Tag: 12 steps

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.

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.  

11/23/21

Differing Paths

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In the movie “The Last Sin Eater” (based on the novel by Francine Rivers by the same name), ten-year-old Cadi Forbes has an encounter with her Appalachian community’s “sin eater”—a human scapegoat who took the sins of the newly deceased upon himself in exchange for food and drink. She tried to tell the sin eater what the man of God told her; what was in his book (the Bible) about another sin eater . . . who ate everyone’s sin. Cadi was trying to help him see that he no longer had to be an outcast; he didn’t have to continue to be a sin eater. The sin eater interrupted and said that he refuses to read that book, because it may reveal that the twenty years of his life as a sin eater have been in vain. That is the dilemma for both A.A. and N.A. members and those who are called by Christ into relationship with Him. Although the truth of God is clearly seen, we seek to suppress it because of what it says about the impotence of our efforts apart from God.

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:20-23)

Throughout chapter six in Romans Paul used slavery as a metaphor to compare the life of sin and the life of righteousness. Slavery was a common situation of life in Paul’s time. Estimates were that 85-90 percent of the Roman population was either slaves or the descendants of slaves. While they were viewed as “human tools,” slaves were still granted many legal rights.

They could worship as members of the extended family of their owner. They could marry, but the offspring of that marriage became the property of the owner. Slaves could also accumulate money on their own to purchase their freedom or to start a business once they were set free by their owners. While slaves could be architects, physicians, administrators and teachers, they were often hired out as day laborers in construction and industry. And they paid about two-thirds of their wages to their owners.

By the beginning of the first century the numbers of freed slaves had increased dramatically; partly because of the significant decline in the freeborn population of the time. No doubt there were both slaves and masters in many of Paul’s churches, including the church in Rome. According to Martin Hawthorne in the Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, Jewish slaves were particularly evident in Rome: “Jewish slaves had been brought to Rome by the tens of thousands from the time of Pompey’s conquest until the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.”

Continuing with the metaphor of slavery here, Paul observes that while we were slaves to sin, while sin was our master, we were “free” of any service obligations to righteousness. In other words, we could not serve two masters. We either serve sin and hate righteousness; or serve righteousness and hate sin (Matthew 6:24). But what benefit (or fruit) did we get from our slavery to sin, from the lawlessness and impurity of which we are now ashamed? There was no benefit; the end result is death. But now that we are free from sin and surrendered (as slaves) to God, the fruit (benefit) we receive is salvation and sanctification. According to Paul, there will be service to something in our lives. Which will it be? Slavery to sin results in lawlessness—which leads to death. Slavery to righteousness results in salvation and sanctification—which leads to eternal life.

The Greek word for wages in 6:23 was used outside of Scripture to refer to an allowance or salary paid out at designated times. Most often it referred to a minimal subsistence paid to soldiers, thus the use of the same Greek word in Luke 3:14, where John the Baptist tells soldiers to be satisfied with their pay and not to extort money to supplement their income. The recipient had a legal right to expect their “wages” and could bring legal action if they did not receive their justly due compensation. The context here suggests that all three aspects are part of what Paul is saying.

One sense suggests, “The subsistence which sin pays and offers is death.” Therefore, sin is a deceiver; it promises life and gives death. Secondly, it is not a single, final payment; but continues as the just compensation for sin. Thirdly, the legally owed payment for sin is contrasted with the free gift of God: eternal life in Christ. The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament said: “Man has rights only in relation to sin, and these rights become his judgment. When he throws himself on God without claim, salvation comes to him.”

So, we see the radical difference between service to sin and service to righteousness in verse 6:23. The just compensation for sin is death, but righteousness leading to sanctification results in the free gift of eternal life in Christ. God freely gives to us what we cannot earn through our personal efforts; the deliverance from sin through eternal life in Christ.

