Tag Archives: A.A.

06/20/23

Walk the Talk

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In his devotional thoughts in My Utmost for His Highest, for February 19th, Oswald Chambers made the following statement: “We have to take the first step as though there were no God. It is no use to wait for God to help us, He will not; but immediately we arise we find He is there. Whenever God inspires, the initiative is a moral one. We must do the thing and not lie like a log.”

The thought applies equally to the real psychological and spiritual drudgery of progressive sanctification and the “progress not perfection” component of change in recovery. Chambers is not advocating a self-willed “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” spirituality, but pointing to how faith and works come together. After quoting from Isaiah 60:1 (“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.”), he said: “It requires the inspiration of God to go through drudgery with the light of God upon it.”

We start with a clear recognition of our powerlessness over sin (or addiction), we have faith that God is more powerful than our sin (or addiction), we surrender our lives to God and then we begin to align our lives with His will. Our initial belief in who God is and what He promises is manifested in our ongoing efforts to live as we believe He has called us to live. After we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouth, we are called to walk the talk. We must do the thing and not lie like a log. “Be holy, for I am holy” (1 Pet. 1:16). Interestingly, this call to holiness in First Peter also includes the exhortation to be sober-minded:

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy. (1 Pe 1:13-16)

While the Greek term for sober-minded, nēphō, in verse 13 can have the literal sense of abstinent, here it means to be in control of one’s thought processes and not fall into irrational thinking. However, for the addict and alcoholic the term does have a literal sense: be free from every form of mental and spiritual drunkenness (i.e., passion, excess, rashness, confusion). In other words, don’t continue in your former way of life. Resist the craving to once again drink or use drugs. Be holy; walk the talk.

There is a threefold aspect to holiness that corresponds to the three tenses of salvation noted in Romans 5:1-2. That is, because we are justified by faith (a past completed action), we now have (present tense) peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We also have access by faith into the grace in which we stand (present tense). Therefore, we rejoice in hope of the still-future glory of God.

All believers are positionally holy by virtue of their calling and they are summoned to live out their lives in a manner befitting their new position in Christ. With God’s help, they grow and mature “with the life of Christ as their pattern.” The third and final phase of holiness will only be reached when Christ completes the process of salvation upon His return, “when all His own will be like Him, seeing Him as He is, the perfect and glorious Son of God (1 Jn. 3:2).”

Although a believer in Christ must become engaged in this process, his involvement is not something praiseworthy. It is not a contributing factor to his acceptance by God, which is already his as a gift by God’s grace. It’s more that when he is adopted into the family of God, he should reproduce the family likeness and be like his older brother, Jesus. According to The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, the starting point for this character development is realizing that the mercies of God call for an adequate response: presenting one’s body as a living sacrifice (Rom. 12:1). During this character development we will be tempted to remain conformed to the things of this world, but we are to be transformed–by the renewing of our mind–into a growing likeness to Christ (2 Cor. 3:18).

Similarly, there is a threefold transformation process in recovery, where soberness corresponds to holiness. We would then alter the Scriptural command to be holy in a relationship with Christ to: Be sober for we are sober. Addicts and alcoholics become members of A.A./N.A. by their desire to stop drinking and using drugs. And they are challenged to live out their lives in conformity to the principles of abstinence and sobriety embodied in A.A./N.A. With God’s help, they grow and mature “with the Twelve Steps as their pattern.” The end goal of such a life is to die sober; to live life on life’s terms without turning to drugs or alcohol.

In 1961, Louis R. told the story in the AA Grapevine how President McKinley once gave him a tip for watering his horse. He hadn’t known who McKinley was until someone told him. But he didn’t care as long as the man had given him whiskey-money. Louis was around nineteen at the time.

At an A.A. meeting on November 17, 1951 he raised his hand and asked the speaker if A.A. expected a man who had drunk all his life to stop drinking just like that. The speaker responded that if he’d done it, Louis could too. Louis said, “I figured maybe he was right, so I reached inside my shirt, took out the half pint of wine, and gave it to the man sitting next to me.” He never drank again. After ten years of sobriety, Louis realized he had a bad heart and knew he didn’t have too much longer to live, but he didn’t care. “The main thing I want is to die sober. And with the grace of God and the help of my good friends in Alcoholics Anonymous, I can do it.”

In the AA Grapevine article, “A Small Price to Pay,” an attorney reflected on his 28-year drinking career. With just a few years sober, he noted that some long timers he knew had slipped back into the mess from whence they came and died drunk and miserable. “I know I’ll die someday. But I prefer to die sober and happy, when my time comes.” He commented that eternal vigilance was the price of his freedom from the “thralldom” of his active addiction. “So if the form that my vigilance must take is active participation in AA and a continuing, honest attempt to work the program, that’s a small price to pay.”

Think of recovery as walking up a down escalator. The trick is to continue to walk up the escalator faster than it is moving down. It doesn’t matter how far up the escalator you have gone, even if you can no longer see the bottom from which you started. The moment you stop moving faster than the escalator is, you start going backwards; and eventually you will get to the bottom again. You have to walk the talk until the day you die.

If you’re interested, more articles from this series can be found under the link for “The Romans Road of Recovery.” “A Common Spiritual Path” (01) and “The Romans Road of Recovery” (02) will introduce this series of articles. If you began by reading one that came from the middle or the end of the series, try reading them before reading others. Follow the numerical listing of the articles (i.e., 01, 02, or 1st, 2nd, etc.), if you want to read them in the order they were originally intended. This article is 18th in the series. Enjoy.

12/27/22

In Love and Tolerance

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“Bill’s Story,” the first chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous, told of how Bill W. got clean and sober. He wrote: “An alcoholic in his cups is an unlovely creature.” Yet there was a realization of the importance of carrying the message to the newcomer, in love and tolerance, from the very beginning. The weakest, most unpresentable members of A.A. (Alcoholics Anonymous) or N.A. (Narcotics Anonymous) are often newcomers.

Early A.A. met frequently so that “newcomers may find the fellowship they seek.” Genuinely feeling that “the newcomer is the most important person at a meeting” is a maxim within each Fellowship. N.A. said it this way: “The newcomer is the most important person at any meeting because we can only keep what we have by giving it away.” Within a 1946 Grapevine article, “Ours Not to Judge,” Bill W. said: “We have begun to regard these ones not as menaces, but rather as our teachers. They oblige us to cultivate patience, tolerance and humility.” Chapter seven of Alcoholics Anonymous, “Working with Others,” says:

Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail . . . Frequent contact with newcomers and with each other is the bright spot of our lives.

The need for tolerance appears regularly throughout the A.A. Big Book. In the “We Agnostics” chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous, the hypocrisy of pointing to religious intolerance when the alcoholic was intolerant towards religion itself was pointed out. The importance of tolerance for healing family relationships was noted. The essential requirement of tolerance in relating to others—within and outside A.A.—was underscored repeatedly.  Succinctly in the “Into Action” chapter, Bill W. said: “Love and tolerance of others is our code.”

We find the same awareness in the N.A. Blue Book. In their “How It Works” chapter, N.A. noted that one thing will defeat them more than anything else in recovery, “an attitude of indifference or intolerance toward spiritual principles. Three of these that are indispensable are honesty, open-mindedness and willingness. With these we are well on our way.” As recovery progresses, principles such as “hope, surrender, acceptance, honesty, open-mindedness, willingness, faith, tolerance, patience, humility, unconditional love, sharing and caring” touch every area of their lives, leading to a new image of themselves. “Honesty and open-mindedness help us to treat our associates fairly. Our decisions become tempered with tolerance.”

Parallel to this thinking, In My Utmost for His Highest on May 6th, Oswald Chambers said: “It takes God a long time to get us out of the way of thinking that unless everyone sees as we do, they must be wrong. That is never God’s view.” Love and tolerance flow from a self-conscious recognition in A.A. that not only are individuals corporately members of the larger body, but they are also dependent upon one another. They need one another for sobriety.

A.A. and N.A. have been successful in maintaining solidarity within their respective fellowships by remembering that despite their open-ended criteria for membership (the only requirement for membership is the desire to stop drinking or using drugs), they are individually members of one another. This diversity of membership with minimal formal guidelines raises the potential for conflict over everything from how to apply the Twelve Steps in ongoing recovery, to where donations for service projects within the local regions and groups of the two fellowships should be allocated. These and other disputes exist within each fellowship, sometimes with heated and vehement ‘discussions’ of the issue.

