Alcoholism is a powerful craving for alcohol which often results in the compulsive consumption of alcohol, an addiction. The cause of this craving is heavily debated, but the most ...
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..full of faith, but still reeking of alcohol. He believes he is devout. His religious observance is scrupulous. He's sure he still believes in God, but suspects that God doesn't believe in him. He takes pledges and more pledges. Following each, he not only drinks again, but acts worse than the last time. Valiantly he tries to fight alcohol, imploring God's help, but the help doesn't come. What, then can be the matter?
"To clergymen, doctors, friend, and families, the alcoholic who means well and tries hard is a heartbreaking riddle. To most AA's he is not. There are too many of us who have been just like him, and have found the riddle's answer. This answer has to do with the quality of faith rather than it's quantity. This has been our blind spot. We supposed we had humility when really we hadn't. We supposed we had been serious about religious practices when upon honest appraisal, we found we had been only superficial. Or, going to the other extreme, we had wallowed in emotionalism and had mistaken it for true religious feeling. In both cases, we had been asking something for nothing. The fact was we really hadn't cleaned house so that the grace of God could enter us and expel the obsession. In no deep or meaningful sense had we ever taken stock of ourselves, made amends to those we had harmed, or freely given to any other human being without any demand for reward. We had not even prayed rightly. We had always said, 'Grand me my wishes' instead of 'Thy will be done.' Therefore we remained self-deceived, and so incapable of receiving enough grace to restore us to sanity." (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pp. 31-2) ******************************** As some of you already know, I'm former clergy myself, so I really do have a great deal of empathy for "the guy full of faith, but still reeking of alcohol" because that describes me to a T. But this also seems to me to be a topic that comes up quite often here, yet it remains in a practical sense taboo in our discussions. People come here posting inspirational poems, songs, scripture quotes and all sorts of other frothy religious sentiments, and again it strikes me that we have an unwritten rule that it's cruel, prejudicial or just plain bad taste to contradict them. So my hard question is this. Do those of us who've been sober for a long time really have an obligation to sit back, bite our tongues and fingers, and respect the often gushy and sentimental religiosity that a lot of newcomers and retreads post here? Or do we instead actually owe it to them, out of a genuine desire to be helpful, to call them on this and draw their attention to what Bill W. wrote above? I'm truly perplexed about this and I'd really appreciate some input, especially from those who are believers but who are still struggling.. Posted on 07/17/08, 10:07 pm |
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I believe in God, but I can't justify most things like a prayer that I am told by someone that it must be prayed from the book, when I pray it is something between me and my God and it comes from my heart and mind, not from any book or from any religion, as for the people here that write things, just so they can write them, know themselves that they are lying to themslves and to gain attention. If other people do not like what is written, they do not have to read or reply. 
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I say speak your mind but keep in mind that you know no more than anyone else. Your experience is nothing more than your own and mine is my own and they're the exact opposite it seems.
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Well, I am not struggling with sobriety as I did before the steps. I have faith in what I call "God". I was told and understand that "Faith without works is dead". I am still selfish, but give some of my time. At times, I want to insist on having things my way, but then I try to guage how important it really is. I hope to walk what I talk, but I let people know that I am human, I admit quickly within 24 hours when I believe I am wrong as the 10th step tell me this. I try to do a spot check through-out the day. I don't always pray with total concentration. When I pray I always end with Thy will be done, not mine. I don't do any of this perfectly, and all the time. I continue on and hopefully I grow spiritually. I have come a long way and I realize I have a lot more to go. I try not to judge people harshly as I have done it all, or a lot of the same stuff. Don't know if this is what you were looking for, but it made me stop and think.
Thank You Ree
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No one knows my quality or quantity of faith by what I post on here and as such can't tell me if I'm being frothy.
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I am not exactly a newcomer to the program and I hope I have not come across as "frothy" in my beliefs. I for one have grown in my faith thanks to the 12 Steps. Those that tend to complain about those who ARE people of faith continue to prove themselves as bitter people who would rather rob someone of their joy rather than take a look at themselves and ask where did mine go. Bitterness and complacency were what took me from GOD Honesty, being open minded, and willing to look at myself and HIM have brought me back.
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Maybe I should be shopping for a new brand of deodorant or breath freshener, because I just seem to gross people out, especially when I'm trying hardest to be helpful.
But after now more than 7,000 AA meetings, I also have a gut-level estimate of what the odds were against my ever reaching my 20th year of sobriety, and I'm more than ever in awe of how poor those chances have really been. To put it as bluntly as possible, I've seen far more people come back more broken and disgusted than they were the first time, and even then this disease takes them down again-- and again and again. Reluctantly, I've come to the conclusion that the desire to stay stopped, no matter what, is an unmerited gift that very few of us ever get. But in order to keep that gift, I've had to continually let go of old ideas, even the ones I had last week, and allow experience to constantly redefine for me what I conceive of as my higher power. There's a real paradox here, because far more than the newcomer who's an atheist or an agnostic, those with strong theological convictions seem to have a much harder time letting go of old ideas that didn't work in favor of new ones that do. Maybe this shouldn't bother me and maybe it really is none of my business, but I've seen to too much suffering to ignore it completely.
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Nemo,
No offense here but I don't know why you think your sobriety is any safer than other people's. I don't care how many meetings you've been to. That's the second time you've mentioned to me how many meetings you've been to. Are you being a bit frothy about the amount of your AA meetings possibly? There have been people that relapsed that have done it your way for 20 years too. Since we are bringing up numbers of things to prove how much we know----If my calculations are correct and you quit drinking when you were around 47 years of age, I already had 20 years of abstinence when I was that age with a total of 22 years when I decided to experiment once again with alcohol. I was an agnostic, didn't go to AA, hung out with drunks, lived with one and went to bars regularly and went through calamities without drinking in spite of all of that but please....... go ahead and figure me out for me and tell me the right and only way to do it. I don't know what you're actually trying to get at here with this thread you started. Are you trying to warn us poor people that we're about to drink because we're being frothy and unrealistic about God? Do you think everyone's experience has to be like yours? Do you know more because you were clergy? Please fill in our gaps.
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Nemo, Good stuff I can relate to what your saying. Especially the quality and the quantity concept. Today I would much rather have a little bit of quality what ever it is in recovery than a whole lot of quantity.
I truly respect your years of being in recovery but not always agree, but at least I have the option to take what I need and leave the rest. Have a good day.
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Diane,
If time doesn't matter and repeated relapse is OK as long as we're religiously correct, then obviously I really am in the wrong church here and I'll shut up about this. But Christianity is part of my drunkaolgue, not my recovery, and until they throw me outa here, I intend to keep talking about it..
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Hey Nemo,
I owe you an apology.. I guess I'm a bit on the defensive here and I'll explain why. It took me 49 years of researching to finally conclude that the Bible is correct. I considered people that believed without ever questioning to be gullible people. Your original statement spoke of the guy that reeks of alcohol though he believes he's devout. I shouldn't have taken that personal since I don't reek of alcohol, it wasn't directed at me at all. I have to say though that in the last 4 years that I have been going to AA I have seen many fail with their religiosity in AA, wordy fellows that I never would have expected to drink so I see the fallibility in both.
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