somewhat, deserve to be there.
A variation on the above is the lie of doing our part. God helps those who help themselves, right? Wrong. But we believe that bogus idea. So, instead of making false promises, that we may actually mean but know we can't keep, to God, we try to fulfill our part of the bargain first. If I do enough to try to free myself and change myself, if I show the willingness to do everything that I can do, and that I really mean it this time and will be as good as I can be, work as hard as I ever have, harder, whatever, then, God will help me, then I will earn His attention, care, favor and deliverance. Neither of these options work well with God, because it's trying to make a deal with a God that doesn't exist.
So, if you're like me, when the above, either of both, fails we look for human help. This is where it really does help to have someone who has been in your particular brand of handcuffs. Not because it's true that no one else can care. Not that it is true that no one else can produce the key. But because we've been in the muck and mire in our hole so long we've got mud clogging up our ears, and we often won't bother trying to clear the blockage so that we can listen to anyone who either isn't in the hole with us or still shows some of the stain and scaring from being there before us.
We need help from other people. We are called to love God and love others, and that means that we are all, each and every one of us, called to hold out a helping hand to our fellows in their holes, especially those of us who have been freed from our own holes. What we have been given, freedom from our captivity, we are to freely give. But make no mistake here, whether you are still in your hole and in need of help, or if you have been freed and want to help others. Humanity is not enough. If you're an alcoholic, another alcoholic can not free you from your hole any more than you can. If you are a soldier with PTSD, another broken soldier can not heal your mind. Regardless of the type of hole or the reason for it, another person, even a person who has walked your path, can not free you, heal you or restore you. Only God can do that.
Wait, you said God didn't exist. Seriously? That's not what I said. What I said is the God that doesn't really care and demands that we prove ourselves or earn His attention and help doesn't exist. God loves you, and God doesn't help those who help themselves. God helps those who know that they can't help themselves and that their only hope is for Him to help them out of love. Because we don't deserve it and never will. We deserve the rejection and the disregard and the despair. But He offers us love and mercy instead. Because He is good.
And the people who truly help, the fellow addicts/alcoholics/trauma survivors/prisoners that can help are not the ones who try to free, heal and restore others. They are not ones who, even out of love, try to break our chains. They are the ones who simply say and show that they have been in chains too (they really don't have to be the exact same brand) and know that there is a key. They don't get us out of the hole. They show the way to the One who can.
The first 12-Step book, sometimes called the Big Book, has this very important passage:
Lack of power, that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves. Obviously. But where and how were we to find this Power?
Well, that's exactly what this book is about. Its main object is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself which will solve your problem. That means we have written a book which we believe to be spiritual as well as moral. And it means, of course, that we are going to talk about God....
We can't set ourselves free, keep ourselves free, heal ourselves or restore our own lives. No other human being can do that for us, and we can't do it for anyone else. But God can and will if He is sought. There is hope from the bottom of the hopeless hole. It is in the God who loves you as you are, not as you should be, but loves you enough not to leave you messed up and stuck in the muck. And those of us who have found the truth of the love of God for us and for others are called to give away what we have found. We should indeed hold up the key for all who might want it. We should jump in the hole with the hopeless and trapped and point the way out. But don't ever fall for the lie that we are doing the freeing, healing and restoring. The only thing we can do that will help in any real and lasting way is to show the solution, to hold up the key, to point to the light and the path to freedom. All of those are found in what Jesus did for us. None of us deserve it. None of us can earn it. None of us have to bargain for it. None of us will be denied it if we want it. All of us are loved by Jesus, and He is offering to deliver us from our hopeless holes.
The story of a chronic relapsing alcoholic addict who fell into a hole and how he found his way out of a seemingly hopeless situation
A hopeless chronic relapsing alcoholic addict had fallen into a hole and could not find a way out. Friends and family heard the alcoholic addict crying out for help in a sincere and despairing appeal, "I cannot go on like this! I have everything to live for! I must stop, but I cannot! You must help me!" So they offered the addict "frothy emotional appeals," bailed the addict out of trouble and gave the addict a ladder to climb out of the hole with, but the chronic relapser sold it to finance the next spree only to realize afterwards that the hole was now deeper than ever!
A doctor who was walking by heard the alcoholic addict crying out for help, stopping the doctor said, "Here, take these pills, it will relieve your pain." The doctor offered the addict methadone, suboxene, and a whole plethora of anti-depressants. The alcoholic addict took the pills and said thanks, but when the prescription ran out the pills ran out and the pain came back and the addict realized that he was still stuck in the hole.
A religious person happened to be strolling by and hearing the addict calling out for help stopped and gave the addict scripture, replying, read this scripture while I say a prayer for you." The addict read the scripture while the religious person prayed, but it the help was all faith and no works and the addict realized he was still stuck in the hole.
A renowned psychiatrist walked by and heard the addict pleading for help. He stopped and said, "How did you find yourself in that hole? Were you born there? Are your parents to blame? Tell me about yourself and your life in that hole, it will alleviate your sense of loneliness." So the addict talked with the psychiatrist for approximately an hour, then the psychiatrist said he had to leave, but he would come back next week. The addict thanked the psychiatrist for his time even though he was still stuck in his hole.
Finally a 'recovered' alcoholic addict happened to be passing by and heard the poor man's cries for help. Right away, the recovered alcoholic addict jumped into the hole with him. The suffering alcoholic addict said, "Why did you do that? Now we're both stuck here in this god forsaken hole!" But the recovered alcoholic addict said with a twinkle in his eye, "It's okay brother, I've been here before; I know the way out!"
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