Avatar & Alcoholism

By Sigurdur Bárdarson

In 1984 I had a chemical dependency treatment after living an alcoholic life for fifteen years. I thought that it would be the end of that. But then I started working compulsively, and for three years the work got all of my attention.

After I had been sober for three years telling myself that I shouldn’t drink and that I couldn’t drink, I got drunk one night at New Year’s Eve and found that I was sucked back into my former alcoholic life. That experience made a difference to me. I realized that I could drink and that it was my choice. If I did drink I would carry on with my alcoholic life, but if I was going to be sober I would have to do something about it.

To start with, I decided to go to 90 A.A. meetings in 90 days. And I did so. I became active in the A.A., A.C.O.A. and other twelve-step programs. I was brought up in an alcoholic family. And my emotional life was nothing more than one big knot.
It was something like waking up entrapped on a mountainside, and the only way out of it was to climb to the top. I started the journey by attending twelve-step meetings and participating in psychotherapy groups. The going was tough. I took some steps forward and every now and then I ran back, but over all I was making good progress. I got interested in my mental and emotional being, and I started to read and collect a lot of recovery books and audiotapes. In 1992 I traveled to Florida to train as an alcoholic counselor for two months.

I translated and published two books (my original language is Icelandic): one about the inner child and the other about a road to spiritual healing.

In the beginning of 1993 I felt I had reached the top of the mountain. I was enjoying life; I felt that I was finally at home. I found my self at the end of the twelve-step road and started wondering that there must be something more. Curiosity took the place of necessity.

A friend had told me of a woman whom he thought I ought to meet, and I had her name and telephone number on my votive tablet for about a year. Then another friend came told me that he was getting a massage from a woman, and when he told me her name I realized that it was the woman whose number was on my table. I decided to go to her and have a massage.
This woman is an Avatar Master, and she began to tell me about Avatar. I decided to do the course. It was a small course of two Avatar Masters and two students. The course was a completely new experience for me, and I saw my spiritual journey in a new perspective. It was like I had been living, isolated, on a small island and now I needed to go and find the mainland, but the only way I knew to travel was to row on a small rowing boat. The psychotherapy was the rowing boat. The ocean was rough and the waves were high, but I had the courage to go. There were others who joined me on this trip on their small boats, but there were many more who didn’t have the guts to do that.

But there I was, on The Avatar Course. Now it felt like I was in a comfortable jet plane, and I could go wherever I wanted to go without effort.

After the course I felt that my life had changed. I didn’t know how, but it surely had changed. I got rid of all my recovery books and tapes. I felt like my life had been put in “fast forward” and that there was no reverse. Being “an Alcoholic” or “an Adult child” didn’t fit any more. I was “Me.” It was as simple as that. No labels.

Few months after The Avatar Course I decided to attend an A.A. meeting. The feeling was good. I felt love and compassion towards, the people, and I honored their persistence and efficiency. But when one after another stated that he or she was an alcoholic, it was very clear to me that this was based on a lack of awareness.

They were in a creation.

I asked myself what would I say if I would speak. The answer was that I had been creating alcoholism in my life, but now I was creating a sober life. It’s very clear that I am not my creations. This is the big difference. I am the source of my life.

Sigurdur Bárdarson, Iceland

 

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