Recovery Sunday.
A friend sent me the following reflection from one of his parishioners, who asked not to have his name attached. Well worth reading:
I am an alcoholic. I can say that now and know what it means- that was not always the case. When I first started coming to the rooms of AA I couldn’t say it. I would introduce myself by name but would refuse to say I was an alcoholic… An alcoholic was someone who was homeless and begging for money to drink on, an alcoholic was someone older, someone who drank in the morning, someone who drinks and drives- I did many of those things but that isn’t what makes me alcoholic. I thought maybe alcoholism was “the result of”- the result of bad parenting, or the result of my obsession with my lover, or the result of always feeling different- not smart enough, not good looking enough, not coming from the right part of town (etc), I thought it might be because of mental illness or depression… but my problems aren’t what make me alcoholic- what makes me an alcoholic is that I used alcohol as the solution to those problems.
I love alcohol, it gave me the power to do or say anything to anyone. It allowed me to dance, it made me feel attractive and smart- but most of all it silenced all the noise and chatter that ran through my head. All my fears and resentments were suddenly gone and all I focused on was the next drink. To some it’s a beverage- something to compliment a meal perhaps, a way to socialize after a long days work… to me to was the key to making me a whole person- The solution to the problem of being me. I chased that sensation until I had just about killed myself, I didn’t even care… I was constantly hurting the people around me- always accompanied with countless apologies or justifications and it never stopped.
I’m not really sure what I was looking for when I came to AA. I knew I wanted to stop hurting my loved ones, and I new I was going to die, but I just couldn’t imagine a life with out drinking. They told me that I was suffering from a disease- a disease that meant I had a body that couldn’t tolerate a single drink, a mind that wouldn’t leave it alone, and a spiritual condition that put me and my problems at the center of the universe. Always playing the victim I had the attitude that “if you were going through what I was going through then you would drink too!” Another personal favorite was “Life sucks now and will suck later so I may as well be drunk!” They told me I needed to live my life in a way that wasn’t full of pain and misery, that I needed to live my life in a way that meant I wasn’t in charge… I needed a higher power.
If I could have figured out a way around it I would have. I hated God and I was convinced that God hated me. My first sponsor told me to pray- I said I didn’t believe in God, they said “I didn’t ask you if you believed in God I asked you to pray!” It had been years since I had prayed… There had been lots of “Please God get me out of this one!” but not an actual prayer. I think my first prayer went something like this “Who ever is out there I don’t like you and I bet you don’t like me but help me to not pick up!” It was enough. I had made contact. Suddenly I had something I hadn’t in a long time: hope. Hope that I could get better, hope that there could be a life with out alcohol, hope that if I just let God do what God does I could be happy. Hope turned in to willingness and willingness turned into action. Its been almost nine years with out a drink.
God has given me so many gifts I’m almost moved to tears writing this- but far and away the most important I have received is usefulness. My experience, once my greatest handicap has now become my principle asset. When I see someone wasting away into alcoholism I can offer them a solution today. I’ll finish with a story that sums it all up for me: I was newly sober I was talking to an old timer Ed, and I very melodramatically told him that “life as I knew it was over!” He looked me square in the eye and said “With God’s help that might just prove true”
Thank you for this beautiful testimony to the fact that with God, all things are possible.
“God has given me so many gifts I’m almost moved to tears writing this- but far and away the most important I have received is usefulness.”
Not everybody gets this far. Many alcoholics manage to stay dry, but never give up the manipulative, self-absorbed behavior that make them a trial to themselves and others.
AA isn’t perfect, but it does push people toward a sense of gratitude and service. This guy sounds like he’s made a lot of headway. Bless him and pray for those who aren’t there yet.
“Therefore God also highly exalted him
And gave him the name
That is above every name,
So that at the name of Jesus
Every knee should bend,
In heaven and on earth and under the earth,
And every tongue should confess
That Jesus Christ is Lord,
To the glory of God the Father.” (Phil 2:6-11)
Monks tell us that “The Way” leads through the low doors of
humility. It is a strange paradox: to become humble is to embrace
the human condition as it is and to also renounce any self-made
illusions about the human condition. This teaching is so
comprehensive in this tradition that we may say that humility is for
a Christian what enlightenment is for a Buddhist, realization for a
Hindu, sincerity for a Confucian, righteousness for a Jew, surrender
for a Muslim, and annihilation for a Sufi.
The early Christians celebrated the paradox of Jesus’ path of self-
emptying. They sang this hymn in honor of how Jesus “humbled”
himself of himself. This is the legacy of wisdom Jesus and they
offer us. It is not about striving for or clinging to some imagined
divinity that we imitate the Lord. We imitate Jesus by becoming
fully human and by renouncing what is not truly human.
“So it is that we first see humility as a necessity. But this is the
barest beginning. To get completely away from our aversion to the
idea of being humble, to gain a vision of humility as the avenue to
true freedom of the human spirit, to be willing to work for humility
as something to be desired for itself, takes most of us a long, long
time. A whole lifetime geard to self-centeredness cannot be set in
reverse all at once. Rebellion dogs our every step at first.”
(Alcoholics Anonymous)
I am known for my criticism of the bishops. The truth is that I am not against having bishops. What the problem is is that they generally lack humility. They regale in long robes and domination while mouthing humble words. Their preference for their reputation over justice to victims has harmed them tremendously. Humility whether shown in the alcoholic or anyone else is the virtue that Jesus constantly stresses. Indeed without humility there is no salvation.
