Monday, August 9, 2010

Such Unfortunates

Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates....  There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.  Alcoholics Anonymous, Page 64.

It was a hot, oppressive Texas evening as I sat in my chair at the 12 step meeting where I started this term in sobriety.  The windows seemed to loom over me and scoff at the validity of my willingness.  I couldn't blame anyone if they chose not to sit with me, but instead to "stick with the winners."  I almost wanted to give up and check out, but I stayed for my son whom I so desperately wanted to be there for.

As the meeting got under way my mind bounced back and forth like a pinball from question to question, why couldn't I get it?  What happened to me?  How could I have failed again?  I had finally been willing to take the 12 steps.  I had had a spiritual experience.  I had recovered.  I had been one of the winners, yet I relapsed.

This was not so bad, as many first timers have a slip, but I then went through a year of repeated attempts, and repeated failures, six in all.  Perhaps I was one of those "unfortunates" who was destined to go through the revolving door until the bitter end.

Then the standard reading started "Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path... There are such unfortunates."  I thought "Wait a second, this reading is about psychopaths or sociopaths, men without conscience, who were constitutionally incapable of being honest."  Could I be a sociopath?  Then the reader got to the part stating "There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders..." Suddenly I realized, possibly for the first time, that this was a point of distinction from those "unfortunates."  They could not be describing the psychopath because that certainly qualified as a grave mental disorder.

I wondered then who they were describing.  What type of disordered person was incapable of being honest? Was this just a construct of self-righteous, religious morality as the emphasis on honesty always seemed to infer to me?  Then I re-read the passage and realized that it said that they were "constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves."  It dawned on me that this sounded a lot like denial.  But, if this were the case then wouldn't that be all alcoholics and addicts?  If so, what distinguishes them from those who do recover?

The answer was right there in the reading, "Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program,"  But I had done this, I had given myself.  I looked around the room and thought about how I had become more knowledgeable about the steps and been more thorough than 50% of the room.  Yet why had they stayed sober and not me?  Just as I thought about this, the reader was reading steps 10, 11, and 12.  I thought about how I had resisted being thorough about writing an evening review, about how I didn't have time to pray or meditate until I got in the car to go to work, about going to meetings for what I could get, not to try and carry the message, about not following my sponsor's advice to do a regular H&I because I did not think I was as bad an addict as him.

"Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path."  "That's it" I thought, I have been measuring my thoroughness by what I think the other people in the rooms do, not by the path of the founders.  Being thorough probably means following the specific directions as written.

Thus my willingness was passed on to me from those that had also been constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.  I had a new experience with the first step of step one, "We admitted."

That was six years ago as I write this.   I have received the willingness to go to any lengths ever since then.  Tonight when this was presented as the topic of the same group,  I was thinking back through my life to try to carry this message. I remembered this experience and realized it was the anniversary. I was amazed at how God carried the message to me, just as I was trying to carry the message to them, and my faith was renewed once again.

Thanks be to God.

Mission

This is a blog about one man's experiences in 12 step recovery and the spiritual life. ~