I had admitted I was alcoholic. I believed in God. I drank twice while a member of Alcoholics Anonymous - once for thirteen months and once for ninety days. Only after the second relapse did I fully realize that I had to make a choice. As the "Big Book" of Alcoholics Anonymous says, "When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is or He isn't. WHAT WAS OUR CHOICE TO BE?"
Early on I chose - God is everything. When I made that choice I had no idea of the power of the human instinct, how pervasive it is and how difficult it would be to turn from my nature and to live in the will of God. The second relapse brought me to a state of reasonableness in which I clearly saw that the surrender had to be absolute. In Bill's Story in the "Big Book" it says "Simple, but not easy; a price had to be paid. It meant destruction of self-centeredness. I must turn in all things to the Father of Light who presides over us all." What will you chose - He is and He is everything or the nothingness which envelops one in the darkness?
Written by Armand
Despite the God-push in my early life, I somehow chose to go it alone. That wasn't an intellectual decision, I just simply never felt moved by the spirit. From an early age, I was unawakened, unenlightened. Alcohol provided "spirits" which took me to the darkest places I have ever known. In searching for light, I found only dark. There is no question that incorporating The Twelve Steps into my life unchained me from the bondage of self, and led me down deep inside to The Power Within. As a result, I recognize the presence in a way I never recognized the absence. I know what I have by virtue of now knowing what I didn't have yet yearned for in bottles and barrooms. Yes, either That Power is everything or it is nothing. For as long as I live, it will never again be nothing. Reason:because it is everything. The only choice.
ReplyDeleteMichael If one is to recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body, than there is no other answer. Our gratitude for this miracle will continue to nurture it...Thank you...Armand
Deletethis Comment Is From A Gratefully Recovering Alcoholic
ReplyDeleteHaving been brought to my knees through my own best efforts, I soon discover that any further attempts at self reliance are now pure acts of insanity birthed in the mind of a madman who's been locked too long in the basement of a three alarm blaze. Yes, a life lived free from the slavery of alcohol is indeed a very brief proposition If I linger too long at the precipice of Step Three while continuing to entertain those same thoughts, behaviors and lifestyle choices that precipitated my demise.
I was now left with a final frightful choice, for the 12 step program of AA tells me there is only one way to bridge the gap to the "Father of Light" who was and is the only true path to freedom and the serenity that follows. But who is this God and how would I know for sure that He will even hear me? After all, It is one thing to believe there is a God and quite another to make a decision by faith to actually know Him. For some, the living testimony of their sponsor is enough. For others a little investigation into the history and practices of the founders will be essential and will clearly reveal that the miracle of regeneration they experienced, the strength they received, and the hope they conveyed to those still suffering is hidden in plane sight on almost every page of the very book they used before their personal testimony contained in the Big Book was ever published. That book is the Bible and the Gospel of Mark 9: 14 - 29 holds the answer..
For here we find a frantic father, desperately seeking relief for his demonized son. Not only out of the immense love for his son but no doubt to also be freed from the constant burden that caring for such an individual, so loved, requires. No doubt he sought every local logical source of human and spiritual ingenuity available to effect a cure, all to no avail. He hears of the miraculous works of Jesus, a furtive hope is kindled, he sets out into the wilderness. But hopes are dashed as Christ's own disciples are impotent against the author of his sons's beastly captivity .
Jesus arrives on the scene, questions the father who relates his desperation, the failure of His disciples to effect a cure, then pleads "Have mercy on us and help us if you can." "If I can?" Jesus asked. "Anything is possible if a person believes." The father's heart laid bare instantly cries out "I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!" He had opened his heart and laid his innermost need bare before the Master. He asked for a miracle and... It was provided as Jesus cast out the Demon and the son is restored to full health. In that instant, lost hope transformed into saving faith as he and his son became living testimony of what the world at large considers impossible.
For me, the father represented the "functional alcoholic" I considered myself to be in this seeming dichotomy and his possessed son, my disease. His plea to Jesus, "Have mercy on us and help us if you can." makes it clear that he considered the demonization a shared experience inexorably linking the two of them together for a seeming eternity of pain and horror with absolutely no cure on the horizon. He, like I, had no idea of what to expect, only that having tried all other manner of "cures" I was now willing to reach out in desperation to a Hand unseen whose promise of recovery was still in my mind an improbable myth. This, I did. And my obsession for alcohol and the diseased thinking of an alcoholic mind was removed as far as the east is from the west.
It matters not how we come to the Mercy Seat. All that matters is that we are willing to come.
A Gratefully Recovering Alcoholic.