Mr. SponsorPants

My 2nd Least Favorite Paragraph in the Big Book

I've already shared with you here my least favorite paragraph in the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's Big Book).

This is my second least favorite paragraph -- but for context I'll include the paragraph before it as well -- both occur on page 80 in Chapter 6, "Into Action."  This section of the book is talking about the 9th Step (and as a reminder to the new kids: Step 9 - Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.)

This is the set up:

This brings to mind a story about one of our friends.  While drinking, he accepted a sum of money from a bitterly-hated business rival, giving him no receipt for it.  He subsequently denied having received the money and used the incident as a basis for discrediting the man.  He thus used his own wrong-doing as a means of destroying the reputation of another.  In fact, his rival was ruined.

And here's my 2nd least favorite paragraph -- okay, okay, it's TWO paragraphs, but it's making just one point:

He felt that he had done a wrong he could not possibly make right.  If he opened that old affair, he was afraid it would destroy the reputation of his partner, disgrace his family and take away his means of livelihood.  What right had he to involve those dependent upon him?  How could he possibly make a public statement exonerating his rival?

After consulting with his wife and his partner he came to the conclusion that it was better to take those risks than to stand before his Creator guilty of such ruinous slander.  He saw that he had to place the outcome in God's hands or he would soon start drinking again, and all would be lost anyhow.  He attended church for the first time in many years.  After the sermon, he quietly got up and made an explanation.  His action was met with widespread approval, and today he is one of the most trusted citizens of his town.  This all happened years ago.

Okay, the point that's being made here speaks to the last part of the 9th Step, "... except when to do so would injure them or others."  And I have (naturally) NO quarrel with how well this example fleshes out that idea.

On a first pass of the 9th Step the "others" who might be injured which come to mind are most often our "partners in crime" -- the person we cheated on our spouse with, for example, or the guy driving the getaway car, or some such.  This story opens up our vision to include what might be considered the "collateral damage" of spouses, business partners, etc.   We can't throw someone else under the bus just to clean our own side of the street -- and that goes not just for our fellow guilty parties, but for whomever may have their fates or livelihood (or hearts) tied up with us as well.

But what drives me crazy about this is that, although we're talking about an amends, the man in this story doesn't finish the job!  Yes, he "exonerates" his former business rival, and that is certainly the first "action" part of any amends:  Owning what we've done.

But to paraphrase briefly what it says elsewhere in the Big Book, a remorseful mumbling that 'we're sorry' won't fill the bill -- and often when it comes to amends "bill" is a literal thing.

According to this story the rival was "ruined" -- that word says a lot more to me than people threw him shade at the next neighborhood barbeque.  When I read the word "ruined" I associate it with a financial consequence, not just a social one  -- and a big one at that.  Even if it took a lifetime of tithing, the man in this story who stood up in church and owned what he did, to make a true amends (as the crusty old timers who took me along when I showed up explained it to me) you must make things right -- or as right as possible.  You must make restitution.

So, at best, when it comes to this story in the Big Book, I must content myself with the idea that there is more to it than the book goes into, so that the main point, taking other people into consideration before placing them at any risk whatsoever when we make our amends, can be clearly made.

Still kind of bugs me every time I read it with a sponsee, though.

(Ask any of them -- some have had to sit through my rant on this several times now.)

Speaking of sponsees, and of making amends, a couple of years ago one of my sponsees turned himself in at Court on an outstanding warrant.  He had been carrying a fear about it for years during his drinking, and after he turned one year sober he was ready to address it.  We worked hard -- he worked hard -- on being willing to place the result in his Higher Power's hands, and the morning he turned himself in he was completely at peace.  He had been able to get to a place of utter acceptance -- he was truly okay with whatever the outcome.

In this case he was not sentenced to jail, but it was a very real possibility at the time. But as is often the case when it comes to a spiritual path, paradoxically,  being willing to go to jail -- making amends -- actually sets you free.  And that kind of inner freedom -- the utter peace of surrendering not to a Court, but to a God of your understanding, is not something that can be bought in any way, shape or form -- but it is available to anyone who wants it, via working and living the 12 Steps.

Not every story has a Lifetime movie ending.  I am personally acquainted with several people who, as a part of their amends, admitted wrong doing and did real jail time as a result.  But the outcome of their action is that they too are men at peace -- and sober -- as a result of cleaning up what their disease helped them create.

If you're new, and these kinds of stories frighten rather than inspire, I want to rush to assure you that you do not have to do anything you aren't ready and willing to do.  (And in the case of the 9th Step in particular that's what the second part of the 8th Step is for.)

AA literature and the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous urges caution, consideration and a lot of common sense in moving forward with these kinds of things.  For example, in the case of my sponsee, he had certainly retained a good lawyer and followed wise legal counsel before showing up in Court.  AA is not a group of crazy people dispensing advice we are not qualified to give:  "Sure!  Pray to God, then keep a little of this dirt -- it's from Akron, Ohio, the birthplace of AA! -- in your pocket when you appear before the judge.  Everything will magically work out just the way you want!"

AA places a premium on sharing experience -- we do not shoot from the hip and offer opinions or suggestions we're not qualified to give -- or rather, we work really, really hard not to do that.  Alcoholics struggle with ego on a daily (hourly ... minute-ly) basis.

The Steps are a process, a recipe for creating a spiritual experience, and there is a limitless supply of people willing to help with going through them in 12 Step meetings around the world.

Cheers!

