Tradition Three

The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.

Thank goodness!

This Tradition has a funny text where it tells of a time in 1956 when AA groups were asked to submit a list of their membership requirements.  It says that when the lists were put together, no one could have met the requirements and belonged to AA.  I doubt that, as a 16-year-old girl, I would have been accepted everywhere.

The text goes on to delineate two controversial kinds of members.  The first seems to be a heroin addict.  Folks back then were worried that he’d be dangerous, or, more likely, give them a bad reputation or scare others away from the group.  The second was an atheist.  I have a small grumble with the fact that this story is presented, since the guy gets drunk, then “comes to Jesus.”  Or at least to God.

In the AA I know today, almost everyone has tried or been addicted to a myriad of other drugs.  Usually the only controversy I see is when this person starts to talk about drugs, then excuses him or herself, saying, “I know this is AA, sorry for mentioning drugs.”  Something like that.  I think, at least in my experience, that the AA members who object to someone talking about drugs are very very few and far between.  I don’t think anyone needs to apologize for this anymore.  I don’t think people need to pass a test that proves they were more addicted to alcohol than to some other drug.  Just my opinion.

And many people have trouble, sometimes a lot of trouble, with the spiritual aspect of AA.  Most, in my experience, do believe in some form of higher power and so live a life in AA that is healing, saving and productive.  But many have a spirituality that doesn’t fit the traditional mold, and they are fine as well.

Apart from the text, and just regarding my own experience, I personally again marvel at the loose set of rules that bind us together and give us strength.

Every so often, I hear of someone in AA being dangerous, and harming someone else.  Sometimes these people have been given lighter prison sentences if they go to AA meetings.  AA and the courts is a controversial topic, and I can see both sides of the question.  It’s awful when someone in AA harms someone else, and AA is not a totally safe and wonderful place.

But these things are rare, and I think AA remains the best hope for most people who are alcoholic.  So within the rooms it’s a tradition not to exclude someone for what he or she has done, or for any other reason.  It has to be that way.  Exclusions would build on each other and mount up until 16-year-old girls are not allowed to join, and so left to die.

The Spiritual Part of the Program (part 2)

For my own path, after I was confirmed against my will (documented in “My Story”), I left church for good.  When I first started AA, I didn’t pray in meetings, though I did hold hands.  Through my six years of failing to stay sober in AA, somewhere along the line, in many desperate moments, I tried praying to stay away from the first drink.

A concept that turned it for me was that of willingness.  Are you willing to accept that there might be a higher power?  Yes, at that point I was.   As the books say, that was what I needed to begin to live on a spiritual basis.  During the years that followed, I went back to the Lutheran church, though I don’t accept a lot of the rules and rituals.  I was just about to seriously consider learning about the Quakers when I met Carole, who was at that time president of the congregation at her Lutheran church.

What it’s like now for me is complicated, as it should be.  I’m skeptical and cynical about many things having to do with all religions.  At times I’m not sure there is a power greater than me in the universe beyond the collected wisdom of any group.  In this way AA is still my higher power, and I would not consider changing my mind about that, not unless I want to die.  At other times I can believe to some degree in some kind of God.

When I think of my spirit, now, it’s mostly in terms of becoming a better person, enlarging my good qualities and continuing to let go of my character defects.  And still I’m skeptical and cynical.  There’s a group of people who I had huge resentments against and anger toward a few years ago, in a shake up at work.  Some of these people are still in my life and some aren’t.  I continue to pray about them and I continue to try to see them in the light of humility, as greater than or equal to me and to everyone else.  I think I’ve improved in this but I’m not sure.  I may just get used to it, and to them.

Consequently, In Step Three (Step Twelve continued)

Consequently, in Step Three we turned our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.  For the time being, we who were atheist or agnostic discovered that our own group, or A.A. as a whole, would suffice as a higher power.

Sometimes I hear nutty anti-AA stuff that claims AA suggests an atheist or agnostic choose anything as a higher power, including a tree, rock, or inanimate object.  This hasn’t been my experience.  I was certainly agnostic and anti-religion when I came in.  It was suggest to me that I view the collective wisdom as expressed by the members of AA as a higher power, since they had solved their drinking problem, and I had failed to solve mine.  Worked for me.

