Hello.

I could ask how you’re doing, but I know the answer already.
Like everyone else, you’re probably alternating between anger, dogged determination and numbness. It’s been quite the time; numb anger comes because there’s no obvious end.

But there’s a weird silver lining to all of this: forced into sober lock-down, no one can escape the facts now. All the privileged proponents of post truth never imagined a crisis like this, one that would take us post post-truth in about 150 days.

It’s like we’re emerging from a national psychotic break – sure, the house is wrecked, we’ve lost our job, some of our relationships have shattered and our economy’s woken up on the sidewalk next to a puddle of vomit – this may be the rock-bottom we needed to reach.

Can a nation use the 12-step programme to get its life back on track?

Not to break addiction to alcohol, drugs, porn or gambling, but to stand up and say:
“Hi, I’m South Africa and I’m addicted to anger, stubbornness, myopia, corruption and the sound of my own voice – and I come from every area, class, gender and race.
I can ignore 50+ murders a day and a rape every five minutes, but I’ll spend hours and hours finding a way to pick a fight with anyone about anything. I’m so easily triggered that I can be manipulated with minimal effort and I’ve never met an unpleasant fact I couldn’t ignore. I’ll step over 1000 starving children to prove a point, and I’ll shake the coins out of my old people’s pockets to add to my hoard. I’d rather kill opponents than debate them and watch people starve if it means I don’t have to admit I’m wrong.
I need help.”

What about the enablers?

There’s help for anyone who’s willing to admit that they’ve enabled the sickness: turning a blind eye to maintain personal comfort, indulging ourselves in a little fun hate and division, sabotaging interventions because they didn’t fit with our personal plans for the day or shooting any messenger who clashed with our ideas or our outfits. It was all pretty entertaining until the plague showed up. Now it’s more about whether we can pay the bills, where do we go if we get sick and why do teabags suddenly cost 3 times more than they did in February?

We all imagined we were playing a local version of Game of Thrones, but we were just out on a 2-decade binge while the kids went neglected, weeds choked our fertile fields and no-one bothered to change the oil in our economy. Now we’re here: the mother of all hangovers, nothing to take the edge off, sitting on a wet sidewalk in a stained and rumpled suit and no signal to call whatever friends we have left.

It’s time
The 12 spiritual principles of recovery go like this: acceptance, hope, faith, courage, honesty, patience, humility, willingness, brotherly-love, integrity, self-discipline, and service. While we’re still battling our sickness, these may seem like terrible qualities – if they do, then we’re nearly at the place where rock-bottom is our only way out. The first step to freedom is acceptance.