But so far, the internal disputes have not led to the demise of A.A. or N.A. To the contrary, each fellowship has reported yearly increases in the number of groups established worldwide for more than thirty years. Nor has there been a disgruntled splitting of the fellowships, which seems more commonly to have occurred within the local churches and denominations of Protestant Christianity. I’d suggest this is because A.A. and N.A. are more effective in living out Romans 14:19 than the church today seems to be: “So then let us pursue what makes for peace and mutual upbuilding,” despite their diversity.

Paul’s warning in the next verse, Romans 14:20, has been too often disregarded by the church: “Do not for the sake of food destroy the work of God.” In chapter 14 of Romans, Paul discusses the way in which the church in Rome can accommodate diverse opinions on how individuals should live out their lives as members of the kingdom of God. The two disputed issues Paul gave as examples were whether or not members of the church should be vegetarian; and whether individuals should continue to honor the holy days within the Jewish religious system. Paul’s response has an almost postmodern, live-and-let-live sense to it: Each person should be fully convinced in his own mind on the rightness of his position (Romans 14:5). But as John Murray pointed out in his commentary on Romans, Paul was not just acknowledging options here, rather he was giving a command:

The injunction to be fully assured in one’s own mind refers not simply to the right of private judgment but to the demand. This insistence is germane to the whole subject of this chapter. The plea is for acceptance of one another despite diversity of attitude regarding certain things. Compelled conformity or pressure exerted to the end of securing conformity defeats the aims to which all the exhortations and reproofs are directed.

What keeps this from becoming a self-styled sense of merely doing what was right in your own eyes (Judges 21:25) is Paul’s clear reminder that the church in Rome does not live for its own purposes, but for the Lord’s (Romans 14:7-12). In other words, he reminds them of their surrender to and calling in Christ; they are not their own (1 Corinthians 6:19b). Everything we do in life is in reference to this basic fact. Our daily lives are a living sacrifice to God (Romans 12:1-2): “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord” (Romans 14:8). The Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Confession of Faith makes the same point, declaring that the chief end of humanity is “to glorify God, and enjoy him forever.” The Scriptural support given for such a declaration comes from both the Old and New Testaments:

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works. (Psalms 73:26-28)For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:36) So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Co 10:31)

The context which permits Paul to exhort the church in Rome to “pursue what makes for peace and mutual upbuilding” in their relationships with one another is that his command is grounded in recognizing that their primary purpose is to “live to the Lord.” Again, we can turn to John Murray and his comments on Romans 14:12:

It is to God each will render account, not to men. It is concerning himself he will give account, not on behalf of another. So, the thought is focused upon the necessity of judging ourselves now in the light of the account which will be given ultimately to God. We are to judge ourselves rather than sit in judgment upon others.

If a “weaker” individual has scruples about whether or not they should eat meat, the “stronger” person should not look down upon him or her. Conversely the “weaker” person should not judge the “stronger” person because they do not keep to the same restrictions. Keeping or not keeping certain holy days was similarly a matter of personal preference; and the keepers and non-keepers were not to judge or despise the others for their position. “Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.”

The proper attitude towards those with different ideas on how to glorify and enjoy God should be to avoid placing any stumbling block or hindrance in the other person’s way. Emphasizing the relationship between the two sides—abstainers and non-abstainers, keepers and non-keepers—Paul refers to them as brothers; members of the same fellowship body. If you think of your position as “stronger” because you don’t have the same scruples to avoid eating meat, “Do not for the sake of food, destroy the work of God.” (Romans 14:20a) The kingdom of God is a matter of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17). Again, this freedom presupposes that the primary purpose for a believer is to live to the Lord; to worship and enjoy him forever.

Self-conscious recognition of the unity of individual believers should lead to their harmony in corporate relationships. Here there can be no distinction between Jew or Greek, strong or weak, “for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.” (Romans 10:12) Bill W. commented on the inclusiveness of A.A. by noting how one day he talked privately in his office with an A.A. member who was a countess and that night met a man at a meeting who used to be part of Al Capone’s mob. After retelling this anecdote in the Grapevine, the anonymous editor said: “In AA, our very diversity is a measure of our unity.”

Perhaps the ultimate example of how Twelve Step recovery and the epistle to the Romans correspond in their thinking about tolerance, unity and fellowship is when they each turn to the Golden Rule, what Jesus said was the second greatest commandment, loving your neighbor (Mark 12:28-31). In the Big Book chapter, “A Vision for You,” Bill W. commented how the newcomer would make lifelong friends in A.A., bound together by their common escape from disaster and shoulder to shoulder journey of recovery. “Then you will know what it means to give of yourself that others may survive and rediscover life. You will learn the full meaning of ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself.’”

At the current time in our culture and political climate, Christians need to see how loving others—even those we strongly disagree with—is a decree of Scripture. Paul commanded the Roman church to owe no one anything except the continuing debt to love each other, for then they will have fulfilled the law. Every one of the commandments was summed up in “‘You shall love you neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:8-10). For more on the Golden Rule, see “Doers of the Word.”

If you’re interested, more articles from this series can be found under the link for “The Romans Road of Recovery.” “A Common Spiritual Path” (01) and “The Romans Road of Recovery” (02) will introduce this series of articles. If you began by reading one that came from the middle or the end of the series, try reading them before reading others. Follow the numerical listing of the articles (i.e., 01, 02, or 1st, 2nd, etc.), if you want to read them in the order they were originally intended. This article is 17th in the series. Enjoy.

11/8/22

Is AA Religious?

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Roger C. announced in June of 2022 that his article, “The Last Post on AA Agnostica,” would be the final new article posted on the website. AA Agnostica would remain online, but there will be no more new articles. He said in the eleven years since it was launched, AA Agnostica has been a comfort for those who could not stand “all the God stuff at traditional AA meetings,” like ending with the Lord’s Prayer. “All the God stuff” makes AA religious.

Roger said he was treated with disrespect at traditional AA meetings because he didn’t believe in God and was told that without God, he would get drunk again. While that prediction did not come true, it seemed to motivate him to start the website, AA Agnostica. There are several resources in addition to its 746 other articles, including a listing of secular group websites, alternative 12 Steps and literature. There is also a link to a 2015 self-published book edited by Roger, Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA (available on Amazon). It contains thirty stories by people who do not believe that “an interventionist deity—a God—had anything at all to do with their recovery from alcoholism.”

In the first chapter of Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA, “Reshaping the AA Culture,” Roger C. pointed out that the fellowship and the book from which it gleans its name, Alcoholics Anonymous, was “mired” in the predominantly American Christian culture of the Thirties and Forties. He described how God was mentioned (in one way or another) in six of the 12 Steps. A section from “How It Works,” chapter five of the Big Book, is typically read at the beginning of an AA meeting. The reading says that “probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism” but the God could and would do so “if He were sought.” A so-called “traditional” AA meeting ends by reciting the Lord’s Prayer.

The point he’s attempting to make is that despite various judicial decisions have found AA to be a religious organization, AA has failed to respond because it sees the rulings as “outside issues,” which he believes is incorrect. See “The Courts, AA and Religion” on the AA Agnostica website for the rulings.

He believes this is an “inside issue” that needs to be addressed by AA. However, Roger C. does not think the Big Book should be revised or rewritten. “It lays the foundation for what does work for alcoholics: the very human power of one alcoholic talking to another alcoholic.” This, he said, is what assists alcoholics in working towards “recovery from alcoholism and is the very essence of the fellowship of AA.”

It is true that U.S. Courts have ruled that AA is a “religion.” However, I think these rulings and Roger C.’s claim it is an “inside” issue to AA are based on an understanding of what constitutes a religion in modern culture that is different than what AA itself believes. Pointing to references to “God,” and saying the Lord’s Prayer as evidence that AA is religious stems from Edmund Tylor’s definition of religion as “the belief in spiritual beings.” AA seems to follow Emile Durkheim, who thought religion was a product of society and should not be defined just in terms of ideas of divinity or spiritual beings. AA also explicitly credits how its sense of religion and spirituality is drawn from William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience.

In “What Does Religious Mean?” I discussed how Tylor’s understanding seems to have influenced the legal decisions within American culture and the U.S. court system. Then I continued to unpack how William James influenced the spiritual, not religious understanding within AA in “Spiritual, not Religious Experience” and “The God of the Preachers.” I agree with AA that the Court decisions ruling that AA is religious is an outside, rather than an inside issue to the fellowship.

