Something Always Happens

I’ve sat down to write this blog on more than two occasions, and something always happens. This doesn’t explain almost a year hiatus, but it encompasses some of it. As in life, I like to be armed with an impressive array of excuses.

Continuing on…

A Series of Questions

A quick update about where we left off and where we are now.

During the development of modules to introduce the 12 steps to those in treatment, the content creators sent me a series of questions about my experience with the 12-Step program. What follows is a semblance of how I answered these questions. I have taken the liberty of “updating” some of my answers where appropriate.

Did/do your friends, significant other, or family “get” the 12-step program?

Unless a person is working on their own recovery in a 12-step program, it is unlikely that they will be able to fully understand or “get” the program.  It’s the “unorganized” and “disconnected” nature of the fellowship that leads to claims of cult or religion and general confusion. This same sort of confusion is what faces someone new to the program.

Adding to this confusion are the three legs of the AA stool. They are as follows: the “fellowship” which is made up of the scheduled meetings, the socialization, and what’s sometimes called “sober fun,” then there is the basic text of Alcoholics Anonymous,  which contains the program of recovery or what one speaker I heard call “the open secret,” finally there are the 12 Steps themselves which are the basic guidelines used to bring about a “spiritual awakening.” 

Probably the greatest reason for others outside the program not to “get it” is they don’t need to. The hard truth is that the 12-steps are for those who want it, not necessarily those who need it. If a person isn’t in crisis (or even if he or she is), it’s unlikely that the suggestions of the program will be of interest. I would make the analogy that it is unlikely that a person would care how to inflate a life raft until they needed it. A critical element of 12-step recovery is the ability to identify.

Please describe the 12-step program to me.

This may be the hardest question in the bunch. Years ago, two men met up in Akron, Ohio. One of the men didn’t want to start drinking again, and the other man couldn’t stop. Together they started what later became Alcoholics Anonymous. The man who didn’t want to start drinking was a stock speculator from New York City. The other man was a physician from Akron. Truthfully, they couldn’t have been more different if they tried, but many today believe they were brought together by divine Providence.

When the son of the physician spoke many years later at an AA convention, he articulated their differences best.

“If Bill had had his way, he would have franchised this thing like McDonalds. If my dad had had his way, we’d still be meeting in my parent’s living room in Akron.”

Robert “Bob” Smith II

Everyone at that meeting is now gone, and what was said between the two men was never revealed. What was revealed was that for the first time, rather than talking about bright lights and spiritual experiences, Bill Wilson simply talked about his drinking and recovery with another person. The result was the other person, Dr. Bob Smith, was finally able to stop drinking. After that meeting, these two men decided to keep trying to help other men who suffered as they had.

As both men had connections with the Oxford Group, a religious movement popular in the 1930s, they found some of the guides from that program helpful. The group touted the Four Absolutes. They were absolute honesty, absolute unselfishness, absolute purity, and absolute love. They soon realized that most alcoholics were resistant to the idea of “absolute anything.” They needed a simpler approach which they found among the tenets of the Oxford Group.

The basic tenets of the Oxford Group were:

• A complete deflation
• Dependence on God
• A Moral Inventory
• Confession
• Restitution
• Continued work with others in need