The turn of the will, as I see it, is a commitment to try once, then again and again, to do the right thing.

We Also Fall (Step Eleven continued)

We also fall into another similar temptation.  We form ideas as to what we think God’s will is for other people.  We say to ourselves, “This one ought to be cured of his fatal malady,” or “That one ought to be relieved of his emotional pain,” and we pray for these specific things.  Such prayers, of course, are fundamentally good acts, but often they are based upon a supposition that we know God’s will for the person for whom we pray.  This means that side by side with an earnest prayer there can be a certain amount of presumption and  conceit in us.  It is A.A.’s experience that particularly in these cases we ought to pray that God’s will, whatever it is, be done for others as well as for ourselves.

Again, why bad things happen to good people.  I don’t know and it often, often, seems very unfair.  The above concept explains to me that I’m not unique, and it tells me what to do.  I need to pray for God’s will, whatever it is.

I don’t know what it is.  I also add after that, if I’m actually praying this, “and the power to carry that out.”

I can see how a lifetime of asking for people to be cured of their fatal maladies could lead to big disillusionment and eventually turning away from a higher power and from prayer.  It’s a bit different to consider that it is presumption and conceit that would make me think this way.

Through the years I’ve had a few favorite clients (adults with multiple disabilities and mental retardation), and one of them is suffering right now.  To my eyes she has suffered her whole life, and now her life is in question as she struggles to get off of a ventilator.  Honestly this is one of the most difficult scenarios of my life, and it does get played out from time to time.    I just can’t fathom a “why” for these things.  There can’t be a reason that I can comprehend.  So yes, God’s will for Christy, that’s what is needed right now.  And the truth is, I may not really, truly want it.

Cultish Aspects, Part III

More from Antonahill:

>AA does not control the information that members receive from books or TV or the internet or from other people. It does not shun people who fall away. The fact that it actually welcomes such people back probably saved my life.

Not “shun”, no. But harsh judgement is lobbed at those who do not follow the culture that is preached.

Not really, not in my experience.  I relapsed chronically for six years.  I have had exposure over time to people who have relapsed.  I have known people who did “not follow the culture that is preached.”  I have not heard them subjected to harsh judgment.

When someone struggles, especially over time, in my experience, AA members become more heavy and adamant about the AA “suggestions.”  Mostly that’s because we hate to see people suffer, and know that in our individual and collective experience, the more of the “culture” we leave out, the less likely we are to achieve, maintain, and thrive in sobriety.

As for people who don’t seem to be struggling, but are not following the culture by maybe leaving out important aspects, I hear warnings sometimes directed toward them, but it is always couched in the terms of personal experience, and always  meant as a warning.  So for example someone who likes to hang out with old friends at bars may get told that this isn’t a good idea.  I hope they do get told that.  But harsh judgment?  No.  In my experience, AAs are the most gentle people I’ve known.

>AA does tell alcoholics that they have no personal power.

Which is absurd. And having such an absurd notion as a central tenet is at elast irresponsible.

Take it in context.  An alcoholic presenting herself at an AA meeting as such by definition cannot stop drinking.  Most people don’t show up at AA because they have one bad hangover.  It takes a lot of devastation usually for someone to take that step inside the rooms.  Usually this person has tried many many other ways first, and has failed, hence her presence at an AA meeting.

Now AA’s first step is to admit powerlessness.  This is the way sober people in AA have begun to live a life of sobriety. They don’t have list of ways for alcoholics to gain control of their drinking.  In fact, they have a list of ways that alcoholics have tried and failed to gain control of their drinking.

This concept is so central to the AA philosophy for me.  It’s what has enabled me to stay away from alcohol for 25 years after having nearly been killed by it.  The higher power, for me, at first, was the program of AA as practiced by the people I met there.  My will was to continue drinking, to not get so messed up that I couldn’t function, but I could not follow my own will.  I had no power to do that.  I had to follow the will of AA in order to begin to recover.  I had to.  For others, they don’t have to, and something else works for them.  When they show up at an AA meeting, though, I and millions of others will tell them what worked for us.  That we had no personal power.  That as long as we struggled to gain and exercise personal power, we were unable to stop drinking.  That if they are fortunate to grasp this concept as we have, they may begin to recover in the same way we advocate and love.