Some Christians, like Martin and Deidre Bobgan in 12 Steps to Destruction, make the same error, viewing AA as religious. They claim A.A. is a Christless religion, offering up a counterfeit salvation. “Because of the many versions of God represented in A.A., professing Christians are uniting themselves with a spiritual harlot when they join A.A.” In The Useful Lie, William Playfair claimed when Christians go to AA for help, they unwittingly side against Biblical Christianity.

In “Religious Alcoholics; Anonymous Spirituality,” I suggested a more helpful discussion would distinguish between true religion and mere religion; true spirituality and mere spirituality. Mere religion or mere spirituality are concepts consistent with Durkheim’s and James’ understanding of religion and spirituality (called personal religion in The Varieties of Religious Experience, VRE).

The emptiness of ritual or worship (mere religion) without a heart for God (true spirituality) is noted in Hosea 6:6, “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” Again, the same contrast appears in Micah 6:7-8, “For You will not delight in sacrifice or I would bring it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” True religion always contains true spirituality.

At its best, Twelve Step spirituality rises only to the level of general revelation or common grace. There is a God and sobriety is better than drunkenness. True spirituality requires that we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead (Rom. 10:9). True spirituality requires true religion. In his book, “True Spirituality,” Francis Schaeffer rejected the possibility of true spirituality devoid of biblical content. There cannot be a leap-in-the-dark faith for a Christian; there is no “faith in faith” encounter with the divine.

Twelve Step spirituality is nothing more than common grace or mere spirituality. Following the thought of William James in VRE, it rejects institutional religion, which he defined worship, sacrifice, ritual, theology, ceremony and ecclesiastical organization. Personal religion/spirituality for his purposes, was “the feelings, acts and experiences of [the] individual . . . in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider to be divine.” In the broadest sense possible, this spirituality consisted of the belief that there was an unseen order to existence, and supreme good lay in harmoniously adjusting to that order.

A higher power could be anything that was other than and larger than the person’s conscious self. Towards that end, James said that spiritual experience could only testify unequivocally to two things: the possible union with something larger than oneself and the great peace that was found within that union. Spiritual encounters would not unconditionally confirm a traditional belief in the one and only infinite God. James suggested that the practical needs and occasions of religion were sufficiently met by the belief that beyond each person, a larger power existed that was friendly to him and his ideals. All that was required was that the power should be both other than and larger than a personal conscious self. “Anything larger will do, if only it be large enough to trust for the next step. It need not be infinite; it need not be solitary. It might conceivably be only a larger and more godlike self.”

A.A. has consistently avoided an understanding of this higher power as G-O-D (as good, orderly direction) beyond the above discussion of William James in the Varieties of Religious Experience. Devoid of a true religious understanding of God and Jesus Christ, as we see in Romans 10:9, it is not a religion, as defined in the VRE. It won’t lead you to a relationship with Christ, but if you practice its 12 Steps, it may help you establish and maintain abstinence from alcohol.

09/6/22

What Does Religious Mean?

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As Terence Gorski has pointed out, A.A. is now legally a “religion” within the US. But I don’t think this really settles the dispute over whether A.A. is or is not religious. Legal rulings can be changed, as they have for many issues such as abortion and marriage. So I’d suggest that A.A. as a “religion” is based upon a particular sense of what “religious” means in modern culture and that could change.  There is at least one other view of religion that would not consider A.A. to be religious.

It seems that there two main starting points to define what being “religious” means in modern culture.  One follows Edmund Tylor and focuses on the belief in the supernatural, while the other emphasizes Emile Durkheim’s notion of the sacred and the profane. Within American culture, Tylor’s understanding seems to have influenced legal decisions on constitutional issues of the separation of church and state as well as legal rulings on the religiousness of A.A. At this point in time, Tylor’s sense of religion rules the day.

Tylor (1832-1917) simply defined religion as “the belief in spiritual beings” and held that this belief existed in all known cultures. He suggested that a belief in spirits and deities grew out of a belief in souls, which itself was a result of attempting to explain phenomena such as dreams, trances, visions and death. An evolving understanding of religious belief, Tylor’s theory said that all religions were based on animism, which had two parts: belief in a human soul that survived bodily death and belief in other spirits or deities. Animism led to fetishism, the veneration of animals, idols trees and so forth.

This belief was extended to the veneration of spirits and gods which were less attached to objects; leading to the concepts of gods, demons, spirits, devils, ghosts, fairies and angels. The next stage was the association of gods with good and evil, leading to belief in very powerful deities. Another pathway to these powerful gods was to seek after “first causes” for reality. The attribution of good and evil or first cause to the idea of gods and spirits then led to the concept of a Supreme Being. “Animism has its distinct and consistent outcome, and Polytheism its distinct and consistent completion, in the doctrine of a Supreme Deity.”

This seems to have built on the thought of Ludwig Feuerbach, who wrote The Essence of Christianity in 1841. Feuerbach argued against both the divinity of Christ and the existence of God, stating that all theology could be resolved into anthropology—with God as the projected essence of Humanity. What ranked second in religion, namely humanity, must be recognized as first:

If the nature of Man is man’s Highest Being, if to be human is his highest existence, then man’s love for Man must in practice become the first and highest law. Homo homini Deus est— man’s God is Man. This is the highest law of ethics. This is the turning point of history.

Tylor’s ‘evolving’ understanding of religion was similar to that of Carl Jung. Jung saw Western religions as unsophisticated. He said there were five main stages in the evolution of the idea of God.

First was the animistic view, where Nature was ruled by an assortment of gods and demons. Second was the Greco-Roman polytheistic notion of a father of Gods ruling in a strict hierarchy. The third stage idea was that God shared human fate, but was betrayed, died and then resurrected. The fourth stage held that God became Man in the flesh and was identified with the idea of the Supreme Good. Christianity conflated the third and fourth stages, according to Jung.

“The fifth and highest stage of belief in God is when the entire world is understood as a projected psychic structure and the only God is the ‘God within’ or the ‘God-image.’” (Frank McLynn Carl Gustav Jung: A Biography, 409-410) The God-image was a special reflection of the Self, the penultimate archetype of the collective unconscious in Jung’s psychology. This Self was not the ‘self’ of everyday language, which Jung typically referred to as the ‘ego.’ Frank McLynn suggested that Jung’s Self was roughly equivalent to the ‘Atman’ of Buddhism.

On the other hand, Emile Durkheim said in The Elementary Form of the Religious Life, (EFRL) that religion was a product of society and not always supernaturally inspired. So religion should not be defined just in terms of the ideas of divinity or spiritual beings: “Religion is more than the idea of gods or spirits, and consequently cannot be defined exclusively in relation to these latter.” (EFRL, p. 35) As a category, Durkheim said the supernatural only made sense when opposed to a modern scientific explanation for natural phenomena. He pointed out that for most of the world’s peoples, including premodern Europeans, religious phenomena were viewed as perfectly natural. For Durkheim, the division into “sacred” and “profane” was a necessary precondition for religious belief:

All known religious beliefs, whether simple or complex, present one common characteristic: they presuppose a classification of all the things, real and ideal, of which men think, into two classes or opposed groups, generally designated by two distinct terms which are translated well enough by the words profane and sacred. This division of the world into two domains, the one containing all that is sacred, the other all that is profane, is the distinctive trait of religious thought. (EFRL, p. 37)

Durkheim believed that a belief in the supernatural was not necessary or even common among religions. However, the separation of different aspects of life into the two categories of sacred and profane was common. Objects and behaviors seen as sacred were considered to be part of the spiritual or religious realm. Sacred things for Durkheim were not limited to just gods or spirits. Anything and everything could be sacred: rocks, trees, a spring, a piece of wood, a house. Sacred objects were as varied as the diversity of religions. “Sacred things are simply collective ideals that have fixed themselves on material objects.” Profane things were everything else in the world that did not have a religious function or hold a religious meaning.

There was a radical separation between the sacred and profane, so that the two could not approach each and still retain their essence. The sacred was not the profane and the profane was not sacred; they were “more or less incompatible with each other.” (EFRL, p. 40) And yet, they interact with one another and depend upon each other for survival.

