“Give up the fight, give up control and live.”
– Calypso
(Is it customary to give a spoiler alert for a 3,000-year-old story? If so, spoilers ahead for The Odyssey!)
When Odysseus throws open the gates of Troy to allow his army into the historically impregnable fortress, the vibes are high. Odysseus and the Greek alliance have been unsuccessfully attempting to get inside the gates of Troy for ten years. Finally, as a direct result of Odysseus’s plan, the infamous Trojan Horse, they make it. In the recent film version of the story, Christopher Nolan gives us a clear shot of Odysseus (Matt Damon) and Menelaus (Jon Bernthal), ecstatically cheering as they fling open the doors to allow the rest of their brothers-in-arms to rush the city. The men run in, celebrating and yelling. If you squint your eyes, you can almost mistake it for the start of an epic beer pong tournament at a frat house.
But as it so often goes—in battle and in frat houses—what starts as a party takes a turn. As Odysseus watches in horror, his men escalate from war-sanctioned action against armed soldiers to burning and pillaging homes while raping and mutilating their civilian occupants.
As the dust settles, it is clear that Odysseus and his army are the unequivocal victors. At this point, Odysseus has been away from his home and his family for ten years, and now he has a choice. The obvious choice is go the f**k home. But that’s not the choice he makes. Odysseus decides to take the long way home, aka, keep the party going. Roughly eighty-four percent of the audience will be absolutely baffled and confused by this choice.
Sixteen percent of us get it. ‘The next party won’t be like this. Next time, we’ll just do the rush-the-gates part. The blood and raping … that was a fluke. It’ll be fun. You’ll see. I got this.’
The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous references “ominous warnings” that invariably appear at the beginning of an alcoholic’s or addict’s journey. These ominous warnings happen at a pivotal moment in the substance-use journey. They show up in the beginning, when there is still time to turn the ship around.
Odysseus encounters his ominous warning at his first stop after leaving Troy, the island of Ismarus. An elder in the village there tells Odysseus, through a translator, “If you continue that way, you won’t like what you’ll find.” Importantly, Ismarus is still geographically on a reasonable route home. He still has time to just pack it in and go home. Once again, Odysseus decides he knows better. He can handle it.
Odysseus and his men continue.
What follows are new levels of hell at every turn, on every island. He spends a few perilous nights in a trap house, being held hostage by a crazy-eyed meth dealer … oops, I mean, in a cave, held hostage by a Cyclops. He spends time in jail, watching bailiffs strip inmates of their clothing and identities … nope, shoot, sorry! I mean, he spends time in a shack watching a witch strip his men naked and turn them into animals.
But the most terrifying moment of the entire journey happens as Odysseus passes the Sirens. Once again, Odysseus’s hubris gets the best of him as he decides his men should plug their ears with wax, but surely he can handle it. As the crew passes the Sirens, Odysseus begins wailing and sobbing. After they pass, Eurylochus asks what they said to him.
A dejected Odysseus repeats:
“What you want most is what you most can’t have. And what you most can’t have is what you already had … and lost.”
“It was the song of all the promises I failed to keep.”
Ouch. Anyone who has struggled with substances or alcohol can viscerally and painfully feel those words.
All the promises I failed to keep.
Unable to fully face this brutal truth, Odysseus finds an escape at his last stop, Ogygia. It is in Ogygia that Odysseus begins consuming the lotus flower. A quick Google search of the mythical lotus flower explains that eating the flower produces an emotionally numb, euphoric, hazy, dreamlike state.
Sound familiar?
Stay with me, because this is where things finally start to get better. After spending seven years consuming the lotus flower, doing his best to forget the trauma of the journey and the broken promises made to his family, Odysseus finds that he can’t actually forget his family or the life he left behind. A small voice continues to persist in the corners of his brain:
“Stop eating the lotus.”
“But I love it.”
“Tell me what you remember.”
In the movie, the voice is Calypso (Charlize Theron). In life, I think that voice is our spirit. It’s us at six years old, tugging on the hem of our shirt, whispering, “Remember me? I am still here, and we deserve better.”
Encouraged by this voice, Odysseus slowly stops consuming the lotus and is able to hear Calypso’s profound message:
“Give up the fight, give up control and live.”
Or, in layman’s terms: Your ego is not your amigo, man.
How many times have we thought, ‘If I am just clever enough, if I am just smart enough, I can beat this thing.’ And, as was the case for Odysseus, often we have been right! He was a leader in his community. The Trojan Horse hustle worked! But this thing we cannot control, no matter how hard we try. And this is where the substance-use dilemma takes on a much wider and more universal meaning. None of us control the outcomes. None of us can control fate. What we can do is surrender and enjoy the ride. Take the next indicated step, do the next right thing, all the clichés. And when Odysseus finally concedes to this fundamental life truth, he is able to go home.
There is an additional element to this story, however, that I haven’t seen pointed out anywhere. An element that is an important and consistent truth that I have seen in every addict’s journey.
Prior to any of this—the war, the journey, any of it—Odysseus has a unique skill. He is the only one who can string his bow and accurately shoot it.
The only one.
While he is gone, other men try, and they all fail. When Odysseus returns, he picks up his bow, strings it, and shoots it. The years away, the mistakes, the regrets, the bad choices … none of that changed the fact that the ability to string that bow is his unique talent. I believe that every person has a unique talent and skill set to give to the world. Something only you can do. Your talent will not only still be there when you get back, you will be even better at it than before. Your years of using, loss, and hardship will give you the wisdom, grace, and insight needed to best use your talent for the good of all.
We need you here, amongst the living, stringing your bow. There is an empty space where you should be. We miss you, and we need you.
I don’t know what it looks like for you to set aside your ego, surrender to the seas, and pick up your bow, but I hope that you find the courage to do it.
There are myriad quotable lines in The Odyssey, both the movie and the original story, but for our purposes and our community, I would like to leave you with the one I found to be the most powerful and resonant:
“The lotus clouds the mind and saps the will, but it doesn’t change who you are.”
– Calypso