>Rather it has a systematic way of making sure, in as much as it is possible, that people apologize and make restitution for the past bad things they have done. It has a systematic way of encouraging us to review our conduct daily and several times a day, and to use our power to perform right actions.

As fine as that may be, the fact is that AA is not required for such principles to exist or be practiced.

And let’s be honest. One step instructs the member to hand all flaws over to God. That is not a system. That is religious tripe.

This is related to what I tried to express in the previous section.  The “handing over” is not a passive thing.  I may have struggled, for example, with dishonesty.  My presence in AA proves my inability to get very far on my own.  With the literature and people of AA, I have concrete directions and limitless counsel on how to actually do that by living a more honest life.  Once I have handed over the defect of dishonesty, for example, I can’t then to on to happily lie.

>Still, when I consider a newcomer, brand new to the rooms of AA, my best advice and my greatest hope for that person is that he or she jump in, stay close, and recover. I’ve seen it go the other way too many times. I couldn’t recover on my own, even after I had studied to some degree the principles of AA. So many others also cannot.

By your own admission, the principles of AA are not new to it. By what reasoning then is it a good idea to join and maintain fellowship in AA? The fact is that people can and do stop excessive drinking all the time without AA. There is, then, no reason for AA to exist if all it’s really going to do is rehash some tried and some absurd principles.

The fact that people can and do did not help me stop drinking one bit.  I don’t find any of the principles to be absurd, but then again, I wouldn’t.

>In speaking completely for myself, I can say with certainty that all the good I have done over the past 24 years is a direct result of AA. Had I lived without it, I would have been a pathetic taker, institutionalized and disabled in one way or another.

This begs the questions, were you unaware of the essentials of ethics before AA? Had it never crossed your mind to take responsibility for your actions? To apologize for the wrong you had done to others? If it had, then you had no need for AA. If it hadn’t, then you need much more than AA to become a productive member of society.

I had been exposed to those principles before AA.  It had crossed my mind to live an upright and ethical life.  However, as a compulsive drinker, I could not do it.

I needed AA to give me the people to support me in real time.  This may seem pathetic to a stronger person who could maybe study the Bible, or ethics, absorb the concepts and go on to be nearly perfect.  For me and most people I know, however, we fall far, far short of ideal.  For active alcoholics it is in my opinion impossible to drink and live an ethical life.

There are alcoholics who do it on their own but there are also many, many, who cannot.  I could not, and in desperation I turned to AA.  It gave me spiritual and ethical principles that I could live and apply, and an unlimited resource of people to help me do it.

The miracle of AA for me happened when I no longer had to attend in order to stay sober, but I wanted to attend in order to continue to grow spiritually and live better.

I am always sorry when I hear that someone will not give AA a try because the religious aspects turn them off, or because they think it is a cult.  I sincerely urge anyone who is struggling with alcohol to give it a try for 90 days.  You have everything to gain.

There is a Direct Linkage (Step Eleven continued)

There is a direct linkage among self-examination, meditation, and prayer.  Taken separately, these practices can bring much relief and benefit.  But when they are logically related and interwoven, the result is an unshakable foundation for life.  Now and then we may be granted a glimpse of that ultimate reality which is God’s kingdom.  And we will be comforted and assured that our own destiny in that realm will be secure for so long as we try, however falteringly, to find and do the will of our Creator.

Houston, I have a problem.

I love AA I live AA I am AA.

My destiny in the realm?  I can’t look at this as a promise of an afterlife.  I can’t.  So keeping that in mind (firmly), I’ll go on.

I don’t know what happened to me to make me so determined to separate religion and spirituality from promises of eternity.  But anyway.

I need to put down the book for a minute or six.

