Question Authority

In an earlier blog I reviewed the controversial decision by the American Psychiatric Society to categorize normal grief as an illness in the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders- 5th edition (the DSM-5). In that discussion, I challenged their idea that this everyday psychological process should be classified as a disease (due to public outcry since I wrote the blog, the DSM-5 dropped grief as an illness). Now another one of their dubious determinations has come to light in a Time web-article where these psychiatrists have discarded the old DSM-4 categories of substance abuse and dependence, replacing them with mild, moderate and extreme addiction.

I highlighted the term of ‘addiction’ as labels can be very powerful, and I can’t understand what was going through these committee members’ minds as they made this decision. Surely they must have known it would be hard to find a more pejorative term for alcohol or other drug problems than that of being called an ‘addict’. Additionally, as the Time article rightly points out, this new categorizing of alcohol (and other substances’) use results in about 40% of college students being labeled as ‘addicts’! Undoubtedly resulting from this classification millions more in the general public have also joined the ‘addicts’ ranks. How absurd! Even more significantly, all of this ‘scholarly and expert’ opinion occurs in a decidedly ethnocentric way. If you look at how the rest of the world approaches alcohol and other drug problems, only the US treats these problems as a disease/and or crime (jailing vast numbers of primarily minorities for drug related ‘offenses’). This is no small matter, as people accept these ideas and labels as the truth and then act accordingly. Perhaps soon, we’ll see headlines decrying the rise of addiction in our public schools. Don’t be surprised!

But when I reflect on the ‘addict’ question, it also seems to represent a larger matter. With regard to the DSM-5 committee’s decision on alcohol and substance use (the group contains MDs and PhDs), their scientific, rational and objective conclusions contain many implicit cultural suppositions. This rings true for other ‘experts’ as well, whether they are medical, political, or financial: they often tell us how to think and what to believe. In response to this I recall a bumper sticker which simply stated: ‘Question Authority’. We have a choice as to whether or not we accept these outside experts’ opinions and proclamations. We can question their authority, coming to our own conclusions on how to live. Of course, after reflection, some experts can offer us useful information, but we decide what to do with this. Awareness assists us in this journey towards personal self-determination, by giving us a tool with which to examine our own and societal assumptions and conditioning. It gives us the space to observe ourselves and society, so we don’t simply react unconsciously to whatever form of ‘propaganda’ that we get exposed to. This gives us more openness to deal with life’s problems, ultimately freeing us to decide who we want to be.

Going beyond the mind

I recently watched a documentary about American free solo (without ropes) climber Alex Honnold alone on the wall. This rather gangly and unassuming guy climbs the largest and steepest cliffs in the world with just his bare hands and a bag of chalk to keep his fingers dry. In this National Geographic film he soloes the 1000 foot ‘Moonlight Buttress’ in Arizona (a first), followed by the even more impressive first free solo ascent of the 2000 foot North West face of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. Besides the astonishing nature of these feats, his mental state during these gravity and death defying climbs clearly illustrates one of the premises of Awareness Works.


This idea asserts we seek a state of wholeness, of well-being in our lives, infused with peace and freedom, but this can only occur when we go beyond our limited mind to the present moment of awareness. When Alex Honnold climbs free solo he faces certain death if he makes even one small mistake. The sheer intensity of this threat has the effect of stilling his mind. When Alex climbs the North West face of Half Dome, he only really gets in trouble when his mind becomes active, full of fear and doubts. He has to completely stop climbing when this occurs, to take time to work through this, so he can get out of ‘my little prison’ (as he puts it). He can’t resume his climbing until he gets back to a place of ‘not thinking’. So how does Alex Honnold describe how he feels when he climbs, when he’s ‘in the zone’, beyond the ‘little prison’ of his mind?

He calls the experience ‘peaceful’, ‘mellow’ and ‘free’, words that don’t make sense when our typical reaction facing such extreme risk would be fear and terror. But for Alex, with his skill and athletic ability, pushing himself to these limits actually brings him to a state of pure awareness beyond his mind. When this happens he knows wholeness, he knows well-being. Rather than fame or fortune, rather than risk or adrenaline rushes, this experience of well-being draws him to free soloing. Fortunately for the rest of us who can’t scale enormous cliffs (maybe I could do a couple of chin-ups before losing my grip!), many other pathways exist that allow us to go beyond our minds to know well-being. These efforts (yes they do require ‘work’) form the ‘core’ of our path to wellness.