A beautiful stroll on the way to an AA Meeting

1991

I'd finished my shift bone tired but happy in my work, and my pocket was fat with tips, testament to a beautiful July afternoon in a beach town packed with people determined not to waste one precious moment of a glorious summer.  More than a thousand days sober and it was still a jubilant novelty to wake up without a hangover.  I had developed friends the like of which I had never had before, men and women who's affection I welcomed and who's opinion I valued.  My head was still very busy, my emotional maturity severely underdeveloped, but I could tell my head was busy -- I was aware how childish my feelings could be -- and that was freeing and amazing.  I was beginning to develop a real fluency in the tools of recovery and my relationship with a Higher Power was evolving.

The AA meetings in my town were dynamic and revelatory to me -- at that time I hadn't traveled in sobriety, so I didn't know that what made those meetings so powerful was not the provenance of my town, but of AA as a whole.  The speakers, the sharing -- it blew my mind.  Rarely did it seem like the meeting didn't fly by, and I would almost always leave feeling enlightened and inspired.  Big talk, I know, but that's really how I remember it.

I left work and was walking over to one of my favorite meetings out of the week.  It was big for our town, and usually had speakers from around the area come and talk.  Then a bunch of us would go to dinner after and then usually out dancing after that.  I was young and sober (and even thin, now that I think of it).  I felt terrific.

On the way to the meeting I looked out over the ocean and -- what can I say that hasn't already been expressed in better ways than I can muster about that kind of view, and the feeling it stirs?  Once I got sober not a day went by when I lived there that I didn't appreciate the beauty of the scene before me -- and further, feel so deeply a gratitude for my ability to appreciate it -- I knew it wasn't so long ago that I would have been too dead inside to experience things that way.

Summer sunset in a beach town, the sidewalk was full of residents and tourists, and more folks were smiling than not.  I said hello to people I knew, passed a group of out-of-towners who said something witty, I responded in kind, we laughed at how clever we all were, and some mild flirtation seasoned the exchange.

Life was great, and I felt it, and what's more, I felt like my sobriety was an intrinsic part of this.  And in many ways, it was.

I cut up from the main street and started angling over towards the Hall where the meeting was, admiring all the little houses, nodding to more people I knew, or indulging the "howdy neighbor" impulse by greeting strangers as we would pass each other on the sidewalk.

One fellow in particular was neighborly in return.  He was out walking his dog, and when I said "hello, nice night" or whatever it was I said, he smiled large, and replied with a nod and a friendly comment of his own.

And then his dog bit me.

Really hard.

Out of the blue, it just whipped its head around and bit me on the calf.  Broke the skin.

The man didn't apologize so much as try to flee the scene.  Said it wasn't his dog, he was walking it for a friend.  Gave a name and an address, which I wrote down, and later the police found to be bogus.  (And THAT is the definition of small town, I guess, when the police look into a dog biting.)

Let's review, shall we?  I had worked hard that day.  I was sober, grateful, friendly, all the things I was "supposed" to be.  I appreciated God's handiwork around me and was feeling love for my fellow man, neighbor and stranger alike.  Hell, I was even on my way to a meeting!  And the universe rewards me with a dog bite?!?

No.  Reward -- and punishment -- had nothing to do with it (obviously).

And therein lies the great unconscious expectation.  That the Universe is a series of rewards and punishments, cosmically monitoring my behavior and keeping a ledger -- now that I'm "being good" by being sober then there should be some kind of payoff on the Cosmic Score Card.

Dangerous.  Cast in this light, my sobriety is a moral act, not a medical treatment.  Yes, in stories I get a sense of justice and completion when there is closure, and balanced resolution -- when the good are rewarded and the bad are punished.

But in life, and in sobriety, the more I look at the universe as an exchange between my "being good (sober)" and the Universe "rewarding me" for it then the more frightened and frustrated I will be when life turns out to be a little less black-and-white than that. 

Yes, there is a power to positive thinking, there is a strength that comes from moving through life in harmony with the world around me -- but that kind of positivity is not a coin I can use to purchase insurance against hardship and nasty surprises.  I would suggest that such a view is closer to superstition than it is to spirituality.

"For we are now on a different basis; the basis of trusting and relying upon God.  We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves.  We are in the world to play the role He assigns.  Just to the extent that we do as we think He would have us, and humbly rely on Him, does He enable us to match calamity with serenity." -- 'Alcoholics Anonymous' (AA's Big Book) Chapter 5, 'How it Works,' pg. 68

Please note that it does not say " ... enables us to avoid calamity..."

Further, if I really rely on God, then I can stop evaluating everything that comes at me as "good" or "bad."  There are hard things.  Scary things.  Things I wish would pass me or those I love by.  But today my connection with a Higher Power works to include the idea that the hard, the scary, the things I wish would pass, are not "bad" -- are not punishments -- and thus the "good" things are not "good/rewards" -- I can be grateful for them free from the fear that if I'm "bad" they'll be taken away.  Semantics, yes, but also a powerful adjustment in my attitude towards my sobriety, my life and God.

trying to solve the problem with the problem

"If hundreds of experiences have shown him that one drink means another debacle with all its attendant suffering and humiliation, why is it he takes that one drink?" -- "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's Big Book) Chapter 2 'There Is A Solution,' pg. 22.

