In the various recovery communities, there is an operating principle that a person with lived experience of the problem (e.g. addiction, abuse, trauma) is better able to understand, empathize, and guide other people with the same problem toward recovery. A person might think that this relates solely to an intellectual understanding of the experience of the problem and recovery, something like: “I understand you because I have had the same experience, and because of that I am better able to guide you.” But there is something else involved well beyond that.
The Ladder
When a person gets out of small pitfalls in life, they usually have a little gratitude that only possibly shows up as gratitude and love in the rest of their day. But when a person gets out of a BIG deep dark hole in their life, they usually have A LOT of gratitude and A LOT of love within them as a result of their passage out of that hole. Maybe its because some kind of love is always the ladder out of even the deepest hole, and so when you get out of the hole, you also get to keep the love that was your ladder and take it with you.
It is that love that the person with lived experience can bring with them as a person who mentors, guides, or even just encourages, other people who are trying to make it out of their own holes. You can see too that this mentor, guide, or encouraging person with lived experience, is bringing with them the exact the kind of love that gets people out of holes. If you are the person in the hole, you are so lucky when someone shows up and is able to say, “Hey — I have what you need to get out of the hole! I brought my love ladder!”
The deeper the hole, the bigger the love ladder you have when you make it out.
The Love
So why is a person with lived experience better able to mentor, guide or encourage someone in the recovery process? Is it just because they intellectually understand the problem and the recovery process because of their lived experience? We can understand that the answer is a polite “no.” It’s not just an intellectual understanding, but also love in the form of motivation to mentor, guide and encourage, as well as in the form of empathy, appreciation, and encouragement for that person in their recovery.
This is also the key to what at first looks like a strange contradiction: people grateful for their problems, fails, and pitfalls. You can probably see now how that gratitude comes from the realization that you only get the big love ladder because of your big problems, fails, and pitfalls. It would not have come along without them, and in that way those problems, fails, and pitfalls were actually a gift because they made the love ladder possible. This is not to say that a person should go out and seek to get themselves some big problems, fails and pitfalls — that’s just not how it works. Rather it’s about understanding that as many and as big the problems that you have or have had in life, there is a connection to you being a loving person woven into them that is always there. There is always a possible way to connect with love. This is also what makes people with successful recovery such unique and powerful people in making the world a better place for everybody.
For Today
Think about your own problems, failings, or pitfalls — you can make a written list of them, a list that runs from top to bottom is best. Next to that list, on the right hand side, draw a ladder. It doesn’t have to be a fancy drawing, any old stick figure type ladder will do the job. Now think about that ladder and it becoming real in your life. If you’re having a hard time thinking about the ladder being real, then think about at least being open to that ladder in your life. Finally, at the top of that ladder, write the word, or a phrase, that describes your ideal life when you could make it out of all the problems, failings, and pitfalls you listed. Then meditate on the ladder and what’s at the top for you. What is one thing you can do today or in the next week to start working with your ladder? Write it down, make it happen.
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