Sam Shoemaker had something to say about prayer:

Many people will tell you they have given up faith: they prayed
for something they wanted, and it did not come--so either there
is no God, or else He is not interested in them. What childish
nonsense! ..... Prayer is not telling God what we want, it is
putting ourselves at His disposal so that He can tell us what
He wants. Prayer is not meant to try to change the will of God,
it is meant to find the will of God, to align or realign ourselves
with His purposes for His world and for us. That is why it is at
least as important for us to listen as to speak in prayer.

-- Samuel M. Shoemaker

If you're wondering who Sam Shoemaker is, that's not unusual. It's interesting that more folks in Twelve Step fellowships don't know who he is, or what he did for us.

Bill W. calls him a co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous; he was heavily involved with (some say the "leader" of) the Oxford Groups in the US while Bill and Bob were working inside of that fellowship, before the drunks went out on their own.

This quote from him, referencing what the very purpose of prayer is, contains the incredibly simple, subtle - and overlooked - essential idea: we don't pray to ask God to change HIS mind. We pray to ask God to change OUR mind.

"...asking only for knowledge of His will, and the power to carry that out".

We're not praying for a new car, or rain to end the drought, or world peace - we're not asking him to change our circumstances. We're praying in order to create a connection by which God can change our inner state.

In fact, this very idea kind of tosses the whole "pray for the people that you resent" idea out on its ear - while simultaneously validating the basic notion behind the intention of the prayer. In that story in the Big Book, the evangelist says that we are supposed to ask God to change another person's life - in the ways that we would want our own life changed - but the avowed purpose is to change our own internal state. (Of course, what seems to be the hoped-for goal to be achieved in this practice is that we will be able to get rid of the resentment without having to actually go through those awful inventory, confession and restitution Steps; for some reason, folks who like to talk about that prayer forget to mention that the women who wrote the story said that she had already been through those Steps without relief).

I find it interesting that none of the prayers listed in the Big Book (that I can think of, anyway) ever say anything about changing the outside world - not any part of it - not even our own state. There's not even any prayer mentioned to remove the compulsion or desire to drink or overeat; it's all about going through a process and arriving at the result - a spiritual awakening, one of the results of which being that the booze/food is no longer an issue.

Indeed, none of the Steps themselves ever talk about asking God to add anything to our spiritual selves - they are aimed, instead, at removing the blocks to the awareness of His presence:

"...deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there."

We don't have to have anything added - we're already complete. "The gift of God was made at the foundation of the Earth". He's already inside of each of us. His Will already lives here - all we have to do is get the garbage out of the way, so that we can then ask - not for His Will - but for knowledge of His will.

And the power to carry that out - hmmm....Sounds like a good subject for another post : )

Most of the 12 Steps tend to engage my attention.

For the first nine Steps, it's a lather-rinse-repeat process; having reached the level of desperation necessary to pick up such a "drastic course of action", I'm pretty willing to move along with the "next...then..." motivation from Step to Step.

The last three Steps, however, aren't - by that I mean, they really aren't "Steps in the Program", from the way that I read my book. The first nine are definitely part of a program - i.e "a sequence of events or instructions" - in that we are told to execute them in a specific order; but the last three don't fit that pattern. I don't have to do a Tenth Step before I do an Eleventh Step before I do a Twelfth Step - the last three Steps are very plainly given as a design for daily living.

Step 10 includes a continuing awareness - a lookout for "selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear" - and the Step includes a prescription of four actions to be taken "when these crop up".

Step 11 has the most ubiquitous set of instructions - it's hard to find a time of the day when I'm not supposed to be doing Step 11. There's the nighttime inventory (my apologies to anyone who thought that the nighttime inventory was part of Step 10 - if you can find justification for such a view in our Big Book, I'd really love to hear it) and the morning session of meditation and directed thought in which we receive our plan for the day.

In addition, there are two other bits of instructions that get carried throughout the day - "we constantly remind ourselves that we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day 'Thy Will, not mine, be done'", and "when agitated or doubtful, we ask for the right thought or action".

Twelve is the only Step of the last three that is reactive, rather than proactive - in other words, Ten and Eleven are Steps that I take of my own volition, whereas Twelve is one that I take in response to somebody else's actions. There is a school of thought that says that just showing up at meetings or working on H&I committees is doing Step Twelve, but the Book says that this Step involves " intensive work with other alcoholics" - it's sitting down with another alcoholic and following a prescribed method of passing on our message.