Durkheim believed that religious belief was built upon this fundamental distinction. When a number of sacred things were organized within a belief system that can be distinguished from other similar types of systems, “the totality of these beliefs and their corresponding rites constitutes a religion.” (EFRL, p. 41)

There were two essential criteria for religious belief, according to Durkheim. First, there was a division of the entire universe into the sacred and the profane; which embraced all that exists, but which radically excluded each other. Second, religions formed a Church: “In all history, we do not find a single religion without a Church.”

So then Durkheim defined religion as: “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.” (EFRL, p. 47)

The spiritual, religious distinction made by William James and embedded in Twelve Step spirituality, seems to be the most widely accepted sense of generic spirituality in American culture today. It embraces Durkheim’s thought on religion and rejects Tylor’s understanding. It does this by self-consciously refusing to formulate a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things and also accepts the naturalness of believing in some type of transcendence. The very heart of Twelve Step spirituality is the permissibility of the individual to formulate a personal understanding of their “god.” So what unites members of Twelve Step groups like A.A. is the diversity of religious and spiritual belief permitted—even to the acceptance of the lack of such a belief.

This is the first of three related articles (What Does Religious Mean?, Spiritual not Religious Experience, The God of the Preachers) that will more fully describe some of the influences I believe helped to shape the spiritual, but not religious distinction of 12 Step recovery.

Originally published on May 22, 2015.

08/30/22

Doers of the Word

Knesset Menorah with Hillel; licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

It has been said that the great Jewish rabbi Hillel was asked if he could explain the Torah (the Pentateuch; the first five books of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures) while standing on one foot. He accepted the challenge and said: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is explanation.” This is the negative or prohibitive form of what has become widely known as the Golden Rule: “treat others as you would like others to treat you.” In one form or other the Golden Rule is found in many religions and embodies the ethic of relationships within Alcoholics Anonymous and self help groups based upon its Twelve Steps.

Christianity gives Jesus credit for stating the positive sense in Matthew 7:12 of the Sermon on the Mount: “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” Jesus in effect was saying the golden rule was a summary of the entire Old Testament. Leon Morris said in his commentary on Matthew: “The person who consistently lives according to the golden rule is keeping all the regulations in Scripture directing one’s conduct toward other people.” There is no getting around it: if you are a follower of Jesus, you are to be actively doing good to others.

Jesus states both the Golden Rule and the two greatest commandments can be seen as summaries of the Hebrew Scriptures—the Law and the Prophets. In Matthew 22:34-40 Jesus was challenged by a Pharisee to give the great commandment of the Law—to summarize the law in one commandment. His response was to say there were two great commandments. The first one was: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” And the second one was: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” He then declared: “On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said he came to fulfill, not abolish the Law and the Prophets. He repeatedly sharpened and clarified for his listeners various teachings in the Old Testament and he did so again here in Matthew 7:12. Other references to the Golden Rule in Jewish literature are primarily in the prohibitive or negative form. Here for the first time Jesus stated it positively—do to others what you would have them do to you. Timothy Jacobs observed Jesus’ formulation here was “a stronger interpretation of the command to love one’s neighbor.”

According to Timothy Jacobs in the Lexham Bible Dictionary, referring to this phrase as the “Golden Rule” can be attributed to the Roman Emperor Alexander Severus (225-235 AD) who had it inscribed in gold on the wall of his chamber. The earliest reference to a variation of it seems to be from Egypt’s “Elegant Peasant” story, dating to around 1800 BC, but the translation there is uncertain. Various forms of the Golden Rule may be found in Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Taoism, Scientology, Wicca, and others. “In philosophical traditions it has a presence in Existentialism, Humanism, Platonism, modern psychology, and countless others.”

Criticisms of the Golden Rule center on its lack of nuance, as it implies we should always do to others what we would want them to do to us. These critics have suggested a change known as the “Platinum rule.” George Bernard Shaw said one should not do others as they would want done to themselves because “their tastes may not be the same.” Karl Popper wrote in The Open Society and Its Enemies: “The golden rule is a good standard which is further improved by doing unto others, wherever reasonable, as they want to be done by.” A response to these critiques is “the Golden Rule implies a consideration of how the other person wants to be treated.” This so-called Platinum rule and the negative or prohibitive form of the Golden Rule may at first seem to be merely saying the same thing in a different way; not so. According to Leon Morris:

It is often urged that it matters little whether the golden rule be cited in its positive or negative forms, but this is not so. If we did nothing at all, we would satisfy the negative form! In the great judgment scene in chapter 25 [of Matthew] those who are condemned might well claim that they had fulfilled the golden rule in its negative form. Their condemnation lay in the fact that they had failed to do good, not in any evil action that they had carried through.

In his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, D.A. Carson said the difference between the positive and negative forms of the Golden Rule are profound. The negative form teaches that if you don’t like being cursed at, don’t curse. If you don’t like being robbed, don’t rob others. Yet the positive form extends beyond the mere avoidance of wrongdoing. It says: if you enjoy being loved, love others. If you like receiving things, give to others. If you like being appreciated, appreciate others.

The positive form is thus far more searching than its negative counterpart. Here there is no permission to withdraw into a world where I offend no one, but accomplish no positive good, either. What would you like done to you? What would you really like? Then, do that to others. Duplicate both the quality of these things, and their quantity—“in everything.”Why are we to act in this way? Jesus does not say that we are to do to others what we would like them to do to us in order that they will do it to us. At stake is no such utilitarian value as “honesty pays” or the like. Rather, the reason we are to do to others what we would like others to do to us is that such behavior sums up the Law and the Prophets. In other words, such behavior conforms to the requirements of the kingdom of God, the kingdom which is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. It constitutes a quick test of the perfection demanded in 5:48; of the love described in 5:43ff.; of the truth portrayed in 5:33ff.; and so forth.

In chapter 11 of the A.A. Big Book, “A Vision for You,” Bill W. described the fellowship and friendship formed in A.A. He said you would make lifelong friends and be bound to them by escaping disaster together. Then, he said, you will know what it meant: “to give of yourself that others may survive and rediscover life.”

You will learn the full meaning of “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Although the Golden Rule itself cannot be found in the Big Book, or the Twelve Steps, it lies at the heart of carrying the message of sobriety in the Twelfth Step. In the November 1970 issue of the AA Grapevine, F.F. pointed out that although the Twelve Steps do not include the words of the Golden Rule, “it does advise members to help other alcoholics.” You become a member of A.A. because “some other member was implementing the Golden Rule.” In response to the question “What Do I Get Out of AA?” in the January 1952 issue, Robbie said he got fellowship with folks he could respect and trust, “folks who believe in and practice the Golden Rule of life.” In the January 1948 issue, P.O.L. said among other things, sobriety was “honesty, tolerance, humility and the Golden Rule.” There are dozens of other references to it in the AA Grapevine.

It is likely that many within A.A. think of the Golden Rule in the broader sense of a moral or ethical principle of reciprocity and not because such behavior sums up the requirements of the kingdom of God. D.A. Carson observed that as the overwhelming demands of “Love your neighbor as yourself” and “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them” drives home our spiritual bankruptcy, God gives us “a burning desire to turn to him with humble, persistent asking, seeking, knocking. Out of this we shall become ‘doers’ of the Word, and not just ‘hearers.’”

This is part of a series of reflections dedicated to the memory of Audrey Conn, whose questions reminded me of my intention to look at the various ways the Sermon on the Mount applies to Alcoholics Anonymous and recovery. If you’re interested in more, look under the category link “Sermon on the Mount.”

Originally posted on August 28, 2018.

12/14/21

The Common Grace of Recovery

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Regardless of the influence of genetics, personal history, or environment, Twelve Step recovery is centered upon the hope that the addict or alcoholic can actually choose to establish and then maintain abstinence from drugs and alcohol. Powerless they may be over the influence these substances exert over them once the substance is coursing through their veins, but the individual is not powerless over the decision to ingest the substance. In order to recover, the addict or alcoholic must believe that they can really choose to not pick up a drink or a drug; and that they can surrender their life to the God of their understanding. They are powerless over alcohol and drugs, but not the decision to use them.

The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves.

As explicit as this statement in the A.A. Big Book seems to be, the spiritual relativity of the Twelve Steps meant that “our Creator” could be a variety of things; and often meant the recovery program itself. Narcotics Anonymous said this explicitly in their basic text: “It wasn’t until we came to Narcotics Anonymous that recovery became possible. This program can do for us what we could not do for ourselves.” The author of “What We Could Never Do” in the AA Grapevine used language reminiscent of an individual testifying of their “born again” experience. They said: “The central fact of my life today is the absolute certainty that AA has entered into my heart and life in a way which is indeed exceptional.”

