Back to home page More   AFTERWORD   WOMEN AT THE TABLE   BY PATRICIA FARES-O'MALLEY   WOMEN AT THE TABLES is an inspiring book of true life stories told by twenty-one courageous women about their own personal journey through hell. Each story describes the lonely path of addiction, taken in conscious choice, leading to misery. It is also a book about miracles. It reveals the kind of "power" and sheer courage of each to face the demons and choose sanity.   I am amazed by the differences that separate each woman from the other. There are no connecting links or common backgrounds that would allow us to infer that addiction is predictable. Every woman had a different kind of childhood with different parents, different circumstances. The ages of beginning their addiction varies from eleven to thirty-eight years old. The length of time that they practiced their addiction varies as does their number of years of sobriety. The amount of education, whether married or single, the number of children... no one thing could help us predict who becomes an addict or, more importantly, who chooses sobriety. It would be so much easier for us to wrap our statistics up into neat little packages and use them to demonstrate what it takes to get sober and stay sober! Statistically we have no commonality.   Yet there are some "common threads" to each life story. Screaming at us throughout the book is the theme of pain, loneliness and the fear of insanity. The common bond experienced by each addict is this awful fear an psychic isolation that they describe. Each woman lived her own terror - the worst living nightmare of all - a separation from her "Self."   Each one of us lives in a world created by ourselves. Our lives are testaments of our thoughts; our successes and failures are portraits of our inner experiences. The "hell" that we live through is created by us when we totally dissolve our will and voluntarily give our "self" away to something or someone else.   So many of us go through our lives wishing for a template of what to do, what not to do. We look for assurances from outside ourselves. We want someone else to take responsibility for our life and our happiness, thus relieving ourselves of the quilt and pain of making mistakes.   We as women, have, for so long, seen others as our focus that we have learned to separate ourselves from the love and nurturing we give. Never realizing that it is we women who give "sprit" its form. We have allowed ourselves to lose our own spirit. These women, like most women, had abandoned themselves for the sake of finding happiness. Continually looking outside themselves for their connection, only to discover, that the abandonment, itself, created the terrifying loneliness they fought so hard to avoid.   These stories have confessed to all of us the sin of losing "Self." Every woman has shared her own path away from her soul. Every woman described the living hell of abandonment and isolation. Each story could have been told by any woman on earth who has experienced the vast separation from her own soul. This they all have in common.   Yet, the most important common denominator is not so easily found in each story. For these women, the end to the addiction came when they became aware of their total abandonment of "Self." It was at this point, that the change was made. They embraced the "Self" once again. This was and is rarely a conscious aware choice and that's why it feels like a "miracle."   We carry inside of us a sense of "Self," the immortal, eternal part of us that belongs to everything and everything to it. It does not have form except that which we give it and does not choose to take control of our physical choices, unless we choose to listen to it. It is raw POWER It is the energy of life and of love. It exists whether we give it physical form or not. Some call it our "soul," I call it our "Self."   Our "Self" has the ability to know all. It is the holy, small voice that tells us what to do and is never wrong. This is the part of us that we separate from when we choose addiction. And it is the part of us that welcomes us home when we awaken to its presence once again.   Rediscovering our "Self" can be a long and awesome journey, and, yet, the 12 Steps is an easy map to follow. The direction given is toward trust and faith in the power that we had originally abandoned. Because we wanted to be in charge of our own life, "Self" lovingly allowed us to make those choices, never abandoning us, it simply allowed and patiently waited.   WOMEN AT THE TABLES demonstrates to us the miracle of recovery. The miracle simply being choosing our "Self." The precipitating event to make this choice was different for each woman in this book, however, the silent, gnawing sense of the existence of her "Self" was what allowed the miracle to happen. The final decision to choose this "holy" part of them is the mystery. The guidance and the enduring power of love from the "Self" is what created it.   We, each of us, need to be more aware of the miracles in our lives every single moment. Connecting with our "Self" gives us the freedom to finally find what we have always looked for outside ourselves - our connection with the life force, the energy of our divine "Self."   May we all embrace and cherish our own gift of "Self" and never again live in fear and darkness. So be it.