When I say that it's reactive, I mean that one can't really do Step Twelve (as per the instructions in the Big Book) until one is asked to do it. Making oneself available is most definitely necessary, but it's not Step Twelve, any more than buying a pencil and a notebook is Step Four.

This reinforces one of the things I've learned (primarily in Al-Anon) -

Q: how do I know when I'm supposed to help somebody?
A: when they ask me to.

This keeps things really simple, and also cuts down on my opportunities to play God.

It's a good thing that I didn't write the Big Book, or I might (in my literal-minded way) have decided to wind up with Ten Steps, lumping these last three together as "Keep taking inventory, praying and meditating while attempting to carry the message to other alcoholics".

There's another interesting thing about these last Steps - the last two of them give us credit just for trying. The other Steps (One through Ten) all say that we DID this or that - but Eleven and Twelve actually say that we SOUGHT and TRIED, rather than FOUND and DID.

Of course, that last bit of the last Step really turns the whole thing into a "Lather, Rinse, Repeat" cycle; since it says that we "practice these principles in all of our affairs", and since the Principles are the Twelve Steps (not the last three :) this bit of verbiage says (to me) that I'm supposed to keep doing ALL of them - the first Nine over and over again whenever necessary, and the last Three on an ongoing basis.

One of my favorites is the old "You don't have to like everybody" line - there's always a little tag on the end about how we're supposed to love everybody, but we don't have to like them.

That's a fun one. Like the "pray for the SOB even if you don't mean it" business, it implies that it's okay for us to keep looking down on other folks so long as we wish them well.

I used it, for a while. Eventually, enough inventory work allowed me to see that I actually really do like everybody.

I noticed that the only time that I didn't like someone - i.e. felt uncomfortable when I saw them, or didn't want to share space or time with them - was when I had begun to suspect that they didn't like me, and so I had to avoid them and invalidate their (supposed) negative opinion of me.

(N.B. - when I say that I like everybody, I don't mean that I want to spend a lot of time with all of them - because I only have so much time, and I usually spend my spare time in various activities, and so mostly wind up enjoying the company of other folks who like those activities. When I say that I like everybody, I mean that I would pretty much enjoy sitting down and talking with them anytime).

Of course, I still would enjoy the privilege of "not liking somebody". When you're an alcoholic and a compulsive overeater, it's nice to be able to look down on somebody now and then.

However, there are two interesting passages in our literature that lead me to the conclusion that it's just not OK to say to myself that "it's allright not to like so-and-so". The first one is the Spiritual Axiom, from page 90 in the 12 & 12 -

            "It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, 
              there is something wrong with us."  -- pg 90, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

You won't often find me quoting the 12&12, since there isn't much in the way of instructions that I can find in that book - there are wonderful essays and things to think about, and a really good prayer (the prayer of St. Francis) but there doesn't seem to be much in the way of "clear cut directions".

However, the Spiritual Axiom is a wonderful example of cautionary directions - where it's saying, like a spiritual Crocodile Hunter - "Crikey! Never, ever ever do this!" And it fits in very well with my understanding of the "actor who wants to run the whole show" and the injunction that we can't "harbor such feelings" from page 64. The Spiritual Axiom is from the essay about Step 10, which is the Step in which (upon finding out that we are selfish, dishonest, resentful or afraid) we are supposed to:

1. Ask God at once to remove it
2. Discuss it with somebody immediately
3. Make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone, and
4. Resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help.

So if I find somebody else's presence or attention disturbing, then there's something wrong with me - and I'd best get busy finding out what it is and straightening it out with the above methodology.

But there's another place where the idea of not liking people is addressed, and it's in the Big Book, in the Clear Cut Directions, where it talks in Step Nine about people that we have hated -
 
          "Nevertheless, with a person we dislike, we take the bit in our teeth. It is harder to go to an
            enemy than to a friend, but we find it much more beneficial to us. We go to him in a helpful
            and forgiving spirit, confessing our former ill feeling and expressing our regret. "

The idea that I must "confess [my] former ill feeling and express my regret" seems to me to be saying that an "ill feeling" is something that must be confessed - not only that, but that it is done so formally, in the Ninth Step, which means that I am making amends for harms done others.

It's helpful for me to remember that "love and tolerance of others is our code" - but I need to use the engineering definition of "tolerance", meaning "able to interact without friction", rather than my old self-righteous idea of "tolerance" meaning "I'm much smarter/moral/spiritual than he is, but I'll put up with his faults to show that I'm a good guy".