This postmodern avoidance of absolutes, especially about God, was firmly embedded in Twelve Step recovery from the beginning. The recovery program described in the A.A. Big Book was merely suggestive. Although God existed, you didn’t have to believe in him all at once; and could even fashion your own understanding of a “Higher Power.” The ability to imagine God as you understand Him has remained a hallmark of the spiritual worldview of A.A.

In a 1949 address before the American Psychiatric Association, Bill Wilson explicitly stated that A.A. was not a religious organization because it had no dogma. He also stated that the only theological proposition—of a Power greater than one’s self—would not be forced on anyone. There was a self-conscious avoidance of the absolute certainty with which the apostle Paul declared that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Even while acknowledging the parallels to religious conversion within the recovery program of A.A., Wilson said that too many people were afraid of being “God-bitten.”

In 1961, Wilson said the following in “The Dilemma of No Faith” for the AA Grapevine: “Our concepts of a Higher Power and God—as we understand Him—afford everyone a nearly unlimited choice of spiritual belief and action.”  He suggested that this was perhaps the most important expression in be found in the entire vocabulary of A.A. Every kind and degree of faith, together with the assurance that each person could choose his or her own version of it opened a door “over whose threshold the unbeliever can take his first easy step into . . . the realm of faith.” So, recovery does not require that you acknowledge and worship Jesus Christ as your Higher Power. At this point, Twelve Step recovery wanders off in a different direction from the Romans Road.

Confess and Believe

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:9-13)

Here is one of the classic summaries of the fundamental elements of faith leading to salvation. The confession of Jesus as Lord here refers to the position Christ has because he ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father, where he was given authority over all of creation (Ephesians. 1:20-23). The order Paul uses in verse 9 (mouth and heart) corresponds to the order of Deuteronomy 30:14, which he just quoted; but then he reverses that order (heart and mouth) in verse 10. Paul is not presenting a recipe or magical formula for salvation. Rather, he is emphasizing the central importance of believing in your heart for the process of salvation, for everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.

There is a principle in Scripture with regard to human nature that inexorably links heart and behavior: whatever rules your heart rules your behavior (Matthew. 6:21; Luke 6:45). So here we see that even in salvation, this principle applies: we believe in our heart and confess with our mouth. In his commentary on Romans, John Murray said: “Confession verifies and confirms the faith of the heart. . . Confession with the mouth is the evidence of the genuineness of faith.” This is equivalent to the discussion of faith in works in James 2:17-22. Faith without works (behavior that does not proceed from faith) is dead.

The Big Book described in chapters five and six how the program of recovery embodied in the first eleven of the Twelve Steps works. It ends with these words: “But that is not all. There is action and more action. ‘Faith without works is dead.’The next chapter, “Working with Others,” is entirely devoted to Step Twelve. It suggested the “works” for the practitioner of the Twelve Steps was carrying the message to others. The spiritual experience of faith in the first eleven Steps should lead to helping others. Step Twelve says: “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry the message to alcoholics, and practice these principles in all our affairs.” Without citing the biblical origin of the quote, Bill Wilson relayed a saying that had relevance to his own recovery and almost played a role in the naming of A.A. itself.

Bill Wilson lived with Dr. Bob Smith and his wife Anne for about three months after he first met Dr. Bob in Akron, Ohio. Every morning they would have a devotional time in which Anne would read from the Bible. The book of James was a favorite; and Anne would conclude their devotional time by saying, “Faith without works is dead.” Not only was this a favorite quotation of Anne Smith, but the book of James was a favorite with early AA’s– “so much so that ‘The James Club’ was favored by some as a name for the Fellowship.”

Paul makes the same connection between faith and works in Romans 10:9-10. Faith, believing in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, without works, confessing with your mouth that Jesus is Lord is dead faith. But “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Paul drives this point home in his repeated use of the Greek word gar, (commonly translated as “for”) four consecutive times in verses 10 through 13 of Romans 10. By doing so, he explains the declaration he just made in verse 10:9, that if you confess with your mouth (that Jesus is Lord) and believe in your heart (that God raised him from the dead) you will be saved.

Common Grace and Recovery

How do you obtain salvation? According to Romans 10:9, by believing in your heart and confessing with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. How do you obtain recovery? By a surrender to a god of your understanding, fashioned from the knowledge of God revealed in creation (Romans 1:19-25). You can use ritual and language with strong similarities to the ritual and language of those claiming a relationship with Christ, but it’s not the same.

You can be “reborn”; you can believe that your Creator has entered your heart and begun to accomplish things you could not do for yourself. But if this does not rest on the foundation of Jesus Christ it is not salvation in the Biblical sense. The spiritual and theological differences between the two are radical. Biblically speaking, a self-fashioned understanding of God is idolatry since you worship and serve some aspect of creation that manifests “the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God” (Romans 11:33) instead of God himself.

In the “We Agnostics” chapter of the A.A. Big Book, Bill Wilson wrote that deep down inside us was the fundamental idea of God. Faith in some kind of God was a part of our human make-up. “Sometimes we had to search fearlessly, but he was there. He was as much a fact as we were. We found the Great Reality deep down within us.”

Humans beings are naturally in possession of rational and moral abilities. Because of the Fall, these abilities are used in ways that are hostile to serving and glorifying God. But this capacity for rationality and morality has not been diminished through sin. We are not irrational or amoral in this sense as a consequence of the Fall. Through sin we fell ethically and became hostile to God.

A Fallen, sinful person has no ability (they are powerless) to keep that hostility from becoming consistent and full blown. At it says in Romans chapter 7, we can have the desire to do good, but not the ability to carry it out. We are captive to the law of sin inside of us. But there is common grace, which is: “The means by which God keeps [us] from expressing the principle of hostility to its full extent, thus enabling [us] to do the relative good.” 

Common grace is then a restraining force that keeps us from being completely hostile towards God, whether or not we believe in Him; whether or not we have a Romans 10:9 relationship with Jesus Christ. The addict or alcoholic is powerless over addiction because it is a manifestation of his or her hostility to God. Apart from the common grace of God within the Twelve Steps, they express this hostility in the horror of their active addiction—independent of their faith or lack of faith. Yet, through God’s common grace, even an atheist or agnostic can stop their previously active addiction.

A self-described atheist went on a week-long drinking binge after three and a half years of abstinence. Returning to her home group, she said she prayed twenty times a day to a God she didn’t believe in to please help her to not drink: “Please, God, if you are there, do not let me do it to myself again. After six months of believing I would never be able to stay sober again, I finally lost the obsession to drink.” She said it took her twenty years to “stop fighting God and to surrender.” She cleaned up her mouth; learned to have relationships; and “found a new friend in God.”

The ‘miracle’ of being relieved of the obsession to drink is accomplished through the common grace of God. And this grace is equally available to those who turn to the program of A.A. or N.A. as their Higher Power as it is for those with a Romans 10:9 relationship with Jesus Christ. God “makes his sun rise of the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust” (Matthew 5:42).

If you’re interested, more articles from this series can be found under the link for “The Romans Road of Recovery.” “A Common Spiritual Path” (01) and “The Romans Road of Recovery” (02) will introduce this series of articles. If you began by reading one that came from the middle or the end of the series, try reading them before reading others. Follow the numerical listing of the articles (i.e., 01, 02, or 1st, 2nd, etc.), if you want to read them in the order they were originally intended. This article is the 11th in the series. Enjoy.  

10/27/20

Bill W. and His LSD Experiences, Part 1

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Bill W., the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, has an acknowledged history of LSD use in the 1950s. This was when LSD was an unknown, experimental chemical, with no regulations or restrictions regulating its use. The A.A. published story of Bill Wilson and how the A.A. message reached the world, Pass It On, openly discussed Bill’s interest in LSD. It mentioned individuals who were known by or became friends to Bill—Gerald Heard, Aldous Huxley and Humphry Osmond—and who also happen to be important figures in the history of psychedelics. Yet by 1959, “Bill had personally withdrawn from the LSD experiments,” so that he would not compromise the future of A.A. But there is more to the story of Bill W. and LSD than what is found in Pass It On.

