In the ancient Greek world that spawned so many great mythic stories, the tales of Sisyphus are ones that resonate with many of us. Sisyphus was the King of an ancient city that is now known as Corinth. He was incredibly wise and crafty and took delight in playing tricks on the gods. He was also mean and oppressive, terribly abusive to travelers and guests, a condition that particularly angered Zeus, the king of the gods. Sisyphus’ disdain and abuse of the gods and men finally provoked Zeus to doom him to a horrendous eternal task…that of forever rolling a monstrous stone up a steep hill only to have it roll back again just as he reached the top, each cycle happening over and over, forever.
This story has become a much used analogy to depict those daily mundane tasks and recurring life cycles that seem to go on and on, endlessly…a mind-numbing routine job, repeated conflicts with family, keeping a garden free of weeds, etc. But, to me, it is nowhere more resonant than in the repetitive acts of insanity that attended our alcoholic and addictive acting-out. It has been said that the surest sign of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result each time. We drank or used endlessly believing that each time would result in a different outcome, perhaps a glorious permanent state of the euphoria that attended the first ingestions of the substance. But all of it, each time, only made our lives worse. We may even have pursued this style of living disdaining the presence of any higher power in our lives, making a mockery of all spiritual beliefs. We didn’t need God…we were God. The alcohol, the drugs told us so…
But there is no recovery, no redemption for Sisyphus. He is doomed to his task forever. He is like many of us who never do recover from alcoholism or addiction and eventually die in the disease. How glorious is it for those of us who, in the horrid depths of our disease, begin to sense the presence of something bigger than us and begin that agonizing, gut wrenching crawl to the light. How wonderful is it that we can live forever in this light and never be Sisyphean again.