We get beaten, robbed, shamed.
We lose relationships, property, jobs and sanity.
Time after time we start drinking "just to have fun" and disaster occurs.
Yet no matter what happens -- or how often it happens -- we can't see, or we deny, the relationship between our drinking and the state of our lives.  We still believe drinking is okay, or even that we deserve it.  We act like we're from Alcoholadonia, and as citizens of that great nation it is our God Given Right to get hammered.  Defiant and entitled, despite all the hell, we still "choose" to pick up that first drink.

"We are equally positive that once he takes any alcohol whatever into his system, something happens, both in the bodily and mental sense, which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop." -- Big Book, Chapter 2, pgs. 22 - 23

Right.  Once we take that first drink we're like a car with two pedals:

An accelerator and an accelerator.

"These observations would be academic and pointless if our friend never took the first drink, thereby setting the terrible cycle in motion.  Therefor, the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind, rather than his body." -- Big Book, Chapter 2, pg. 23

So the heart of the problem is far less what happens after we start drinking, but rather that we keep deciding to have that first drink.

We have a "curious mental blank spot."  We can't -- or won't -- remember what happens when we start drinking.  Which means the problem is in our thinking -- the problem is in our mind.

Thus, if you're trying to figure out on your own how not to drink, or if you have admitted to yourself you have a problem but want to deal with it "in your own way..."

Then you are trying to solve the problem with the problem.

I'm no expert, but that just doesn't look like a good plan to me.

Questions! Via Electronic Mail! Over the Internetwork of Computers! Writing the Fear Inventory

Hi Mr. Sponsorpants! Long time listener, first time caller. :)

I've actually been wanting a reason to email you and The Universe being as wonderful and yielding as it is at times, has provided me with an opportunity to ask for your experience on a 12 step matter.

I am currently doing a very specific inventory. I have had experience working the fourth step since 1994, so I've been around this block a few times. However, this is a very different inventory for me and I guess because I am in a very different place this year I was thinking about a different approach. Not that I would ever mess w/ or seek to improve our Big Book, I find the 4 column resentment inventory a perfect tool for self awareness, ego deflation and introspection.  I am curious however, how you do your Fear Inventory. I have never gone beyond getting them down on paper, asking myself why I had them (cause),  examining my fears (Fear of losing something I have, not gaining something I want, and/or being found out) and then looking at the exact nature of my wrongs (Where was I selfish, dishonest, self seeking and frightened) concerning each  fear.

I have done some research out there in the Googleverse and seen 4 and 5 column Fear Inventories (Joe and Charlie, Mark H and Joe H., etc.),  and I have never been instructed to do such by any sponsor I've had. Also, the headings of such columns seem to vary w/ interpretation (I suppose)  so I am a little confused. Actually, I'm not as confused as I am curious.

Would you care to share how you do your Fear Inventory?

Thanks,
SV  

SV, thank you for that excellent question!  I too have seen lots of different Guides for writing a Fear Inventory, most from sober and reliable sources.  My opinion (shaped strongly by my dead sponsor, John S., who's wise counsel I miss every single day of my life) is that if they help someone sort out what drives some of their fears, then that's great, but making many columns for the Fear Inventory is a little bit like gilding the lily.

First, a quick recap for the new kids:  Alcoholics Anonymous suggests, via Step 4, a "searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves."  I think it's worth noting that the word "moral" perhaps wasn't quite as loaded or politically charged  a term when the Steps were written -- but that's my opinion, not a quote from any historical resource.  When I first encountered the 4th Step I made a religious association with the word "moral," but today I believe that the connotation is less about some kind of Old Testament value system (which is certainly a fine one if that's your preference) but refers more broadly to the sick behavior patterns and attitudes we developed under the influence of alcohol/ism.  Yes, those things are bad, as in "it's bad to hit yourself in the head with a hammer", not bad as in "you are Bad and God is keeping score and you've got yet another black mark next to your name!"

As you know, SV, but to be clear for the new kids, the 4th Step inventory is broken up into 3 parts:  Resentments, Fear and Sex.

The resentment part of the inventory is the most structured -- the infamous "four column" inventory, discussed in great detail here and many other places, and spelled out in the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's Big Book) on pages 64 thru 67.  Thus, organizing the other parts of the inventory (Fear and Sex) into columns is a somewhat natural progression from that example.  It's not exactly how I read what the Big Book says about the Fear Inventory, though. 

Here is what the Big Book says about the Fear Inventory, on pg. 68 (I'm pulling out what are, to me, the specific instructions from the text and summarizing the couple paragraphs between):

"We reviewed our fears thoroughly.  We put them on paper, even though we had no resentment in connection with them." 

And then it goes on to say:  "We asked ourselves why we had them.  Wasn't it because self-reliance failed us?  Self-reliance was good as far as it went, but it didn't go far enough.  Some of us once had great self-confidence, but it didn't fully solve the fear problem -- or any other. When it made us cocky, it was worse."  In my humble opinion (and it is not my intent in this to criticize those learned sober scholars who have parsed the Big Book down to such a fine degree that I stand in awe -- and puzzlement, sometimes -- of their process) the beginning of that, "We asked ourselves why we had them" is more a rhetorical question than an instruction, since it goes right on to answer itself with the point about self-reliance, making a logical bridge to the subsequent ideas about faith in the next paragraph.

The paragraph after the (to me) rhetorical question goes on to elaborate, as the book does in its discussion of the 3rd Step (in which, for the new kids, to paraphrase slightly, we decide to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as each of us understand God) that the best way to deal with fear is through faith.  Reliance on a Higher Power will allow us to "match calamity with serenity."  (As opposed to a reliance on God allowing me to avoid calamity altogether, a mistaken assumption that can sneak in around the corners sometimes.)