I only made four meetings last week.

Now, I know that there are folks who don't make that many meetings per week. I also know that there are a lot of folks who go to a lot more meetings than that. I aim at a long-running average of "more than five" meetings per week, and I actually track that on a spreadsheet (hey - it's my running log. I enter something into it at least six days a week anyway, so I just added a column which allows me to say how many meetings I went to that day. It's not a big deal :)

When Ethel and I were young (yes, it happened) we went to a LOT of meetings - I probably averaged close to two a day, right up until we got pregnant with Silas (around year five, for me).

When Ethel started to swell up with a baby inside her, I noticed that I got less interested in nighttime meetings; some ancient instinct rose up inside of me that told me that I was supposed to be at home at night; that I was supposed to come inside the cave, and put up barriers to keep the wolves and other predators away from my pregnant wife.

This bothered me a bit, for a while, until I saw that bit in The Family Afterward where it said that, for an ordinary man such as myself, a spiritual life which did not include my family obligations might not be so perfect after all. After that, Silas was born, and I fell into this habit of making at least five meetings per week.

After a while, I pulled out this habit and looked at it, consciously.

Was I going to enough meetings?

That's a good question. How to determine how many is enough? What are the criteria?

After a while, a couple of things struck me.

One of them is this - I'm not going to meetings to stay sober.

"Lemme 'splain - no, is too much. Lemme sum up." -- Inigo Montoya, from The Princess Bride

....I'm not going to meetings because I'm about to take a drink.

Ethel talks about how AAs are depicted on TV and in films; when somebody is identified in the script as being in Alcoholics Anonymous, then that person seems to always be on the verge of getting drunk; he's white-knuckling, calling his sponsor in a panic, and just barely getting to meetings before Ron Bacardi or Jack Daniels catches up to him.

That's not AA life, at all - once we get past Step Ten, it just ain't like that. At our local meetings, we sometimes read the Tenth Step promises, saying (in part):

"For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid."

The idea of living moment-to-moment with a craving to drink is terrifying; that is NOT what we have here. It's not what we've been given, and it seems to me to be missing the point; the miracle that we've recieved is so complete and perfect that it seems just plain disrespectful to even pretend that it's like that.

I don't go to meetings because of any immediate issue of sobriety; I go to meetings to carry the message of Alcoholics Anonymous, and as long as I'm doing that, my sobriety is insured - I am immune from the first drink (if that sounds arrogant to you, then you might want to reread the first paragraph of Chapter Seven) - as I've heard it said, as long as I'm carrying the message with both hands, I won't have a hand to pick up a drink with.

So that simple distinction forces me to rephrase the question - not "how many meetings to I need to attend to keep away from a drink", but "how many meetings does God want me at to carry the message to others?" In other words, going to a meeting isn't a selfish act; it's not something that I'm doing because "I need a meeting", but instead it's something that I'm doing for the others there; it's what the folks at my first group were doing for me.

The second thing that occurred to me is this - it's none of my business how many meetings I need to be at.

I'm no longer running my own life; I'm not supposed to be figuring out what I need. My Big Book says that as long as I'm sticking close to Him and performing His work well, I'll be given what I need. I don't even have to figure it out.

I'm given instructions on how to get instructions for my daily life; I'm supposed to wake up in the morning and ask God to direct my thinking as I make my plans for the day. At that time, I find out if I'm supposed to go to a meeting today. That's allowing Him to run my life, and allowing Him to tell me what to do - on a daily basis, which is (to my understanding) the biggest block of time for which I'm going to get instructions. 

Okay, then - why do I track how many meetings that I'm going to? Doesn't that sort of contradict what I just said?

Absolutely!

However, I'm aware of my own inadequacies - no, wait. That's not true. I'm sure that I have many inadequacies of which I am completely unaware : ) - let's say, instead, that I am aware that I have those inadequacies. The Big Book says that I'm not going to do this Step perfectly, so I'm going to make mistakes.

So I track my daily meetings for the same reason that, once a week, I weigh in - not to generate any immediate alert, but just to see if I'm falling into some kind of long-term trend. If I find that I've suddenly started going to fewer and fewer meetings, then it might be time for a talk with my sponsor to determine if that is, indeed, something that God is leading me to do.

