The second saying, "To serve others is to serve oneself," is the essence of Step 12. Working with others, serving them in that way, strangely enough, allows us to look deeper into our selves. When I work with someone else who is seeking recovery, I see myself. The details might be different, but the struggle is always the same. So, when I help them, I'm helping myself because we are the same. And helping them only makes me stronger. It truly is having my cake and eating it too.
In addition to your book, are there any other resources you would like to recommend?
I haven't found many resources specifically for Pagans. There is Cynthia Jane Collins' book The Recovery Spiral, and actually a number of Twelve Step groups have used this as a text. Some people have found it very helpful. There is also an online group called Pagans in Recovery that is open to all, regardless of your particular addiction. And Isaac Bonewits wrote a pretty good article that I recently found.
The last section of my book has a list of resources that might help as well; it lists a number of Twelve Step groups for various issues.
I was particularly gratified to see internet addiction listed amongst those resources. It was the inclusion of very contemporary forms of addiction like this that made me realize just how timely and important your book truly is. Now, is there anything else you would like to add?
If there is one thing I'd add, it's this—and I believe I told the story in my book—but let me tell it again here:
One day, my next-door neighbor had lost a ring while sunbathing. It was in the afternoon, and she had spent almost an hour looking for it, when she came to ask me for help. We spent another hour looking together, and she said, "it's lost," ready to quit. I told her that the ring was truly lost only when we stopped looking, and as it was getting darker, I went to my house and got a flashlight. Just a few minutes later, the light from the flashlight glinted off something in the grass—it was my friend's ring.
The moral is that we are only defeated when we stop trying.
Deirdre Hebert's book can be found at Asphodel Press.
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