So too are the consequences of alcoholism or addiction. The delusion or lie that an alcoholic can drink like other people, that somehow, someday the alcoholic will be able to control and enjoy his or her drinking “is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker.” The wages of addiction are also death; jail, institutions or death as the saying goes in recovery. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous noted how many alcoholics pursue the illusion that they can somehow control and enjoy their drinking “into the gates of insanity or death.”

“No real alcoholic ever recovers control.” They are “restless, irritable and discontented” unless they have a few drinks. When they give in to the desire to drink again, the well-known stages of a drinking spree, remorsefulness for having drank, and a “firm resolution not to drink again” occurs as the just compensation for their drinking. “This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.” This downward cycle of alcoholism reflects of Paul’s description of the cycle of sin in Romans 7.

Paul knows that nothing good dwells in him, that is in his flesh. He has the desire to do what is right “but not the ability to carry it out;” he’s powerless. He does not do the good he wants to do, but does the evil he does not want to do instead. Although he delights in the law of God in his inner being, there is another law that makes him captive to the law of sin dwelling in him. “Wretched man that I am! Who will save me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

The plan for recovery and the plan for salvation strike out in different directions at this point. Theologically, salvation aims high—for eternal life in Jesus Christ. Twelve Step recovery, seeking to be inclusive, does not require a belief in or surrender to Christ, and thus cannot give eternal life. If Christ is not the object of your faith, it isn’t “the power of God for salvation” (Romans 1:16).

Saving faith must have Christ as its object. Faith in the god revealed through the 12 Steps must lead to faith in Christ who died for us. This faith in Jesus Christ is a free gift, available “for all who believe.” It is a manifestation of the righteousness of God by which he has passed over our former sins. “It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:26).

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, etc.), if you want to read them in the order they were originally intended. This article is 10th in the series. Enjoy.

11/2/21

The Plan for Salvation and Recovery

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“This is a Program of Total Abstinence.” (Narcotics Anonymous, 5th edition, p, 81)

Addiction recovery based upon the Twelve Steps makes a distinction between abstinence and recovery, where abstinence is simply not using drugs or alcohol, and recovery is the result of combining abstinence with the change that occurs when an addict or alcoholic applies the Twelve Steps to their life. There is a ‘formula’ used to capture this, abstinence + change = recovery. This simple formula recognizes that mere abstinence without change is a ‘dry drunk’ that involves ‘stinking thinking.’ The desire to get high or drunk remains and will manifest itself in behavior and attitudes consistent with those the person did during their active drinking or drug use. A merely abstinent alcoholic or addict acts, talks, and feels like they did when drinking or drugging.

Change that is not based upon abstinence is not sustainable. It will not lead to recovery. Yet, you can sometimes achieve radical changes in addiction-related thinking, feeling and behavior without total abstinence. There can be a drastic reduction in the harmful effects of active drug and alcohol use. But for recovery, a change of heart and soul is needed—a progressive spiritual growth process that diminishes the need and desire for the mind altering and mood changing effects of drugs and alcohol.

Continuing to use drugs and alcohol, even in moderation, while working to change the need and desire for the high is like taking an antibiotic only until you feel better, and not for the full course of the required treatment. You only manage to diminish the harmful effects, which can return even stronger without a complete eradication of the original infection. Using drugs and alcohol is part of the problem; and simply diminishing the need and desire for getting high or drunk without concurrent abstinence cannot eradicate an addiction. Abstinence plus change equals recovery. As the Blue Book of Narcotics Anonymous says, “Complete abstinence is the foundation of our new way of life.” In other words, recognizing the need for ongoing abstinence is a prerequisite for recovery.

Terence Gorski, in Understanding the Twelve Steps, noted there were four tasks to completing the First Step. First, you admit that the use of alcohol or drugs has caused major problems in your life. Second, you admit the you are powerless to control the use of alcohol or drugs. Third, you admit your life has become unmanageable as a result of alcohol or drug us. And fourth, you admit that you are powerless to manage your life effectively as long as you continue to use alcohol or drugs. “When you have completed all four of these tasks, what decision do you have to make? What’s the only rational decision left. . . . You have to stop drinking.”