It began in the winter of 1943-44 when Bill and his wife Lois set out on a cross-country trip visiting A.A. groups that had sprouted up since the 1939 publication of the Big Book. According to Susan Cheever in My Name is Bill, Bill and Lois met Gerald Heard and Aldous Huxley while they were in Palo Alto, California and there was an immediate attraction between Wilson and Huxley. Heard and Huxley believed the betterment of society would come from an experiment in community and community education. Bill and A.A. were the practical application of that philosophy. Heard and Huxley invited Bill and Lois to spend New Year’s week at Trabuco College, a retreat center in the desert established by Heard to study comparative religion, and research meditation and prayer. The Wilsons returned to New York on January 22, 1944, but an important friendship was formed.

Pass It On said Bill and Huxley had an immediate rapport, one that Bill was immensely proud of. “They had much in common, although Huxley was not an alcoholic.” Huxley would later say he considered Bill to be a “modern saint” and “the greatest social architect of the twentieth century.” It was through Bill’s friendship with Huxley that Bill first heard about, and eventually decided to try LSD.

Humphry Osmond began his research with LSD and mescaline at St. George’s Hospital in London, where he was employed after WW II. In 1951, he moved to Saskatchewan, Canada to join the staff at Weybrun Mental Hospital. At Weybrun he organized the hospital as a design-research laboratory where he conducted a variety of studies into the use of hallucinogenic drugs. He was initially investigating the possibility that schizophrenia arose primarily from distortions of perception similar to those experienced by individuals under the influence of mescaline or LSD. But unexpectedly, Osmond began to see the potential of these drugs to foster mind-expanding, mystical experiences. It was during this time of experimentation that Aldous Huxley began a correspondence with Osmond and eventually asked him if he would kindly supply Huxley with a dose of mescaline.

In May of 1953 Osmond traveled to the Los Angeles area for a conference, where he provided the requested dose of mescaline and supervised Huxley’s experience with mescaline. Huxley would write The Doors of Perception (1954), which enthusiastically described his experience. He wrote: “The mystical experience is doubly valuable; it is valuable because it gives the experiencer a better understanding of himself and the world and because it may help him to lead a led self-centered and more creative life.” Gerald Heard tried mescaline in 1954 and then tried LSD in 1955. Heard felt that properly used, these psychedelics had the potential to enlarge a man’s mind, by allowing him to see beyond his ego.

Huxley and Heard would have naturally thought of what LSD could mean for Bill W., but Bill was initially opposed to giving drugs to alcoholics. In Pass It On, Osmond said: “I went down and was introduced to Bill and told him about it, and he was extremely unthrilled. He was very much against giving alcoholics drugs.” Huxley was apparently able to convince Bill of the mystical potential of LSD. Osmond reported that when alcoholics were given LSD, they reported having a new clarity of vision, a new vividness of experience. From his observations of the LSD work with alcoholics, Bill concluded LSD temporarily reduced the forces of the ego, which allowed the influx of God’s grace.

If therefore, under LSD we can have a temporary reduction, so that we can better see what we are and where we are going—well, that might be of some help. So I consider LSD to be of some value to some people, and practically no damage to anyone. It will never take the place of any of the existing means by which we can reduce the ego, and keep it reduced.

While Bill was debating the wisdom of trying it for himself, there were two other individuals taking the LSD plunge—a man and a woman who would have an important role in Bill’s exploration of LSD.

Dr. Sidney Cohen, a psychiatrist at Wadsworth VA Hospital in Los Angeles, first took LSD on October 12, 1955, reporting that the “problems and strivings, the worries and frustrations of everyday life vanished; in their place was a majestic, sunlit, heavenly inner quietude.” He immediately began doing his own research with Huxley. And on August 29, 1956 at Trabuco College, he supervised Bill Wilson’s first experience with LSD. Gerald Heard took notes; Aldous Huxley and Tom Powers, an A.A. friend of Bill’s from New York, stood by. According to Susan Cheever in My Name is Bill and the A.A. approved book Pass It On, Bill loved LSD and felt it helped him eliminate many of the barriers erected by the ego that stood in the way of his direct experience of God and the universe. It reminded him of his initial “hot flash” experience in Towns Hospital.

Betty Eisner, a psychology grad student, was Cohen’s initial research subject in 1955. As a result of her intense interest in his LSD work, Betty began meeting periodically with Sidney Cohen. A case report of her LSD experience was included in an article published in The American Journal of Psychiatry in July of 1958, “Subjective Reports of Lysergic Acid Experiences in a Context of Psychological Test Performance.” Eisner completed her Ph.D. by the end of July 1956 and was a coauthor of this paper along with Cohen and Lionel Fichman.

Eisner and Cohen began to think LSD could be helpful in facilitating psychotherapy, as well as curing alcoholism and enhancing creativity. They coauthored, “Psychotherapy with Lysergic Acid Diethylamide,” which was published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disorders in 1958. For a time, Bill W. was an integral part of their exploration of the psychotherapeutic benefits of LSD. Eisner maintained an active interest in hallucinogens throughout her career. Cohen would eventually become a director for the National Institute of Mental Health, but was always opposed to the counterculture movement’s use of LSD. He thought it was only safe when used under medical supervision.

In Part 2, we’ll look at the time period between the fall of 1956 and early 1957, what Eisner described as a boiling pot of activity surrounding LSD and mescaline. And Bill W. was in the middle of the pot.

05/5/20

Varieties of A.A. Experience

 

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Philip Wylie was an American author, known mostly for science fiction novels, like When Worlds Collide, which was made into a 1951 movie, and Gladiator, which partially inspired Superman. He wrote on a variety of subjects ranging from science fiction, mysteries and satire, to the threat of nuclear holocaust and even penned some book reviews. His 1945 novel, The Paradise Crater, led to his house arrest because he described a post-WW II Nazi conspiracy to develop and use an atomic bomb several months before the first atomic test at Alamogordo. But before his house arrest, he wrote a little-known article in the 1944 September issue of the AA Grapevine.

An editor of the Grapevine had been in contact with him after he wrote a book review of The Lost Weekend by Charles Jackson for the NYT. He said the value of the book was the gifted insight of its author, “his shattering candor and his vivid intuitions.” What likely caught the eye of the editor of the Grapevine was his comment that the book could become a textbook for Alcoholics Anonymous. Wylie said in his Grapevine article his review showed he had an interest in alcoholics because he was one. But he quit on his own—without the help of a group like A.A. to assist or advise him. The help paralleled what he then knew about A.A.

The things I did are, maybe, the things many others are doing. I was psychoanalyzed twice. I studied psychology after that–Jungian, Freudian, Adlerian, behavioristic. Then I read all the basic religious books. Then I read the philosophies. Then I went to insane asylums, and looked at them.

Carl Jung himself suggested Wylie look at a few insane asylums, where he learned he was not going insane, as he had been unconsciously afraid of “precisely that.” Drawing on the Jungian idea of “transcendent symbol,” instead of the notion of the spiritual or religious, he said it may be of interest to alcoholics that there are abstract, non-religious routes “to this same, universal, human contact with inner integrity, truth and the ‘nature of nature itself.’” In getting sober, Wylie said he read everything on alcoholism he could find. He became interested in the care and condition of alcoholic friends. Clairvoyantly, he said the values of chemistry should not be overlooked. He was especially interested in A.A. because it represented “the first really effective effort to deal in kind and in scale and in the right category, with alcoholism.”

Bill W. commented on Wylie’s article in the same issue of the Grapevine, saying it should endear him to every A.A., because he was so very alcoholic! Bill invited Philip Wylie to become a member of A.A. whenever he wanted. No A.A. should be disturbed if he could not fully agree with all of what Wylie said. “Rather shall we reflect that the roads to recovery are many; that any story or theory of recovery from one who has trod the highway is bound to contain much truth.” Bill was intrigued by Wylie’s reference to spiritual experience “a la Jung” as “transcendent symbol,” but he thought that design for living was pretty inadequate. Humility and faith in the power of the Living God was a much stronger medicine.

A.A. draws frankly upon emotion and faith while the scientific intellectual would avoid these resources as much as he can. Yet the more intellectual techniques do work sometimes, reaching those who might never be able to take the stronger dose. Besides, they remind us, when over proud of our own accomplishment, that A.A. has no monopoly on reviving alcoholics.

