Beyond Rehab

I can play a very simple version of Duke Ellington’s “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” on guitar. Normally I use that song as a warm up to practice without paying too much attention to the lyrics. But today the lyrics were sinking in. I always assumed the song was about a break up with a girlfriend. But take a look at the lyrics and tell me if the lyrics, written by Bob Russel in 1942, could not be applied to alcohol.

Missed the Saturday dance/Heard they crowded the floor/Couldn’t bear it without you/Don’t get around much anymore. Thought I’d visit the club/Got as far as the door/They’d have asked me about you/Don’t get around much anymore. Been invited on dates/Might have gone but what for/Awfully different without you/Don’t get around much anymore.

Metaphors are common in life. I know many songs, especially old blues songs, needed to use seemingly innocent words—like, “squeeze my lemon, sugar in my bowl”—when they wanted to sing about sex. I’ve also heard that Sufis (mystics) often use the imagery and language of drunkenness to say things about God. The commitment and passion an alcoholic has to drink is an earthly parallel to the commitment and passion the Sufis have to feel God. They would say things like, “I want to get drunk before the sun even rises and then drink all day, savoring every drop of the sweet elixir.”  Sufis are all about experiencing what the heart truly desires, which they understood (in terms of words) to be God—or so I’ve heard.

So if Bob Russel is using the language of love to express feelings for alcohol, and if the Sufis are using the language of alcohol to express feelings for God, then what passionate yearning are we using alcohol to try to express? What is it we really desire? It’s difficult to say what, on a soul-satisfying level, we yearn for because it’s not something that’s easy to decipher. So some of us try to find our explanation in alcohol. But that’s more like throwing a blanket over our faces…we’ll never “see” anything that way. Underneath that frantic surface desire to keep the steady flow of alcohol in our blood is a much deeper desire to feel wonderful—soul-satisfying wonderful. I’m not talking about religion or beliefs. I’m talking about real live soul-satisfying experiencing—a kind of joyful, contented, even blissful feeling.

The bridge of the song, “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” kindly suggests we try not to think about what we’re missing: “Oh, Darling I guess my mind’s more at ease/But nevertheless, why stir up memories?” That’s one way to get along. But another way would be to consider opening ourselves up to soul-stimulating feelings—feelings that are in line with “soul-satisfying” experiencing.

How ironic that our soul’s urgency to fulfill our deeper yearnings—which is very often what leads us to drink in the first place—can be the ticket out of drug and alcohol dependency.