(I fully expect to start going to MORE meetings once Silas has moved out, but who knows? That may not be His plan; that just might be what I suspect is going to happen. If it doesn't, then that might be a good subject to bring up with Sponse, as well).

Yet more AA Folklore:

"In the fourth step, we are supposed to write down our assets as well as our liabilities - it's not just all of the bad stuff. It's the good stuff, too."

Gotta love this one. It sounds good, and it even fits the definition of "inventory" that one will find in any dictionary.

And I would absolutely have to go along with it, were it not for those pesky first 164 pages; they keep telling me that they are going to provide "clear cut directions" for how I am supposed to work these Steps.

I remember trying to do this, BTW - listing assets as well as liabilities. I think I even did so - but in order to do so, I had to add stuff to the inventory process that wasn't outlined in the Book. See, there's no column for "assets"; and there's no instruction for writing them down. In fact, it's a very definite omission.

I love the way that this part of the Book is written; Bill does some stuff with words that is almost misleading. Here's on example:

"Taking commercial inventory is a fact-finding and a fact-facing process. It is an effort to discover the truth about the stock-in-trade. One object is to disclose damaged or unsalable goods, to get rid of them promptly and without regret."

...Bill says "One object is to disclose damaged or unsalable goods..." - if you are like me, and you read that passage, then you're going to expect him to come along soon and say "Another object is to find the valuable goods..", but he never comes around and says "Another object..." - he never closes that loop.

Later on on that page, he says

"First, we searched out the flaws in our make-up which caused our failure. "

Again, if you're like me, you're going to expect him to come along after saying "First,.." and say "Secondly..." - but he doesn't do that. He never says "Secondly, we searched out the assets in our character".

It ain't there. You'd think that it ought to be there, you might even expect it to be there - it does look like he set it up to be there - but it ain't there.

If you can find the part in the Big Book where it says that we're supposed to list our assets, please share it with the rest of us. I tried listing my "assets" but they mostly turned out to be lies - in a few cases, character attributes which were looking good at the time, but later on turned out to be things that were, indeed, causing me troubles.

SETTING UP A STRAW MAN: In the 12 & 12, it does say that, if a member is of a depressive nature, that his sponsor might point out some assets in his character. I'm still waiting for my sponsor to do so :)

Continuing our discussion of AA Folklore (well, actually, since I haven't seen any comments, I reckon it's just MY discussion. But you folks feel free to jump in at any time :) I present one of my favorites: The Resentment Prayer.

It's the notion that we're supposed to get rid of resentments by praying for the person at whom we are resentful.

Now, let's be completely honest (the Big Book thinks that that's a good idea :) - this idea is, actually, expressed in SOME Big Books¹. That is, it's brought up in one of the stories - I believe that it's "Freedom from Bondage" - and the entry looks like this:


Just like a lot of AA folklore, this sounds wonderful. It even makes a sort of sense, and fits in with my understanding of some of the spiritual laws that I think that I have come to learn about.

But it ain't AA.

Again - it seems to me that the whole premise of the text of the Big Book (rather than the personal stories) is that they are telling us exactly/precisely what to do, giving us clear cut directions - in other words, a FORMULA. A COOKBOOK approach to sobriety. A way to mass produce the miracle, to create the spiritual awakening. They say that if we're desperate enough, we'll be glad to follow their path. As it says in Chapter Two,


Not "how little do I have to do?" or "what things might I try, if I feel like it?" or even "Gee, can I come up with my own stuff?" but "What do I have to do?" (italics mine).

The Basic Text of Alcoholics Anonymous contains several pages of information regarding resentments - what they are, the inherent dangers, and explicit instructions in how to deal with them. And none of those instructions say a darn thing about "praying for the person for two weeks".

But you have to admit - it's a darn seductive alternative :)

I mean, which would you prefer -

EITHER:

• List the person, the incident, what I find threatening and scary about the situation
• Follow that list with a discussion of my part in the situation - my wrongs, my mistakes, where I was at fault, completely setting aside any part that they might have played.
• Admit all of my faults and wrongs and mistakes to another, and to God, and to myself.
• Ask God to remove this from me.
• Make amends to the person that I was resentful at, never discussing their behavior - only talking about my own mistakes.

OR:

• Pray for them for two weeks.

Ya gotta admit, that second option sounds really attractive :)

STRAWMAN: Having said that "..the Big Book doesn't tell us to pray for people at whom we have a resentment", folks have responded to me that the prayer on Page 67 of the Big is, indeed, just that - a prayer for those against whom we are resentful. And I used to think so - although I thought of that prayer as being part of the process, not a substitute for it.