From the earliest times of A.A.’s existence, its members recognized it wasn’t the only method, the only way to sober up alcoholics. There is an A.A. pamphlet, “Many Paths to Spirituality,” that addresses the misconception that A.A. is a religious organization. Buddhists, Catholics, Native Americans and even agnostics or atheists peacefully co-exist in A.A. One person said: “I’m still an agnostic. But I have discovered that the program will work for anyone who will let it. I didn’t have to find a way to make it work. It will work perfectly well on its own, provided I’m willing to do some work myself.”

I am a Sioux/Blackfoot woman. I have been sober in A.A. for many years. Many of us believe in the Great Spirit, and it was a great relief to find out I could believe in a higher power of my choice. I didn’t have to give up any part of my beliefs when I joined A.A. I could live in the white man’s world, but also retain all of my people’s Native traditions, customs and ceremonies. In fact, A.A. made my beliefs stronger. My joining A.A. didn’t restrict me, it gave me more freedom.I’m a devout, lifelong Catholic. That is an integral part of my experience, strength and hope. I call my higher power God and do not feel I should have to qualify that every time I speak at a meeting. I’m perfectly okay with others referring to Buddha, Mohammed, Yahweh, or whatever name they call their higher power.By incorporating basic Buddhist practices with my A.A. practices — regular meetings, doing service, working with newcomers, living the Steps and reading A.A. literature — I have discovered an awesome way to improve my conscious contact with the God of my understanding and live life on life’s terms in relative serenity.

In “The Buddha and Bill W.,” Regina Walker drew out the parallels between A.A. and Buddhism. She asked a Buddhist teacher, Noah Levine, if he believed the practice of Buddhism was complementary to the 12-step model of recovery, and he replied:

Most will find Buddhism to fit well with their 12-step process. It will depend on one’s concept of a Higher Power. If one believes that there is an all-powerful God that is the creator and controller of the universe, they may have difficulty understanding things like karma. But I think that most 12 steppers will find the universal principles like generosity, forgiveness, compassion and the meditative path of mindfulness as complementary to the steps. More importantly, those who have difficulty with the 12-step views on powerlessness and God, will find in Buddhism a recovery process that does not ask for belief, only encourages direct knowing.

Whether an individual is Buddhist, Catholic, agnostic or some other form of spiritual belief, they can fit within the structure of A.A.’s 12-Step recovery. The receptiveness of A.A. to alternate views of spirituality was part of its earliest thinking and expression. Bill W. read The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James soon after his last drinking episode and embedded James’s thought into the A.A. 12-Step program. Its enduring influence is seen by The Varieties of Religious Experience being the only book named in Alcoholics Anonymous, the A.A. Big Book itself.

See “What Does Religious Mean?”, “Spiritual, not Religious Experience” and “The God of the Preachers” for more on the spiritual-religious distinction made by William James and its influence within A.A. and 12-Step recovery. Bill’s article responding to that of Philip Wylie was reprinted in The Language of the Heart, a collection of his Grapevine writings. Several of Philip Wylie’s books are still in print and available on Amazon in both print and kindle editions.

04/14/20

Thoroughly Following the AA Path

© Vitali Krasouski

Chapter five of the AA Big Book, “How It Works,” begins with a bold statement: “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.” The following two and a half pages are typically read at the beginning of every AA meeting and contain the essence of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. According to William Schaberg in Writing the Big Book, there is a persistent AA myth that Bill W. once said if he could change one word in the Big book, he would change “Rarely” to “Never.” But Bill categorically denied this, saying he never considered the change.

There are ongoing disputes over whether the claim made is true, namely that rarely does an individual fail who has thoroughly followed the AA path. There are many who agree with Lance Dodes, who said in his book, The Sober Truth, that the major studies of the effectiveness of 12-Step programs were “deeply scientifically flawed.” Dodes alleged the overall success rate for AA is between 5 and 10% and that his book was an expose on AA, Twelve Step programs and the rehab industry—how “a failed addiction treatment model” came to dominate America. But what does he mean by success rate? Dodes said he understood success rate to mean the number of people who enter these programs and are able to become and stay sober. We will look closer at this sense of “success rate” later.

Laurel Sindewald supposedly did a scientific, objective assessment of AA and found that “AA Is not Evidence-Based Treatment.” She referenced a 2006 Cochrane Review, whose authors concluded: “No experimental studies unequivocally demonstrated the effectiveness of AA or TSF [Twelve Step Facilitation] approaches for reducing alcohol dependence or problems.” I don’t think Sindewald’s review was either scientific or objective and previously described my reasons in “More Equal Therapies Than Others,” Part 1 and Part 2. You will find a description of TSF, which was developed by Joseph Nowinski, in those articles. By the way, the National Institute on Drug Abuse lists TSF as an evidence- or research-based behavioral therapy approach in drug abuse treatment.

Dodes also cited the 2006 Cochrane Review, noting how it was one of the most prestigious scientific research organizations in the world. But he selectively quoted the Review as saying: “‘No experimental studies unequivocally demonstrated the effectiveness of AA” in treating alcoholism. This group reached the same conclusion about professional (12-step facilitation therapy, or TSF), which is the core of virtually every alcoholism-rehabilitation program in the country.”

I respectfully disagree that studies showing the effectiveness of 12-Step programs are “deeply flawed” and I am concerned with how Dodes conflated AA and the 12-Steps with the rehab industry/addiction treatment in his critique of the rehab industry, calling AA “a failed treatment model.” I do not think he had solid, scientific grounding in his critique of AA and the 12-Steps. In order to demonstrate this belief, let’s examine a recent Cochrane Review that did find evidence of AA’s effectiveness and then look at If You Work It, It Works! The Science Behind 12 Step Recovery, a 2015 book by Joseph Nowinski. Remember that research done by Cochrane “is internationally recognized as the benchmark for high-quality information about the effectiveness of health care.”

The 2020 Cochrane Review, “Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs for alcohol use disorder” found that manualized AA/TSF interventions usually produced higher rates of continuous abstinence than other established treatments. Non-manualized AA/TSF performed as well as other established treatments. “Clinically-delivered TSF interventions designed to increase AA participation usually lead to better outcomes over the subsequent months to years in terms of producing higher rates of continuous abstinence.” This effect was achieved largely by fostering engagement in AA beyond the end of the TSF clinical intervention.

Speaking to The New York Times, the lead author John Kelly said: “We now have good evidence that AA and 12-step-facilitation treatments produce high rates of remission and reduced healthcare costs.” He added that AA created a socially engaged fellowship. The social network attracted and engaged people longer term, which reduces the risk of relapse.

The analysis found that AA and AA-connected 12-step programs had 20% improved abstinence rates over a period of 12 months compared to other therapies. That effect remained constant at both 24 and 36 months. When the researchers looked at the data in terms of number of days of abstinence, they found AA and other 12-step programs worked as well as other interventions. The data also showed that AA and 12-step programs worked as well as others when it came to getting drinkers to cut back on the amount of alcohol they were consuming.

In an author interview with Cochrane, Kelly said the quality of evidence for the abstinence outcome was moderate to high, indicating a high degree of confidence can be placed in these new findings. He said the 2006 Cochrane Review was not strong, as it was only based on 8 studies and included just a few thousand participants. “The updated review is based on 27 rigorous comparative investigations and included around 11,000 participants.” The last 25 years has seen a rapid expansion in the growth of studies on AA and TSF clinical interventions designed to link patients with AA. Research can prove it is effective at helping people achieve sobriety and lasting remission.

These superior benefits make sense when alcohol use disorder is viewed as a chronic illness, which for many is susceptible to relapse over months and years; one of the reasons why AA helps more people over the long-term is through its ability to keep people actively involved in its recovery-focused peer support social network over these long periods so that their brains and bodies can adjust to the absence of alcohol and the demands of recovery and help them adopt a new lifestyle that is more conducive and supportive to long-term stable remission and enhanced quality of life.

In the Prologue of If You Work It, It Works! The Science Behind 12 Step Recovery, Joseph Nowinski said that most of the evidence on AA was published in academic journals and as a result was largely inaccessible to the general public. His intent was to write about research done on AA in nontechnical, jargon-free language and make it available to the general public. “It is my hope that members of AA will find the evidence I present here relevant and insightful with respect to their own recovery.”

