Grief, Addiction and Surrender
Barb Rogers
passed away in early 2011 after what was described by her publisher as a “brief and final illness.” Before her death, the costume designer and author of multiple books on addiction and recovery spent many years of her life becoming intimate with tragedy, grief and loss. She had survived abuse early in life, and had gone on to experience the devastating deaths of her children. Later, she would experience multiple illnesses and the pain of addiction. But Rogers sought recovery, and through her recovery, came to embody the 12th step of Alcoholics Anonymous:
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of [the] steps, we tried to carry this message to other addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Through her writing, Rogers was a guide and teacher to many. She was humble and real, and felt like a friend.
As a recovering sex addict with years of work in, I have struggled with something that feels emotional on its surface, but at base, may be biological. For almost as many years as I was regularly acting out, I grappled to describe a problem I had in relationships (I did not yet know I had sex addiction). I called this problem one of “attraction versus repulsion.” Again and again, with more people than I cared to count, I was drawn in with incredible and overwhelming attraction, only to quickly and thoroughly turn away from our interactions, both physical and emotional, with a sense of uncontrollable revulsion. No matter what my mind told me was “repellant” about a person or a circumstance, I knew deep down, it didn’t make sense. Only days—or sometimes hours—before, I’d been deeply attracted to the very same traits. Still, I couldn’t reason away my deep desire for avoidance; it was inexplicable. I needed to leave, the same way that I had needed to come—immediately and without hesitation.