But then I went back and looked at that prayer, and I realized that it never asks God to do ANYTHING for that other person - instead, the prayer is quite specific in asking that I be changed - that I be saved from my anger, and I am asking for a way in which I can be helpful to that person.

And then I went back and looked at it yet again, and realized that - as far as I can tell from the wording - this prayer isn't part of the Fourth Step process at all. Instead, this is a prayer that I'm supposed to use when I detect behavior in somebody else that is offensive - it's what I'm supposed to do to prevent myself from ever getting the resentments in the first place.

The book doesn't say "When we are resentful at a person..." but "When a person offended..." and suggests some ways to think about the situation in order to avoid getting resentful.

At least, that's the way that I'm reading it today. That may change tomorrow - obviously, as the last few paragraphs show, it's changed before :)


¹..in other words, the personal story containing this prayer is in two editions of the Big Book - the third and fourth. I don't know if it's in the first or second, and I'm not even going to bother looking it up : )

Once upon a time, in the little town in Texas where I got sober, I walked up to one of the sober ladies that I really respected and asked about what I had been hearing in the meetings.

I said, "Cindy, I'm hearing folks in the meeting say that we're supposed to stay out of relationships for the first year."

She said, "That's right - you are hearing that."

And I said "But I can't find that in the Big Book or the Twelve and Twelve".

She said, "That's right - it's not in there."

So I said, "So, what do I DO?"

She said, "Well, first off, when somebody tells you that, don't ask them what they think; ask them what they did." Oh, cool. Okay, I could do that.

Then she said something that I've never forgotten - "It's 'work the Steps, or die'. That other stuff doesn't mean anything, really. If you get into a relationship, and you work the Steps, then you'll stay sober. If you don't get into a relationship, but you don't work the Steps, then you'll get drunk. It's 'work the Steps, or die'".

I think that this was about the first time that I realized that there was a difference - a real difference - between the folks at the meeting house. Up until this time, the world was composed of three groups - all of those Earth People out there, the sober drunks at the meeting house, and me. And I was trying to become one of the sober drunks, by doing what they did.

But once I really started "doing what they did", I found out that they didn't all do the same thing; moreover, that there were two distinct groups of sober folks: one group, who sort of tried this and tried that and didn't really have a concrete, established program of action, and the other group, who couldn't open their mouths without mentioning the Big Book and the Steps.

And I sorta decided that I wanted to be part of that latter group - one of the ones who actually had a set of principles to follow, regardless of what the circumstances were, and regardless of what I might think about it.

So, the next time that somebody said something about "not getting into a relationship for the first year", I just flat out asked them "well, okay - what did YOU do?"

What I found out was that, with one exception, every sone of them either got into relationships in their first year - or that they had actually come into the program married.

The one exception had been sober for three years, and was still managing to avoid relationships - and I decided that I didn't want what he had, and I was willing to go to any lengths to avoid it : )

Then, of course, I kept studying the Big Book, and I found out some interesting stuff about all of this sexual relationship advice that was going around the rooms: not only were there no instructions in the Big Book about "staying out of relationships for the first year" - the Big Book explicitly said that we are not to give each other such advice.

Then we have the voices who cry for sex and more sex; who bewail the institution of marriage; who think that most of the troubles of the race are traceable to sex causes. ...One school would allow man no flavor for his fare and the other would have us all on a straight pepper diet. We want to stay out of this controversy. We do not want to be the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct...

"We asked God to mold our ideals and help us to live up to them...

"...we treat sex as we would any other problem. In meditation, we ask God what we should do about each specific matter. The right answer will come, if we want it.

God alone can judge our sex situation. Counsel with persons is often desirable, but we let God be the final judge. We realize that some people are as fanatical about sex as others are loose. We avoid hysterical thinking or advice."  -- (boldface added by me)

The way I read this passage, the Big Book says that we're supposed to ask God to shape our ideal, AND we're supposed to ask Him about each specific situation. And we're not supposed to give each other advice that is "hysterical" - the two examples given being the group that says "have all the sex you can" and the other group being the ones who say "don't have any at all".

And I've been at entire meetings where the subject was "relationships" and heard folks quote the Big Book as saying that "...we're supposed to stay out of relationships for the first year".