From the Alcoholics Anonymous 2011 Membership Survey, Nowinski reported that among individuals who were active in AA, 72% were sober more than a year, and a third (36%) more than ten years. The average number of meetings attended per week was 2.6; 81% have a sponsor and 86% have a home group. Nowinski said if you wanted to quit drinking, and stay quit, you should attend 2 or 3 meetings a week, get a sponsor and choose a home group. The 2014 Membership Survey is available online and reported similar figures. This consistency in membership surveys goes back to the first survey done by AA in 1977. But what about academic researchers who have studied AA and how involvement in AA relates to staying sober?

After examining studies that focused on the relationship between Twelve Step group affiliation and abstinence, Nowinski said there was a significant correlation between AA or NA meeting attendance and recovery. He added there was a noted distinction between attending self-help meetings and involvement. Individuals who merely attend meetings, but do not identify as program members were said to be on the outside, looking in; and their recovery may be less robust as a result. “Paths of entry into alcoholics anonymous” found that individuals who participated in both treatment and AA were more likely to achieve remission than individuals who only participated in professional treatment. “Alcoholics Anonymous Involvement and Positive Alcohol-Related Outcomes” said the study’s findings supported the hypothesis that AA involvement causes subsequent decreases in alcohol consumption and related problems. Analysis of longitudinal studies in “Alcohol and drug treatment involvement, 12-step attendance and abstinence” showed that greater 12-step attendance led to increases in 5-year abstinence and 7-year abstinence.

In the Epilogue of If You Work It, It Works! Nowinski said his book had looked at what objective science had to say about the effectiveness of the AA Twelve Step program, acknowledging that the bulk of research he reviewed was fairly new. He mentioned a group of “prominent researchers” who examined this emerging evidence on the effectiveness of AA and other abstinence-based mutual self-help fellowships. Their review, “Self-help organizations for alcohol and drug problems,” said: “Because longitudinal studies associate self-help group involvement with reduced substance use, improved psychosocial functioning, and lessened health care costs, there are humane and practical reasons to develop self-help group supportive policies.” In conclusion, Nowinski said: “So it would appear from research that the most appropriate answer to our initial question comes from the creators of the Twelve Step model: ‘Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.’”

02/11/20

Founded On the Rock

© Vasilis Ververidis | 123rf.com; The Holy Monastery of Rousanou/St. Barbara, in Greece.

Jesus reached the conclusion of his Sermon on the Mount. He had systematically dismantled the common religious understanding of God’s Word— “You have heard that it was said … but I say to you …” —throughout the Sermon. And in Matthew 7:21-23, he just told his hearers that not everyone who acknowledged his Lordship and performed deeds in his name will enter the kingdom of heaven! Surely Jesus did not mean that there were even some people who cast out demons, performed miracles and even prophesied in his name, but were ultimately opponents to the Law and the Prophets? Surely what he said in 7:21-23 was a rhetorical figure aimed to get our attention and not to be taken literally? All eyes were on Jesus as he told a final parable that communicated to his audience that he meant what he had just said.

I don’t imagine there were any side conversations either. They all wanted to hear what Jesus was going to say next. So, he told another little parable, that began with: “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock” (Matthew 7:24). When the rain, flood and winds come, it will withstand the storm and not fall. “And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand” (Matthew 7:25). When the rain, flood and winds come, it will fall.

The contrasts are between wisdom and foolishness, the rock and sand, and ultimately between hearing and doing his words, versus hearing and not doing. In effect, Jesus is saying: “Yes, you heard me right. I am saying you have to live out what you hear me saying here today. And if you don’t, when trials come, whatever you have built up will collapse.” In his book, The Sermon on the Mount, Sinclair Ferguson said Jesus is telling us there are two ways we can respond. We can either put his sermon into practice through obedience, or we can ignore it. The wise man puts into practice what he hears. As a result, he’ll withstand the trials when they come. Leon Morris said:

The little parable … emphasizes the importance of acting in accordance with Jesus’ teaching. It is one thing to hear what he said and even approve of it; it is quite another to obey. But it is only obedience that results in solid achievement.

Following the path Jesus described in the Sermon on the Mount is like building your house on a rock. You build on a firm foundation; you can trust his words to protect you in the worst storms. Ferguson said this meant more than simply hearing God’s word taught, becoming familiar with it or even agreeing with it. You have to put what you heard into practice. “The difference between the false and the true Christian is that the true Christian puts into practice what he has heard from the Master in this sermon.”

When he finished, the crowds were astonished at how authoritatively Jesus taught. This was not what they were used to from their scribes, who appealed to authority, but did not habitually teach with authority. “It was the scribal habit to appeal to authority, for it was an age in which originality was not highly prized. It was widely accepted that there had been a golden age early in the history of the race and since then history had been all downhill.” While it was customary for the scribes to cite an authority from the golden age, Jesus ignored this method of teaching. He simply said, “I say to you.” There was a context behind the imagery of the parables Jesus taught that gave them significance, as there is here. In his commentary on Matthew, Craig Blomberg said:

The wise person living in the Palestinian desert would erect a dwelling on a secure rock to protect the house from the flash floods that sudden storms created. The foolish person would build directly on the sand and would have no protection against the devastation of the elements. So too Judgment Day will come like a flood to disclose which spiritual structures will endure. Preliminary crises may also reveal authentic and inauthentic spirituality. In fact, often only in times of crisis can one’s faith be truly proven. This parable concludes Jesus’ “two ways” discussion and forms a fitting conclusion to the sermon as a whole by making plain that there is no valid reason for refusing Christ’s appeal. As R. T. France states succinctly, “The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not meant to be admired but to be obeyed.”

Within recovery, there is a similar appeal, and we could paraphrase this last quote as “The path to recovery in A.A. is not meant to be admired but followed.” Some individuals familiar with A.A. may want to nuance this paraphrase as suggestive rather than stating a “must.” Pointing to the Big Book itself, they can quote from the chapter “How It Works,” where it says: “Here are the Steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery.” And towards the end of the chapter “A Vision for You,” it says: “Our book is meant to be suggestive only.” But it would be a mistake to conclude it means you can take what you like from the Big Book, and leave the rest. A.A. does not present a Burger King mentality for it path to recovery, saying you can “have it your way.” There are also some “musts.”

A number of years ago Stewart C. wrote a concordance, A Reference Guide to the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is currently out of print, but there are still some copies available through Amazon. In his exhaustive coverage of the first 162 pages of the Big Book, he cited 82 examples of the word “must.” The following are quotes from first, “The Doctor’s Opinion,” and second “We Agnostics.”

The message which can interest and hold these alcoholic people must have depth and weight. In nearly all cases, their ideals must be grounded in a power greater than themselves, if they are to re-create their lives. . . . But after a while we had to face the fact that we must find a spiritual basis of life—or else.

So, the path of the Big Book and its Steps are suggestive, but if you choose to follow it, you must find a higher power, and you must walk the path thoroughly. In the “How It Works” chapter of the Big Book, it says: “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.” The text acknowledged there will be some who balk at remaining completely on the path described, but begged its readers “to be fearless and thorough” from the beginning. “Half measures availed us nothing.” This was said to be a turning point. The suggestion was to surrender to God—ask for “His protection and care with complete abandon.”

Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.

So the rock upon which the individual builds their new life without alcohol must include a surrender to God. Their ideals must be grounded in a power greater than themselves. They must find a spiritual basis to life and thoroughly follow that path. When the storms of life come, they will be able to withstand the gales, because their foundation was on this rock.

The association of the Sermon on the Mount and Twelve Step-based recovery was there from the beginning. It was an important meditative guide to Dr. Bob S., one of the cofounders of A.A. He said before there was a Big Book, the Bible was their Big Book; and the Sermon on the Mount was one of their key passages. In Writing the Big Book, William Schaberg said Dr. Bob claimed in 1945 that he tried to spend an hour each day reading on some religious subject. But he always returned “to the simple teachings in The Sermon on the Mount, the Book of James, and the 13th Chapter of Corinthians.” In Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers Dr. Bob said he thought the Sermon on the Mount contained “the underlying spiritual philosophy of A.A.”

I hope these reflections on the association of the Sermon on the Mount and the program of recovery in the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous will help you in your own journey along that path. If so, please pass it on to others.

This is part of a series of reflections dedicated to the memory of Audrey Conn, whose questions reminded me of my intention to look at the various ways the Sermon on the Mount applies to Alcoholics Anonymous and recovery. If you’re interested in more, look under the category link “Sermon on the Mount.”