In the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous in the chapter "How It Works"
it states, "The first requirement (in taking the Third Step) is
that we be convinced that any life run on self will can hardly be a
success. Remember that we deal with alcohol - cunning, baffling,
powerful! Without help it is too much for us. But there is One who has
all power - that One is God. May you find Him now!" It also says
"Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our
troubles... So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making...and the
alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he
usually doesn't think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must
be rid of this selfishness... And there often seems no way of entirely
getting rid of self without His aid."
We have
learned through the program of Alcoholics Anonymous that we have three
basic instincts. These instincts are God given and necessary for
life, but in me I can never get enough of what it is I think I need.
The
great psychiatrist Sigmund Freud defines an instinct as "a bodily need
manifested in our thought process." What occurs for us as an
alcoholic is our instincts manifest themselves in our thought process
and trigger our self-centered fear. We learned through the program that
alcohol is but a symptom of OUR TRUE MALADY. Any addiction is such.
OUR TRUE MALADY is self-centered fear: afraid that we are not going to
get what we want, afraid that we will lose what we have. Once our fear
is triggered we reach for our character defects in an attempt to satiate
our instincts. The only problem is that in us we can never get enough
of what it is that we think we need, then we run around chasing our
tails creating havoc in our lives - but more importantly, havoc in the
lives of everyone around us. This is the functioning piece of
alcoholism.
As an alcoholic we have a compulsive
need to defend our basic human instincts, often to an extreme. This
manifestation of our character defects is a result of our self-centered
fear that permeates our lives. Alcohol is but a symptom of OUR TRUE
MALADY. OUR TRUE MALADY is SELF-CENTERED FEAR.
Edited by Caitlin Alexandra
So, I start out with these great and necessary gifts, my instincts. Then these instincts meet my alcoholic-in-nature mind which gives birth to Fear, the spawner of all my character defects and their chief activator. Fear becomes the corrosive thread that shoots through all aspects of me, and alters my life for the worse. I am left with my character defects and without me. So I drink alcoholically which eventually empties me, taking me from repletion to depletion. My instincts, as marshalled by my will, utterly fail me. I become a full-blown alcoholic, imprisoned by my mind in self-centered everything, as filtered through my Fear. Desperately as I try, I cannot fix my mind with my mind. I become a slave to alcohol which has duped me into reliance on it as my savior. Somehow I find AA or AA finds me, and I am literally saved through its process which is truly miraculous. And the gifts have just begun! The Steps introduce me to The Power Within me Who re-introduces me to me. This relationship, then activated, becomes personal. In the truest sense of the word, we become One, as I become One with The Power Within me. My spirit becomes awakened. My mind, though kicking and screaming at times, somehow becomes placated, and even at peace. My true malady is unequal to my true Solution, The Power already Within me. I am free.
ReplyDeleteMichael I have nothing to say or to add to your wonderful comment, Thank you for sharing your personal experience...Armand
ReplyDeleteThis Comment Is From A Gratefully Recovering Alcoholic
ReplyDeleteThanks for Sharing Armand,
Self centered fear and pride, together with covetousness exquisitely describe the motive force that propels every person who is absolutely inwardly convinced that the entire known universe was uniquely and exclusively created just for them. Yet, a casual glance at the world at large confirms that these regrettable characteristics are not the exclusive estate of the Alcoholic mind. Even the most sober minded and spiritual among us suffer the cravings of misdirected appetites and any denial of our true condition is the primal delusion that must be rooted out and tossed into the pit from which it originated for it is a core spiritual state that cannot even be recognized let alone overcome without Devine intervention. One of the greatest saints who ever lived wrote of this nearly 2000 years ago and I'll defer to the problem he identified and the solution he discovered.
Romans 7: 14 - 24
14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Even when I inwardly agree that the course I choose will ultimately lead to self destruction I will still "throw the dice" as my appetite demands hoping for a better outcome and that, my friend is insanity... Simple knowledge of my condition is of no avail until I fully accept that I'm completely, utterly and constitutionally incapable of overcoming my own will and, any self powered effort in that direction is tantamount to placing a hair net over the space shuttle with the expectation of preventing the launch.
Any attempt at "externally" practicing these AA principles, without acknowledging an absolute dependence upon God as the only source of Power to overcome may, for a time, experience a "white knuckle" form of recovery, but much like the Pharisee Saul, have none of the peace, serenity and assurance that is the immutable fabric of a life lived in the arms of their Savior and Lord. There is only One who can enter the tomb to breathe life into the fetid state of a long dead soul or provide a Damascus Road meeting with the Author of Light. That one is God. May you find him now.
A Gratefully Recovering Alcoholic
A Gratefully Recovering Alcoholic great stuff. In the back half of the Eleventh Step It Says "praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry it out." Our human nature will never do the will of God and is the reason we 'abandon ourselves utterly to Him." The exact purpose of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is for our thought process not to be propelled by our human instinct but rather by the will of God. In that awareness an alcoholic is recovered. Outside of that awareness an alcoholic is suffering from untreated alcoholism even if that alcoholic is not drinking...Thanks...Armand
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