Things were starting to make sense. It was like a large jigsaw puzzle slowly being put together. The picture was beginning to appear. I started to feel good about being clean and having complete abstinence from all mind altering or mood-changing chemicals. (Narcotics Anonymous, p. 198)

Where does an addict or alcoholic go from here? If they are convinced by working through the First Step or living through the unmanageability of an active addiction that they are powerless over alcohol and drugs, they are right where addiction wants them to be. They have no hope; there appears to be no help. They crave another drink . . . joint . . . pill . . . fix . . . whatever. Their options are to die quickly or slowly; with or without their drug of choice. Psalm 86 says, “How long will your wrath burn like fire? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol?” “Forever” and “no one can” are the only possible answers. But there is a Second Step: “Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

I took my last drink one week into my second treatment. I was overcome by the obsession to drink after a hot day of fishing. The only thing I could find was a bottle of liqueur with about an ounce left in it. I guess I needed that last drink to show just how powerless over alcohol I was. In my heart, I surrendered. I couldn’t drink, and I couldn’t not drink. I hoped there was a Higher Power that could restore me to sanity, because I am sure couldn’t. (AA Grapevine, vol 62, no, 9)

The significance of this “Higher Power” is as essential for recovery as Jesus Christ is for salvation; but they are not the same thing. The ability to “worship according to one’s own understanding of the spiritual” was referred to as the saving grace of the 11th Step:

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for the knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

Any kind of prayer and meditation is very difficult for many in early recovery. In the 11th Step there is a reaffirmation of “the freedom to worship according to one’s own understanding of the spiritual.” By the time anyone joins A.A. to address their alcoholism, he or she has been “out of touch” with spiritual things for a long time. For them to suddenly accept all that they had been rejecting would be almost impossible. “The principle of freedom embodied in the 11th Step opens the door to any individual seeking spiritual help by whatever path and through whatever concepts he himself prefers” (AA Grapevine, vol. 3, no. 4).

Although it is not the same path, this plan for recovery runs parallel to the plan of salvation.

God’s Plan for Salvation and Recovery

In Romans 6:1, Paul asked if we should continue sinning as a way to experience more of the grace and righteousness of God, then immediately answered with an emphatic denial: by no means! Through 6:11 he proceeded to describe our union with Christ; how we were baptized into His death (6:4) so that we too can walk in newness of life (6:4). Christ died to free us from sin (Ro. 6:6). Because if we died with Christ, we believe we will also live with him and be free from sin (6:7-8). Just as Christ died to sin, once for all, and lives to God, we should also consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus (6:9-11).

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace (Romans 6:12-14).

When Paul exhorts us to not let sin reign in our bodies (Romans 6:12), he is telling us to abstain from sin. Because if we do sin, we open the door to be ruled by sinful passions (Romans 1:28-31). Since we are powerless over sin, we cannot control or resist our craving for more. There is no possibility for compromise. We cannot simply have a small taste of it every once and awhile. If we continue to sin, we will be ruled by our desire for it. In his commentary on Romans, Robert Mounce warned, “Sin continues in force in its attempt to dominate the life and conduct of the believer.”

Paul then more specifically exhorts us to not allow any part (or member) of us to be an instrument or weapon for unrighteousness; but to instead present our members as instruments for righteousness. See also Romans 12:1, where his exhortation is for us to present (the same Greek verb) ourselves as “living sacrifices.” There cannot be a corner or part of our being that is given over to sin. It will eventually lead to sin reigning in our “mortal bodies,” forcing us to obey its desires. In the Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, Martin Hawthorne said: “Union with Christ (Rom 6:2–11) compels behavior which is consistent with it (Romans 6:12–23).”

The fact that Paul commands us to not allow sin to reign in our mortal bodies means that it is possible for us to do so. Otherwise, it is a taunting mockery to command an individual who is powerless over sin to not sin. Such a command would only reinforce the despair and hopelessness of being under the dominion of sin (or addiction). Even though we have all sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), sin will not have dominion over us because we are not under the law, but under grace (Romans 6:14).