Following that is a paragraph which talks about how we don't need to apologize for having faith, and suggests that over the course of human history people of faith have been able to find courage and make powerful demonstrations of how reliance upon God can dispel fear.  At the end of this is (to me) the final instruction specific to the Fear Inventory.  It says:  "We ask Him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what he would have us be.  At once, we commence to outgrow fear."

I love that line, since I am a big fan of immediate gratification.  "At once, we commence to outgrow fear."  Outgrow is not the same as being totally, instantly free from, but it sure as hell is moving in the right direction. 

So how I do the Fear inventory today is pretty simple, since I don't view the business about asking why we have our fears as an instruction to sort things into subsequent columns -- though I've done that over the years, and it can be quite illuminating.  As you point out in your email, SV, much of the different 4th Step guides seem to vary in interpretation more than anything else.

I take what the Big Book says at face value, and just write, "Fear Inventory" across the top of the page, and then I literally list my fears down the page.  I give myself free reign to be repetitive, or very specific, or very general.  Once I get going I enjoy it, actually.  In the past it has looked something like this:

Fear Inventory

I'm afraid I sound stupid.
I'm afraid I'll be alone forever.
I'm afraid of dying so horribly that they will need to use my dental records to identify me.
I'm afraid I say the wrong thing a lot.
I'm afraid I'll never make anything of myself.
I'm afraid a parasite will eat my brain.
I'm afraid ...

You get the idea.  Then at the bottom of the page, when I get there, I write, "God, please remove my fear and turn my attention to what you would have me be."  And every time I do that, I actually do commence to outgrow my fear -- which is to say that practically, literally speaking, I begin to feel better about what I've written.

Every time I fill a page I write the request to God to remove the fears.

My dead sponsor used to suggest to me it might be helpful, once I've written however many pages come pouring out of me on this, to go back and sort my fears into survival fears and ego fears.  That's not from the Big Book, that was just his clever way of pointing out to me (again and again) how the overwhelming majority of my fears are rooted in ego.  Doing that is now my habit, and I find it very helpful. 

Breaking my fears down into specific needs and motivations (fear of not getting what I want, or losing what I've got, etc.) can really illuminate patterns I didn't know I had, and greater self examination will always bring powerful results.  But for me, though, they're all different branches on the same tree of self-reliance, and I can just chalk the "why I have them" up to a lack of trust in God, the Universe and The Great Whatever (as the Big Book explains).

I find the simplicity of making the list and asking for God's help at the bottom of each page -- or just the one page, if that's all I write -- a powerful way to do it, rather than be too cerebral in the examination of this core, corrosive, inevitable human emotion.

But I cannot stress strongly enough that any and all of those Inventory guides out there in the world are useful, as anything that assists in the process of being "searching and throrough" when writing an inventory has got to be a good thing, right?

Whew! I felt I had to include the context in my answer or I wouldn't have been clear, so while that might have been some information you already know, and is no doubt a lot more than you were looking for, that's "how I do my Fear Inventory." I thank you for writing, and I hope to hear from you again!

And good luck (good luck? sure, why not) on your Inventory-ing!

Cheers!

Not when ... if! IF!

At my men's stag meeting tonight a nice young man (though they all seem young to me now I'm afraid) who's had a hard time getting past 30 days clean and sober (this is his third go-round, I believe) shared an amusing anecdote about a situation in which he felt the unmanageability of his life was rubbed in his face.

He summed up by saying "When I doubt that my life can be unmanageable I'll be certain it is when I remember today."

I wanted to shout and pound the table.

"If! IF! That's the whole point and the whole problem.  It's not when you remember ... it's IF you remember!"

That's what we are working against, at the heart of it.  The fact that sometimes we actually (and sometimes willfully) don't remember the most basic, painful and powerful facts about our alcoholism.

"Therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind ... " -- "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's Big Book) Chapter 2, 'There Is A Solution,' pg. 23.

"We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago." -- Big Book, Chapter 2, pg. 24

And the "if" is inevitable for a real alcoholic.

Therein is one of the most important reasons I continue to come to AA meetings -- it keeps me from falling victim to the "if."

 

"The remonstrances of my friends..." -- 1930's speak for the people close to you calling you out.

"My drinking assumed more serious proportions, continuing all day and almost every night.  The remonstrances of my friends terminated in a row and I became a lone wolf." -- "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's Big Book), Chapter 1, 'Bill's Story', pg. 3.

One thing I have to say about Bill, he is my kind of drinker.  It always cracks me up whenever I come to this part in his story and read "continuing all day and almost every night" when he describes how much he drank.  Think that one through.  For almost anyone else, wouldn't it more likely be 'all night and almost every day'?  Not our boy Bill.  He spends the morning and afternoon drinking, and if he's got enough stamina after a day of gin (and he often did) then he keeps going well into the night.  That is my kind of drinkin'.

But the real point here is about the choice Bill makes.  If this was written today it would probably go something like, "I partied 24/7, and when my friends called me on my shit I told them to bite me, and began drinking alone."  He chose the party over the people -- the alcohol over his friends.

I was very careful when I was using to surround myself with people that drank like I did -- yet even then some of those drunks would look at me and go, "Man, you are really a mess."  (And although memory is a tricksy thing, I seem to recall minimizing how much I drank even to the party peeps, so for some of those lushes to call me out ... man, that was sad.  And highly insulting!)

If you called me on my using you were out.  Or I was out of there.  Either way, I would pick the party over the people, every time.