A bit of AA history some may not know:
“It was a rather bitter night, sleeting outside, and old Tom, a very brusque Irishman, came up and said, ‘Bill, [Wilson, founder of AA] I hate to bother you but there is some bum from St. Louis here.’
“Well it was ten at night and I said, ‘Oh, no not another one! Well bring him up.’ So I heard a painful passage up the stairs, and I said to myself, ‘This one is really in bad shape.’ He finally stood in the door of my little bedroom, a terribly crippled figure, coat drawn up around him, leaning on a cane. And he sat down and turned back his collar, and then I saw he was a clergyman.
“He said, ‘I’m Father Dowling from St. Louis. I belong to the Jesuits out there, and we been looking at this book ‘Alcoholics Anonymous.’
“Thus began a conversation that lasted for twenty years. Father Dowling, crippled Jesuit priest from St. Louis and editor of ‘The Queens Work,’ a Catholic publication, said he was fascinated by the parallels he had discovered between the Twelve Steps of Alcoholic Anonymous and the Exercises of St. Ignatius, the spiritual disciple of his Jesuit Order. When Bill confessed that he knew nothing of the Exercises of St. Ignatius, Father Dowling was delighted, and Bill warmed to him. . .
That evening Father Ed began sharing with Bill an understanding of the spiritual life that then and ever after seemed to speak to Bill’s condition. Bill, author of the Fifth Step would later characterize that evening as the night he took his Fifth Step [ Admitted to God and to ourselves the exact nature of our wrongs.] . . . he unburdened himself of his omissions and commissions, all of which had laid heavily on his mind, and of which he had found, until then, no way to speak. This extraordinary communication , this openness to sharing, was to be vital for Bill. Father Dowling’s ‘spiritual sponsorship’ would endure, grow, and be nourished during a correspondence and a deep friendship that last for the next two decades. . .
“That night, Bill told of his high hopes and plans, and spoke about his anger, despair, and mounting frustrations. The Jesuit listened and quoted Matthew, ‘Blessed are they who do hunger and thirst.’ God’s chosen, he pointed out, were always distinguished by their yearning their restlessness, their thirst.
“In pain, Bill asked if there was never to be any satisfaction. The priest almost snapped back: ‘Never. Never any.’ He continued in a gentle tone, describing as ‘divine dissatisfaction’ that which would keep Wilson going, always reaching out for unattainable goals, for only by so reaching would he attain what –hidden from him–were God’s goals. This acceptance that his dissatisfaction, that is very ‘thirst’ could be divine was one of Dowling’s great gifts to Bill Wilson and through him to Alcoholics Anonymous.”
From: “Pass it On: The Story of Bill Wilson and how the AA message reached the world” 1984
pages 241-243.
“People who know the history of Alcoholics Anonymous have heard of Dr. Bob Smith and Bill Wilson, credited with founding the organization, but few have heard of the woman who shaped the hospital concept used to this day. On August 16, 1935, Sister Ignatia Gavin, a frail but no-nonsense Catholic sister in charge of admissions at St. Thomas Hospital in Akron, Ohio, with the help of Dr. Bob Smith, one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, admitted the first alcoholic patient under the diagnosis of acute gastritis, thus making St. Thomas Hospital the first hospital in the world to treat alcoholism as a medical condition. Dr. Bob provided the medical treatment, while a steady stream of ‘reformed’ alcoholics helped the man with his ‘spiritual’ needs. ..”
http://www.barefootsworld.net/aasisterignatia.html
Brief plug for ACOA groups–adult children of alcoholics.
http://www.adultchildren.org/
Uses the 12-steps of AA. It is a very lacerating experience, as the steps are aimed mostly at ridding people who grew up with alcoholics of a sense of victimhood and their own substance addictions, or just the addiction to drama, which is what passes for normality in an alcoholic household.
I would urge anyone with a special feeling for alcoholics and their families, to make an effort to pray for them during the holidays, which are often bring out the worst behaviors and memories. A novena to the Venerable Matt Talbot works for me:
http://venerablematttalbotresourcecenter.blogspot.com
My younger sister was for many years my spiritual mentor or
director. I still use her when I get into a tight spots. My sister
began to gain her spiritual wisdom because she needed to do something
about her obesity and overeating over twenty years ago. Her first
spiritual steps consisted in writing down her angers, rage, etc.
exactly as she felt them when she was having them. Anger came up
very strongly for her after she stopped overeating. It was an
exercise in honesty. Also in the beginning my sister started to
write down what she planned to eat and let somebody know this every
day. It too was a exercise in honesty. My sister has made great
spiritual progress in the last twenty years and has stuck to her
plan. She has not overeaten in over 20 years. She has be “abstinent” for over 20 years. She had to get through a lot of fear and trusting God has been key. It all started with
honesty. This included honesty about her anger and rage in the early
days of not overeating. My sister told me I could tell you her story.
I am reminded of Genesis. After Adam ate the forbidden fruit, God
doesn’t ask Adam if he is being good. God asks Adam, “Where are you?”
I guess not hiding and being honest about who we really are and what
we are really doing is how our transformation and journey with the
Lord begins. She has been in a 12 Step Program for over 20 years.
http://www.oa.org/index.htm