We are not doomed to the eternal powerlessness and unmanageability of sin if we believe that Christ can save us from our body of sin and death (Romans 7:24-25). There is a power greater than sin and therefore Paul can command us to not sin. According to John Murray in his commentary on Romans, “Deliverance from the dominion of sin is both the basis of and the incentive to the fulfillment of the exhortation.”

Again, the parallel to recovery is clear. The addict or alcoholic must fully abstain from mind altering, mood changing substances. They can’t “present” themselves again to drugs or alcohol. If they do, they open the door once again to eventual domination by or slavery to addiction and its passions. Surrender to God in the Third Step means that after we present ourselves to him, we are no longer subject to the slavery of alcoholism or addiction—as long as we remain abstinent with God’s help in working the Steps.

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 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 9th in the series. Enjoy.

05/17/14

Faith That Seeks Understanding

Image credit: jgroup / 123RF Stock Photo
Image credit: jgroup / 123RF Stock Photo

Coming to faith in Christ presented me with an intellectual crisis. I thought this faith required me to believe without engaging my mind. Happily, this was not the case. Faith in Christ has been more like the wind of the Spirit opening a door into all that I came to understand. With God as my starting point, it has been a process of thinking God’s thoughts after Him.

My faith walk and professional counseling career ran parallel to each other for about ten years. Eventually they became entwined and I found myself in seminary for theological training. I then went on to write a dissertation on the spiritual, religious distinction of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Along the way I ran across the writings of Anselm of Canterbury and was struck with how his thinking was relevant to the spiritual, but not religious thinking of modern culture and Alcoholics Anonymous.

When I launched a biblical counseling and teaching ministry in 2004, Anselm Ministries seemed to be a natural name for the ministry I envisioned doing. But I soon discovered that not everyone knew about Anselm of Canterbury. Sometimes people weren’t even sure how to spell his name.

In 2013, I decided to develop and add a blog to the ongoing teaching and counseling I did through Anselm Ministries. But there was the name recognition problem of Anselm. I decided to call the new website and blog, Faith Seeking Understanding, a phrase that captures the thrust of Anselm’s thought. It also happens to be the title he initially gave to one of his most important works.

Anselm sought to find a single, philosophical proof that would demonstrate what Christians believe about God. This single proof would have to show that God truly existed as a supreme good that required nothing else; and that all other things required this supreme good for their existence and well-being. He eventually thought he was searching for something that could not be found, and attempted to put the problem out of his mind. But it was not easily dismissed.

The more he tried to dismiss it from his thoughts, the more it forced itself upon him. Then one day, “the proof of which I had despaired offered itself.” Anselm composed the proof in the form of a treatise written by someone trying to “lift his mind to the contemplation of God;” someone who “seeks to understand what he believes.” He titled it, “Faith Seeking Understanding.” At first, Anselm was reluctant to name himself as the author, but was finally convinced to do so by others. He then renamed it Proslogium, how it is known today.

What I hope to encourage in this blog is a dialogue that begins with faith and seeks to understand how that faith informs issues in the areas of addiction and recovery, counseling, and the Christian life—thinking God’s thoughts. Personally I see addiction recovery as best when it is abstinence-based and Twelve Step-centered. This spills over into counseling where I have become increasingly critical of medication-based treatment approaches for addiction and mental health problems.

There seems to be an unacknowledged presumption in these treatment approaches that addiction and mental health problems are fundamentally biological in nature. This violates a basic biblical belief in human beings as created in the image of God, as psycho-somatic beings with bodies and souls. “Treatment” for behavioral or mental health issues that emphasizes the bodily somatic side while ignoring or minimizing the psychic side will always be inadequate.

Consider this an invitation to stop back and become a regular visitor here. Let’s see where a faith that seeks understanding about addiction, counseling and attempting thinking God’s thoughts leads us.