And that's one of alcoholism's magic tricks.  It makes it feel like you can do and have more while it keeps taking things away from you:  Family members, friends, places you go... till you stay home alone with the booze and the drugs and the shakes and the aluminum foil on the windows and the people in the trees spying on you.  (I was at a very funny AA meeting once where the speaker asked the group how many people had at some time in their using believed that there were people in the trees, spying on them.  Something like a third of the room raised their hand.  The booze makes you crazy and the drugs makes you crazy fast.  Either way... eventually you wind up crazy.)

It's not surprising that when we're in the depths of our addiction we choose the party over the people, but it's in sobriety, when the "ism" can come creeping back in,  where true friends will call you out. 

And it is a mark of your recovery if, when they do, you have ears to hear it. 

Cheers!

 

My Least Favorite Paragraph In The Big Book

My least favorite paragraph in the book "Alcoholics Anonymous," (commonly called AA's Big Book) -- which I'll get to in a minute -- is from Chapter 4, which is entitled "We Agnostics."

But first, some context. 

Overall, "We Agnostics" is written to reassure anyone who hopes to apply AA's 12 Steps to their drinking problem (and their other problems) that they need not follow any one particular definition of God when coming to AA -- a person can use whatever feels right to them when considering the Big Questions about a Higher Power.

"Much to our relief, we discovered we did not need to consider another's conception of God." -- Big Book, Chapter 4, pg. 46

"When, therefore, we speak to you of God, we mean your own conception of God." -- Big Book, Chapter 4, pg. 47

To make AA work for you it isn't even necessary to be clear on what your Higher Power actually is.

"We found that as soon as we were able to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results, even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power, which is God." -- Big Book, Chapter 4, pg. 46

Further, "We Agnostics" discusses the different kinds of resistance people may struggle with when it comes to having any kind of faith in any kind of Higher Power. The chapter suggests that perhaps setting aside unreasonable prejudices developed during a difficult childhood or ideas developed during active addiction is a good start to having an open mind about spirituality.

"This applies, too, to other spiritual expressions which you find in this book.  Do not let any prejudice you may have against spiritual terms deter you from honestly asking yourself what they mean to you.  At the start this was all we needed to commence spiritual growth." -- Big Book, Chapter 4, pg. 47

"We Agnostics" looks at how open minded we are when a scientist makes a statement and calls it fact, even if we can't literally see what the scientist is claiming -- that solid matter is composed of atoms and electrons -- invisible-to-the-naked-eye particles in constant motion is the example used in the chapter -- we all believe it, take it on faith, even though what we experience of the world with our senses directly contradicts what the scientist claims ("Hey, Joe, does that steel girder look like it's moving to you?" "Nope, Charlie, it's just sittin' there." "But it is moving, Joe. It's in constant motion! It is!" "You high again, Charlie? Boss'll be pissed if you're high again."), and few of us have ever peered into an electron microscope and actually seen an electron whirling around an atom to personally verify what the scientist claims is true, yet without argument we accept his statement as fact.  But when we sit in AA meetings, and hear people share about their direct experience of somehow making use of spiritual forces to achieve a solution to the problems in their life, we immediately become hostile, shut down or outright dismiss such testimony.

"Besides a seeming inability to accept much on faith, we often found ourselves handicapped by obstinancy, sensitiveness, and unreasoning prejudice.  Many of us have been so touchy that even casual reference to spiritual things made us bristle with antagonism." -- BB, Ch. 4, pg. 48

Chapter 4 is a wonderful discussion from many different viewpoints about how one might at least open the door a tiny crack and entertain the idea that maybe -- just maybe -- there's some sort of spiritual law at work in the universe, and that such law is guided by a force of some kind, a Higher Power, that it might be possible to tap into.

As it paints this picture, and discusses how challenging it can be for even a willing person to wrap their head around the idea of God, no matter how inclusive AA is on the matter, "We Agnostics" starts to talk about the mind's need for "logic" as a way to interpret the world.

"Logic is great stuff.  We liked it.  We still like it.  It is not by chance we were given the power to reason, to examine the evidence of our senses, and to draw conclusions." -- BB, Ch. 4, pg. 53

Not to spoil the surprise or anything, but where this is going is the idea that a belief in God is not a wholly illogical thing.

"Hence we are at pains to tell why we think our present faith is reasonable, why we think it more sane and logical to believe than not to believe..." -- BB, Ch. 4, pg. 53

And then we come to it.  My least favorite paragraph in the Big Book.  (Hated it.)  There, on the bottom of pg. 53, the paragraph that at first bored me, then frustrated me, then angered me, and then finally, finally made sense to me:

"Arrived at this point, we were squarely confronted with the question of faith.  We couldn't duck the issue.  Some of us had already walked far over the Bridge of Reason toward the desired shore of faith.  The outlines and the promise of the New Land had brought lustre to tired eyes and fresh courage to flagging spirits.  Friendly hands had stretched out in welcome.  We were grateful that Reason had brought us so far.  But somehow, we couldn't quite step ashore.  Perhaps we had been leaning too heavily on Reason that last mile and we did not like to lose our support." -- BB, Ch. 4, pg. 53

Aaarrgh!  Bill, ... you're killing me with this stuff.

Usually I find the language of the Big Book, that is, late 1930's American English/Midwest slang, vocabulary, syntax and imagery, either poetic or cute -- even fun, in some places.  (From "Bill's Story," Ch. 1: "For three or four months the goose hung high."  Come on! Ya gotta love that.)  But for me this paragraph on pg. 53 in "We Agnostics" just goes right off the rails.

