Corking the Bottle

Today's A.A. Daily Reflection is about prayer. I never pray on my knees. I no longer pray with eyes closed, head bowed, or hands folded. I learned those acts of devotion in church as a wee lad. Now I'm not a wee lad and I don't go to church, for several reasons I won't go into now. Instead, my higher power is part of my unconscious, just as he is in you and in everyone through Jung's theory of collective unconscious. That's how God knows our thoughts and hears our silent prayers. I pray throughout the day, sometimes silently and, when it  won't embarrass me, out loud. God is like the invisible friend I had when I was little. Heck, maybe I was in touch with God then and Loodie was in reality God. It's not preposterous. If you can believe there was no such thing as women until God took Adam's rib and added meat and skin to it, then grant me the privilege to believe God's home is in all of our minds. I'll close by pasting below the quota...

Are you still drinking? Do you think you want to stop? The first step is -- well, it's Step One. "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol -- that our lives had become unmanageable." Notice nothing in this first of the 12 Steps says don't drink. It's merely an admission that alcohol has crippled our lives and we are spiraling out of control. A.A.'s Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions points out that none of us wants to admit defeat in anything, least of all defeat in our own precious lives. But coming to terms with our powerlessness over the demon rum is essential to taking back control of ourselves. "We perceive that only through utter defeat are we able to take our first steps toward liberation and strength. Our admissions of personal powerlessness finally turn out to be firm bedrock upon which happy and purposeful lives may be built." Happy. Purposeful. Sound enticing?

The desire to live is instinctive. The mass shootings that have become so prevalent leave people diving for cover and spending years healing from the terror. Birds at my feeder out front fly away from me quickly, even though I am the one who lovingly fills their feeder every few days. Instincts tell them people are a threat to their well-being and even to their lives. Drinking alcohol excessively is a threat to our well-being and to our lives. Yet many persist. Some of us eventually sense the danger and fly away. For others, drinking is a way of life -- and of death. Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (12 & 12) describes this contradiction: "When men and women pour so much alcohol into themselves that they destroy their lives, they commit a most unnatural act. Defying their instinctive desire for self-preservation, they seem bent upon self-destruction. They work against their own deepest instinct. As they are humbled by the tremendous beating administered by alcohol, th...

This is June, the sixth month. A.A.'s Daily Reflections relate to Step Six: "Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character." Let's look at Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions , an A.A. book often called the 12 and 12. The chapter about Step Six tells all of us how we can rid ourselves, not only of alcohol, but of all of the inner demons that bedevil us. The solution is God. Turn all our defects, including addictions, over to God. It means waving our white flag and surrendering. "Sure, I was beaten, absolutely licked. My own willpower just wouldn't work on alcohol. (My own footnote: Add A.A., therapy, group therapy, inpatient treatment, and my wife's anger to this list.) I simply couldn't stop drinking, and no human being could seem to do the job for me. But when I became willing to clean house and then asked a Higher Power, God as I understood Him, to give me release, my obsession to drink vanished. It was lifted right out o...

Paradox (noun) -- A seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well-founded or true. A.A. admits to a paradox in describing the first tradition in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions . Tradition #1 states, "Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity." (page 9) Hmmmm... I  thought I was the most important person in the room, meaning A.A. depends upon me; and you and you and you and you. Which is more true: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts? (Aristotle)  Or is the sum of its parts greater than the whole? You might argue that A.A. is greater than the individuals who comprise it. That's true of sports teams that seem to always win without a star player. But it's A.A.'s function to make me a better person, right?  So the welfare of A.A. members must be enhanced or they won't attend and the whole will die, thus suggesting the parts a...

"Why all this insistence that every A.A must hit bottom first? The answer is that few people will sincerely try to practice the A.A. program unless they have hit bottom. For practicing A.A.s' remaining eleven Steps means the adoption of attitudes and actions that almost no alcoholic who is still drinking can dream of taking." -- Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 24 I hit bottom and found it wasn't rock bottom. Instead it was more like a trampoline. I soared back up out of that pit of despair. You know what happens when you propel yourself from a trampoline. There's an inevitable fall. But once you hit the trampoline at the bottom again, up you fly. I did the same thing again and again, relapsing and then plummeting to the bottom. At last I got tired of that cycle. I steered clear of the trampoline, crashed onto rock bottom, and then began the slow, painful climb out of the pit of despair. I reached open ground and found sunshine and happy people and f...