 

Sometimes We Took a Slightly Different Tack (Step Eleven continued)

Sometimes we took a slightly different tack.  Sure, we said to ourselves, the hen probably did come before the egg.  No doubt the universe had a “first cause” of some sort, the God of the Atom, maybe, hot and cold by turns.  But certainly there wasn’t any evidence of a God who knew or cared about human beings.  We liked A.A. all right, and were quick to say it had done miracles.  But we recoiled from meditation and prayer as obstinately as the scientist who refused to perform a certain experiment lest it prove his pet theory wrong.

I don’t feel a desire to revisit and rehash my experiences with coming around to believing in a higher power or to praying as a habit as I experienced it “when I first got sober” and through my early, drinking, relapsing years in AA.  I’ve written about it elsewhere and it was actually a generation or more ago.  It has something to do with the way I am today, but not much.

Now, in the present, I struggle with trying to figure out how much we influence God or God influences us.  I write “struggle,” but really it doesn’t consume much of my mental energy, just a little.  I understand that I will not know.  I understand that all people to a degree wonder about this.  For me today, prayer is primarily something I do for myself, for me to exert influence over myself.

I can understand the concept and theory that a higher power created all, then stepped back.  I can also understand the concept and theory that all is pre-ordained, with human actions meaning nothing.  I can mentally grant that one or both or neither of those is true.  Regardless, I won’t recoil from meditation and prayer because I believe those things influence my mind, if not the mind of God.

And in the picture, Xandra is wearing a gentle leader head collar.  It allows her some (too much, but still) freedom while mostly enabling us to stay in control of her.  She does not understand the dangers of suburbia and, were she given free rein, she would quickly get hurt beyond repair.

METAPHOR!

Make Me A Channel of Thy Peace (Saint Francis, Step Eleven prayer)

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

 

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

 

The way I learned and studied the prayer at first in AA has the word channel where here it is instrument. As a channel, I could sometimes picture it as something coming from the sky (where God lives, right?) into and out of me.  Instrument seems more active somehow, although instruments do nothing but lay there unless they are used or played.

 

I’m thinking of a specific situation because mornings at work are often my most unserene time of the day.  Short staff is the hardest thing for me to be peaceful about work.  It’s pretty predictable, for many reasons, that short staff will happen often.  I’d like to deal with it better than I do.  I know my anxiety and anger can effect other people and most of the people involved in the short staff situation are innocent.

 

So to understand the people who don’t come to work when they should?  To understand the people who try to get the best situation for themselves, regardless of others?  To understand the society that doesn’t sufficiently pay for services for people with disabilities, so that there isn’t enough money to provide enough staff, and there isn’t enough money to pay good people well enough to keep them coming back?

 

This situation challenges my abilities to create the best situation that I can create.  Keeping all the needs and all the personalities in mind is difficult, and in the end most people are unhappy with the result.  Some people suffer with the result.

 

Maybe I need a different prayer for this.

 

God, help me to endure my blessings.

Many of Us Had Strong Logic (Step Eleven continued)

Many of us had strong logic, too, which “proved” there was no God whatever.  What about all the accidents, sickness, cruelty, and injustice in the world?  What about all those unhappy lives which were the direct result of unfortunate birth and uncontrollable circumstances?  Surely there could be no justice in this scheme of things, and therefore no God at all.

I was at a meeting last night, and the topic was “Life on Life’s Terms.”  Several people expressed the sentiment that “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.”

I don’t believe it.  I don’t see it.  I take the evidence of crazy, broken, starving, suicidal, abused neglected, suffering people in this world as proof that people do indeed get more than they, or any human, can handle.

I don’t know what this text is going to go on to say about it.  I think that ultimately the program of AA says that we are all human, and the human condition is one of frailty.  When horrible, awful things occur, it is our acceptance of the awfulness of the world that will enable us to go on.  Maybe some of us drank because we couldn’t accept that awful things happen to good people.  That “God” (or the universe?  fate?  karma?) gives us more than we can handle.  At times.

Therefore, whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall.

13

No trial has come to you but what is human. God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength; but with the trial he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it.

