The Dark Night of Recovery
By Gerald G. May
The phrase “grateful alcoholic” occurs frequently at AA meetings.
Some people are grateful simply to be in recovery, to have the
resources and support that twelve-step programs provide. Others
realize that their lives are more open and rich than they ever
were before their struggles with addiction. For many, the
gratitude is for a profound spiritual life that exists only
because their addiction brought them to their knees.
“I was a willful, self-driven person before I realized I was
addicted,” said one man. “My addiction defeated my will and finally
led me to admit my powerlessness and to surrender to God. Without
that defeat, I’m sure I would have continued to live as if I were
the master of my fate. So I’m grateful because my addiction gave me
the most important thing in my life: my relationship with God.”
People frequently discover or profoundly deepen their spiritual
lives during recovery. Usually this is a gentle and consoling
process. For some, however, there may come a time that is
disconcerting, scary, and baffling to the recovering person as well
as to their sponsor or spiritual director. It is a time I call the
Dark Night of Recovery.
It is important to understand that “dark night” does not necessarily
imply a time of great pain, suffering and loss. The term is a
translation of “noche oscura,” described by the sixteenth
Carmelite Saint John of the Cross. Oscura, while accurately
translated as “dark,” does not connote anything sinister, but rather
that things are obscure; one cannot see clearly what is
happening, just as one cannot see in the dark of night.
Gerald G. May is a psychiatrist, author and Senior Fellow for
Contemplative Theology and Psychology at Shalem Institute (www.shalem.org).
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