Intimacy is conscious contact with another human being. We are connecting. As we draw closer to others, we see God in them and we see him in ourselves.
Living Purely, Chapter 5, “Conscious Contact”
Few of us come to SE with tremendous success in implementing intimacy. We often hear our fellow drug addicts grumble: "I hate people!". Before we got clean, family life was often dysfunctional to say the least. The deeper we were in our addiction, the more superficial our friendships and romantic relationships became. Our drug use, selfishness, and denial formed a trio of airtight barriers that prevented us from connecting with those closest to us. We didn't trust others and avoided being vulnerable at all costs. The idea of another person seeing who we really are was unbearable, even absurd.
When we get clean, we may not at first consciously have a desire to connect with other addicts. We resist the idea of exposing our true selves, but intimacy isn't just about sharing the details of our lives. It can be letting go of our old ideas about people and relationships, even letting go of what we understood as safe. It can mean taking emotional risks when we don't know the outcome. It can be saying what we want from a relationship – to the other person who is in it with us. It can be tolerating evaluation from loved ones and growing from it. It can be sitting in meetings with a group of recovering addicts and listening to each other's moans, pleas, wishes and advances. It can be seeing what makes us human and worthy of love and connection with others, again and again. Intimacy is the result of all this.
Intimacy is nothing less than leaving behind everything that prevents us from being ourselves in front of another person. That which is divine in us is that which is genuine.
Today I will consciously look for opportunities where I can get closer to my true self through another person I trust.
