The intricate family history of addictive behaviors and Jamie Lee Curtis’ issues with opiate addiction have both been publicly discussed. She has just written the preface to a new book on achieving sobriety and a closer connection with one’s spirit.
Jamie Lee Curtis writes in the prologue of Soulbriety, a new book by Elisa Hallerman, that “many of us require mentors to help clear away the cacophony and shrapnel of our ancestral imprints and access that exquisite CenterPoint that is our fundamental self.”
In the book, Hallerman, a former agent in the entertainment business, writes about understanding that her work wasn’t finished on the fifth anniversary of her sobriety.
At that point, she had been sober for five or six years, according to her. “I was successful and had all of these things outside of myself that I thought would make me happy, but I felt empty and unhappy, and I was forced to really look at that and go deeper.”
That required her to leave her job to pursue graduate school, where she studied depth psychology to assist those struggling with addiction.
Nobody chooses to be an alcoholic or a drug addict when they wake up, said Hallerman. Nobody works toward that, but some people develop the sickness while others don’t.
Addiction is a symptom, she continues. She claims that “something isn’t right. We feel a loss of meaning and purpose, sorrow, agony, anxiety, or depression.” And if we don’t really take the time to look at what’s below, I think that’s what leads to repeated relapses because we haven’t really gotten to the base of the problem.
The book aims to take an integrative approach to addiction and healing from the underlying trauma that frequently causes it, propelled by what Curtis calls Hallerman’s “unflinching and genuine storytelling” and “deep seeking and learning.”
Curtis writes in her preface that when she first heard Hallerman’s book’s title, she burst into tears. Hallerman also recalled the incident, saying, “Jamie has been a dear dear friend of mine for many years. When I told her that I was writing a book, she asked me the title, and when I told her the title was Soulbriety, she had a really visceral emotional reaction and said right away, before she had even read a word, “I want to be involved, I want to help.
“In the end, it’s all about our soul,” says Curtis, “and the message is that we are enough.”