Now I see that what baffled me for so long is that in large measure the metaphor hijacks the point.

We get so vivid with our crossing the river, walking over the bridge, reaching out for the distant shore imagery that (for me, anyway) the conclusion they're reaching for doesn't land.

Here's what this all means to me now, in the context of discussing the desire for a logical explanation of the Universe coupled with the need to develop a working faith:

In learning about life it is the most natural thing in the world to ask "Why?"  That's the need for logic, the way we make sense of things.  "Why did they repo my car?"  "Why did the referee call out of bounds?" "Why did Janie throw up?" "Why is Grampa smiling?"

I learn how to get along in life, how the Universe works, from asking "why" and remembering the "because's."

"Because you didn't make your payments, so they came and took your car."  "Because the ball was over the yellow line."  "Because Janie ate spoiled egg salad and has food poisoning."  "He's not smiling, that's gas.  Grampa looks like that because he ate too fast and now he has gas."

So it's perfectly natural that in developing a faith I want to ask, even if I dress it up in other verbiage, "Why" when it comes to God and how the universe works -- it's how the human mind makes sense of things -- and that's my need for logic applied to my quest to develop a spiritual connection of some sort -- hell, of any sort.

Now, pretty much every organized religion will offer you their "because" -- "Why did Janie throw up?"  "Because Janie is a dirty sinner, bound for the Lake of Fire, and God is punishing her because she was bad."  One of the things religion does is make sense of the Universe in a particular way and then teaches that way to people so they can believe that if they follow The Rules they will protect their loved ones from harm in an often frightening and confusing world, and live with the Big Questions (which almost always boil down to a "Why?") without giving into despair or going nuts.  There is safety (or the illusion of safety, anyway) and comfort in a "because," even if it's a harsh one.  You learn The Rules, you follow them, you'll be ok.  Janie broke The Rules, so God made her sick.  (One man's religion is another man's superstition -- yet they both serve to give you a "because."  "Why did your Mom break her back?"  "Oh, I stepped on a crack.  See that break in the sidewalk over there?  Tomorrow I'm aiming for my Dad!")

Many of us, on our way down to hitting bottom, reject a punishing God model, and in so doing reject God altogether.  But AA has assured me that I can set aside what others say about how the universe/God works and still develop spiritually.  But when I do, I not only set aside their rules and ideas, I set aside their explanations -- and I'm left with no "because" -- which is a hard thing if I'm trying to make sense of how to connect with a Higher Power -- even if I don't like the explanation that's offered for something ("Dirty Sinner!") it's easier to have an explanation I don't like than not to have one at all.

Thus I'm left trying to develop a faith I can begin to wrap my head around, trying to understand how God works in the world so that I can hopefully tap into that Higher Power and apply it to my alcoholism, and maybe even my whole life... but I can't, I keep getting stuck because ... because ...

because there's no because.  I get stuck not because I'm unwilling to believe so much as I get stuck because I'm trying so hard to understand.

Faith, some belief in some sort of Higher Power, looks good -- the people in meetings sound good ("lustre to tired eyes" and "fresh courage to flagging spirits" and "friendly hands reaching out") -- I want faith -- but ... when I try to wrap my head around any kind of spiritual belief system I keep hitting the logic wall -- I keep hitting the need for a logical explanation -- I keep trying to understand -- I keep hitting the need for an answer to the question, "Why?"

"If there's a God, why were their Nazis?"  "Why is their injustice?" "Why do innocent children suffer?" (Though an addict's "why's" are much more personal and usually selfish. "Where's mine?  Why aren't things the way I think they should be?")

Why?  That's a millennium-long discussion, debated over the Ages by far brighter minds than mine.

But the point made in the paragraph I hate is that on the way to some kind of working belief in a Higher Power, logic -- understanding -- will take you only part of the way ("Why is he so calm when things are so bad?"  "Because he's surrendered to God's will."  An answer which will evoke a "Huh?" from many, many people) -- but not all the way to a faith you can live by.

So here it is:  If you require a "because" for every single "Why?" you can come up with for how the universe works, then you will never "step from the Bridge of Reason to the shore of faith."  To have a working faith -- or to at least start to have a working faith, I must accept that I will not have a logical explanation -- I will not have a "because" -- for every question I ask about who/what//how/why a Higher Power works -- even though the asking is a natural part of how the human mind is constructed.  To have faith I must live with the unanswered "Why?".

The more readily I let go of my "Why?" the more easily I can embrace faith.  This does not mean I abandon the need for all intelligent, logical reasoning, but it does mean I must begin to be comfortable living without a "because" to every single one of my "why?'s"

But sometimes that paragraph still drives me batty.

And there we go.  Sorted.

 

Being convinced ... of what?

The section quoted below is from the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's Big Book), Chapter 5, "How It Works."  The first few pages of this chapter, pgs. 58 thru 60, are often read at the beginning of a meeting, and they are a terrific, succinct introduction to the program in general, the Big Book, and the 12 Steps in particular.

The passage I'm looking at here is at the end of that reading, and just a bit past where people usually stop, and is located on pg. 60.

"Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas:

(a) That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives.

(b) That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.

(c) That God could and would if He were sought.

Being convinced, we were at Step Three, which is that we decided to turn our will and our life over to God as we understood Him."

Ok, now let's break it down.