12 If you think you are standing strong, be careful, for you, too, may fall into the same sin.

13 But remember that the temptations that come into your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can’t stand up against it. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you will not give in to it.

These, I believe, are where the saying “God won’t give you more than you can handle” comes from.  “The way out,” to me, has been and continues to be the program of AA, including the texts and the people.  Without the program I may certainly have gotten “more” than I could handle.  So it is, I think, with unfortunate alcoholics who can’t benefit from the program.

Last night, someone said that out of every tragedy she has suffered, something good has come.  I do believe that at least that is possible.  If nothing else, I gain the ability to keep someone company in their misery if I go through something terrible, and maybe much more.

But she went on to say that what she has experienced and lived through and benefited from proves to her that she can handle whatever the future holds.  Again, I don’t believe it.  I see people, most especially old people, decrease in their ability to handle what life brings, even in the program.  I don’t think aging is particularly kind to anyone, and seeing what’s ahead frightens me to some degree.

The important point for me is that none of this makes me so frightened that I can’t continue, or so disheartened that I want to abandon the program.  Awful stuff can and does happen.  People are broken beyond repair.  That is not my reality today.  A number one tenant  of the program is that all I have is today.  Another bible verse tells me not to borrow trouble from tomorrow.  The program tells me not to project.

Thursday, July 16 (this day)

Send Thy peace O Lord, which is perfect and everlasting, that our souls may radiate peace.

Send Thy peace O Lord, that we may think, act and speak harmoniously.

Send Thy peace O Lord, that we may be contented and thankful for Thy bountiful gifts.

Send Thy peace O Lord, that amidst our worldly strife, we may enjoy Thy bliss.  Send Thy peace O Lord, that we may endure all, tolerate all, in the thought of Thy grace and mercy.

Send Thy peace O Lord, that our lives may become a Divine vision and in Thy light, all darkness may vanish.

Send Thy peace O lord, our Father and Mother, that we Thy children on Earth may all unite in one family.

Prayer for Peace – pir-o-murshid inaya khan – 1921

Today I’m trying to think about practicing these principles in all my affairs.  “These principles” being I guess what came before the 12th step.  There are the absolutes of honesty, love, and I forget what else.  Openness?  Willingness?  I am a poor specimen.

But the principles of the prayer will stand in very well.  I’m having a tough time and I need to stop it.  Uncertainty threatens my sense of well being but I know I have always been well, regardless.

I know I’m not radiating peace.  What I’m radiating is toxic primarily to me and secondarily to others, most of whom are innocent and do not deserve my poison.  All of whom are innocent and don’t deserve my poison.

My thinking is muddled, confused and scattered.    I have a few small resentments that I feel getting pricked and stirred up frequently.  I get the over riding feeling that someone I’m dealing with views me as incompetent or worse.  This may be all my own stuff.  I know I cannot know someone else’s motivation and it’s a waste of time to go down that road.  Because of this impression of mine, my actions are not what they could be.  AND I’m spending precious time trying to get a grip on myself rather than working, here at work.  I need a thought or slogan beyond “let go and let God.”  Although letting go and letting God would be a good start.

What I speak is not spoken harmoniously.  Maybe half harmonious, half self preservation.  Which is not helpful.  My preservation is not threatened.

Contented would be good.  Content with the constant state of flux.  So what?  Again, I’m not threatened.  I can ride it out, whatever it is.

……………… Back from a “party.”  My feelings, my emotions, certainly play in here and they should not.  I am truly am truly am thankful for this place, these people, these situations.  Someone’s mother in law passed away this morning.  She’s my age and I get another day and she doesn’t.  Really, I have hope for more years, and she doesn’t.

Bliss in the worldly strife.    I’m not feeling the bliss right now.

Endure all and tolerate all in the thought of God’s grace and mercy.  Not feeling it.

My life as a divine vision.  Not going to shoot for that, but I think it would be useful to envision the person I wish I could be.  To borrow some characteristics from people I have known who did this well.  There’s a small part of me that wants to push to make it right here.

But mostly it feels impossible and it’s a constant struggle.  Because of me, not because of the situation.

I’m united in this family but it’s dysfunctional.