Our description of the alcoholic (that's referring to the information outlined in "The Doctor's Opinion," a sort of Foreword in the Big Book, plus Chapter 2, "There is a Solution" and Chapter 3, "More About Alcoholism"), the chapter to the agnostic (That's Chapter 4, "We Agnostics") and our personal adventures before and after (referring, I believe, to the stories in the back of the Big Book, which begin on pg. 165 and outline a number of different people's struggle with admitting they were alcoholics and the solution they found in AA) make clear three pertinent ideas (meaning that among the information outlined in those sections there are 3 main things to focus on at this point in the Big Book):

(a) That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. (That's merely Step One almost word-for-word.)

(b) That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism ("b" and "c" here break Step 2, "Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity" in half -- "b" is the first part of Step 2, sort of coming at it from the opposite direction, that is, if I believe that no human power can help me, then it must follow that if I believe there is help in AA, and it is not from a human power, it must be from some power greater than myself -- and that power will make me sane in regards to alcohol/ism. )

(c) That God could and would if he were sought. (That's expanding on the idea in the second half of Step 2, "Came to believe ... would restore us to sanity.")

Being convinced we were at Step Three...

Ok, being convinced of what, exactly? Being convinced of a, b, and c -- which is Step One restated and Step 2 broken in half to clarify the ideas it suggests.

So if you are convinced that you have no power over alcohol, that is, you acknowledge that you cannot stop drinking even though you may/mostly/deeply want to, and also acknowledge that the consequences of this inability to stop drinking are that your life is in free fall -- and then also you are convinced that you need help to address this problem, that is, you need something other than you, something "more" than just you, your willpower, your bright ideas, to deal with this insane behavior around alcohol, and thus bring you to sane behavior around alcohol -- being convinced of those things by the information you read/heard in Chapters 2 and 3 and from what is written in The Doctor's Opinion and comparing it to your own life and drinking/using history -- being convinced of all that you are at Step 3.

And also, then, it follows that if you're not convinced of all that (of a, b, and c on pg. 60) then you're not at Step 3.

You're not behind.  You're not bad, you're not (necessarily) unwilling -- but you're not convinced.  When you are, then you're at Step 3 -- and until that time, I guess you're at Steps 1 and 2.

"Things Seen and Unseen, Things Believed and Not Believed." Dumpling and Giblet, a (very) short play in 2 scenes

"The prosaic steel girder is a mass of electrons whirling around each other at incredible speed.  These tiny bodies are governed by precise laws, and these laws hold true throughout the material world.  Science tells us so.  We have no reason to doubt it.  When, however, the perfectly logical assumption is suggested that underneath the material world and life as we see it, there is an All Powerful, Guiding, Creative Intelligence, right there our perverse streak comes to the surface and we laboriously set out to convince ourselves it isn't so." -- "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's "Big Book") pgs. 48 - 49, Chapter 4, "We Agnostics"

__________________________________________________

SCENE 1

GIBLET: "What's this?"

DUMPLING: "A physics text book."

GIBLET: "Oh. What are you reading about?"

DUMPLING: "Physics."

GIBLET: "Ha. Ha. Ha. What in physics are you reading about?"

DUMPLING: "Quantum Theory -- all about how the laws of the physical universe on the microscopic scale, like atoms and molecules and electrons and stuff, and the laws of the physical universe on the macroscopic scale, like the forces between galaxies and stuff, don't really line up."

GIBLET "I thought those laws were universal or something."

DUMPLING: "That's what they used to think, but now they've discovered that there are some things that don't line up.  Like the laws that govern how the molecules in that table interact with each other don't seem to quite cover the way galaxies and stuff in space interact with each other."

GIBLET: "Weird.  You know, I always thought that was wild, the way a scientist just says, 'This is the new fact' and we all just go, 'Oh, well, he's a scientist, so that must be the way it is.'  I mean like that table, it looks like it's not moving, but some guy in a lab coat says, 'I'm a physicist and I know about this' and says that at a microscopic level which we can't see there are electrons and junk flying around, and so in a whole other way the table actually is moving, even though it looks like it's not -- even though I can't see the electrons and all -- but Dr. Physics says they're there, so we all go, 'Ok!'."

DUMPLING: "I guess you have to start from a basic assumption that some people have studied or seen or experienced something and that they're telling you the truth."

GIBLET: "Well of course. Otherwise how could you ever learn anything."

__________________________________________________

SCENE 2

GIBLET: "What's this?"

DUMPLING: "Kind of a spiritual text book."

GIBLET: "Oh. What are you reading about?"

DUMPLING: "Spirituality."

GIBLET: "Ha. Ha. Ha.  What kind of spirituality?"

DUMPLING: "Well, the idea that if you have a problem that you can't beat on your own and admit that, and then decide to follow a sort of spiritual path, and follow the recipe that this book lays out, you can have a spiritual experience and connect with a Higher Power.  It's all about that there are spiritual forces in the world you can tap into which will help you with the problem you can't beat on your own."

GIBLET: "Sounds ridiculous.  'Spiritual forces' -- I mean, come on. That's so lame."

DUMPLING: "Well, the people who wrote this book claim first hand experience.  They say that they didn't make it up out of their heads, they figured it out from trying different things and getting information from a bunch of different sources -- doctors, other people who had the same problem, some religious people..."

GIBLET: "You shouldn't believe everything you read."

DUMPLING: "I know. But ... I've met some people who tried what the book said to do, and they claim that it worked for them."

GIBLET: "Probably crazies -- or they want money from you or something.  People who believe in any of that spiritual crap are just kidding themselves.  Or come on, they're weak. They need something to lean on or... something.  'Religion is the opium of the masses.'"

DUMPLING: "Actually I think heroin is the opium of the masses.  Or TV maybe.  Heroin or TV,  I'm not sure."

GIBLET: "Funny.  Anyway, you can ask a hundred different people about this kind of thing and get a hundred different answers.  There's no real evidence for any of it."

DUMPLING: "Well, I guess you have to start from a basic assumption that some people have studied or seen or experienced something and that they're telling you the truth."

GIBLET: "Nah. I don't buy it."

Just one more bullshit promise in a life filled with bullshit promises

From Chapter 5, "How it Works" in the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's Big Book), pg. 63-64:

"Next we launched out on a course of vigorous action, the first step of which is a personal housecleaning, which many of us had never attempted.  Though our decision (meaning Step 3, as in our "...decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God") was a vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face, and to be rid of, the things in ourselves which had been blocking us."  (underlines for emphasis and parenthetical insert mine)

This passage occurs in the Big Book immediately after the 3rd Step and immediately before the 4th Step is explained -- in fact, it's literally the bridge between the two Steps -- and that very point is the focus of this paragraph in the book.

A number of important things here.  If I may be so bold please allow me to pull from this passage what is (for me) the heart of it -- to paraphrase slightly and condense:

The 3rd Step will ultimately mean nothing unless followed immediately by the 4th Step.

Or, to put this in the way I think of it when I read it today:

The decision to turn our will and our lives over to some Higher Power will be just one more bullshit promise in a life filled with bullshit promises unless you get busy right away on the inventory process, and ultimately the rest of the Steps.  If you do not do that the effect of the 3rd Step will be small, and will not last.

And so this decision, this "vital and crucial step," is (again, to paraphrase slightly) literally just the making of a decision to turn my will and my life over to God (however I understand God).

Making a decision to do something is not the same as actually doing something.  It is a call to action, but it is not the action itself.

Here's the old riddle that floats around AA:

Question:  Three birds are sitting on a wire. One makes the decision to up and fly away. How many birds are sitting on the wire?

Answer:  3.  Because making a decision to up and fly away is not actually getting up and flying away.

Sitting there reading this, you decide to get up and go get a cup of coffee. (Coffee. Mmmmm.)  Do you have a cup of coffee in your hand now? No. You've only made the decision to go and get one.

So how then, if I've decided to turn my will and life over to God, do I actually do that in the real world?

By "embarking on a course of vigorous action" -- which means -- are you ready? -- doing Steps 4 through 12.  Kids, doing the Steps is actually the way you turn your will and your life over to (the care of) God.

(Which sounds like way more than I ever really wanted to do.  Phrases like "vigorous action" make me tired just reading them.  And for much of my drinking life when it came to God so often my reaction was kind of, "Can't I just light a candle or something?"  I looked with suspicion and displeasure at anything that required vigorous action -- and when you threw God in the mix you could add skepticism or disdain to suspicion and displeasure.)

And sure, there are other ways to turn your life over to the care of God.  Feel free to go and find them if you like.  Tie a piece of red yarn around your wrist and get tickets for Kabbalahpalooza, attend a seminar that explains the book "A Course in Miracles," follow the dictates of any of a hundred different religions (though not all at the same time -- I think you're in for some conflict there if you go that route)... AA does not claim in any way to have the only way, or the "right" way, to connect with a Higher Power.

What AA claims to have is one -- not the only one, but one -- effective method of making that connection.  Literally a step-by-step process for creating a spiritual experience.  And it is a method that is simple but not always easy; thus only people driven by pain and fear of death, that is, alcoholics who have hit bottom and want to change, are the sort that choose to go through them.  I always get a kick out of how that's described in the chapter on the First Step in the book "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions" (commonly called The 12&12), pg. 24:

"For practicing AA's remaining eleven Steps means the adoption of attitudes and actions that almost no alcoholic who is still drinking can dream of taking.  Who wishes to be rigorously honest and tolerant?  Who wants to confess his faults to another and make restitution for harm done?  Who cares anything about a Higher Power, let alone meditation and prayer?  Who wants to sacrifice time and energy in trying to carry AA's message to the next sufferer?  No, the average alcoholic, self-centered in the extreme, doesn't care for this prospect -- unless he has to do these things in order to stay alive himself."

Man, the people who wrote that must have been reading my mail.

But if you want to follow the 12 Steps to the end and thus have a spiritual experience as the result of those Steps, then the 4th Step, the "searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves" is where you start taking the action which results in turning your life over to God -- the inventory is literally "the first step in a course of vigorous action" to flip the phrase a tiny bit.

Oh, and why do I even want a spiritual experience?  Well, some days I don't.  But I need a spiritual experience -- because an alcoholic mind will, on its own, torture itself or seduce itself or convince itself or forget itself into choosing to drink again.  Without a spiritual experience, an ongoing spiritual experience at that, the alcoholic mind alone is "without defense against the first drink."

So it goes like this:

Making a decision to turn my will and life over to God (whatever God) is a nice sentiment, but it's nothing but a hollow gesture unless I start searching within myself for the things that keep twisting my thinking and messing me up -- and the search process begins with writing the inventory.  The rest of the Steps give me a plan and a set of tools to deal with what the inventory shows me, and then ultimately a road map for not just cleaning up the past, but becoming free of it, and moving forward in my life.

Right. Sorted.