It's more folklore - it's something that we heard from somebody that we respected, and so we incorporated it into our lives (although, actually, it doesn't sound like very many of us ever actually DO this particular one, but at least we get to feel guilty about it, and advise others to do so :) And, since most of us have some vague idea that the AA program is in the Big Book, we figure that - since this is one more thing that "everybody knows" that we're supposed to do, we figure it must be in there, somewhere.

Once again, I think that we're missing the point. The point is that we've been given the instructions - CLEAR CUT DIRECTIONS, as it says - but we keep forgetting where they are.

"If you want to keep something secret from an alcoholic, just put it in the Big Book" - anonymous

So, after my conversation with Cindy, I went right ahead and tried to follow the directions that were written down - the directions that weren't subject to anybody's bad memory or re-interpretation, the directions that were provided for me, in hardback copy, for the price of a mixed drink.

And guess what? I got into relationships in my first year.

Not only that - I got married at ten months.

We got divorced 364 days later (a good thing, too, or I'd have had to buy a card and gift).

If that sounds like a bad thing - nope, not at all. Some heartache, on both of our parts, but not a bad thing.

See, I was working the Steps. And I was learning about me, and about how I am in relationships, and about my attitudes regarding sex and romantic love. And I was getting free of stuff that had been hanging around in the back of my brain for way too long.

The end result of that work, and that short marriage (and the brief chaos that ensued) was that I met Ethel, and we married - and last year we celebrated twenty years of marriage. And I still can't get used to the idea that we're together; twenty years later, when she walks across a room, I have to watch her.

I asked God to mold my ideals - and He did so. But first He did so by counter-example, saying "Okay - see this? That ain't it...see this?...that ain't it..." - and then, when the work was done, He presented me with the relationship that has lasted; the love of my life.

Cindy had pointed that out to me, years before - we don't learn and grow by sitting in meetings and hiding from life. We have to go out there and get in the middle of things, and live with the consequences, and stay sober by working these Steps, and we'll see our lives change.

If I'd been sitting in the meeting house, keeping away from any possible contact with girls - HOW WOULD I HAVE DONE THE WORK?   

I can't learn how to be in relationships by staying out of them - I live, and work the Steps, and I learn what works and I unlearn what didn't work, and I am changed. -- IN OTHER WORDS, just like the book says, I "...treat sex like any other problem".

One more example of "AA Folklore" (i.e. the things that aren't in the Big Book - or blatantly contradict the Big Book - that I hear folks in meetings tell newcomers)  is this one - "You have to give up your old playmates and playgrounds".

Once again - this is something that sounds like good advice. And it would make plenty of sense, if Alcoholics Anonymous were a support group, or if we were group therapy. But we're not. Alcoholics Anonymous is a Fellowship of the Spirit, and what we have to offer is miracles, not gimmicks or motivational tricks.

This is one more time where the folks giving the advice have either

a) not read the Big Book, or
b) have interpreted the words differently, or
c) have simply chosen to disregard what it says.

I like choice b),  "interpreted it differently", because that would mean that we all agree that the solution is in the Big Book, and that we're simply reading it from different perspectives, but in discussion with these folks (to the extent that they will discuss it) I find that it's usually a) or c).

(I have to admit here that it often seems that it is, indeed, usually the case of b) AND c) - they have, indeed, read the Big Book, but never noticed the passages dealing with these subjects,  because the passages didn't agree with what they had heard from their group/therapist/treatment center/sponsor, and so when you point the passages out to the folks in question, they get mad and say that they don't care what those words are; it comes out something like "Yeah, I know that that's what it says, but that's just stupid. Anybody knows that newcomers need to keep away from their old playmates and playgrounds" and they walk away mad).

There is a passage in the book that come to mind - one dealing directly with this issue of playmates and playgrounds. (I'm operating under the assumption here that "playmates" means friends with whom one used to drink, and that "playgrounds" is referring to places where drinking takes place - specifically those places where one might have spent time).

With regards to "playmates" - the Big Book never says that we should ignore our drinking friends. In fact, the book says, specifically, this:
 
Now, it may just be the way that I'm reading this, but to my way of thinking, telling our friends that they are not to change their habits on our account, AND not withdrawing from my friends, sort of flies in the face of the advice to "keep away from my old playmates".

This is on the same page (101) as the "playgrounds" advice, which has to do with a lot more than just "playgrounds" -

"Assuming we are spiritually fit, we can do all sorts of things alcoholics are not supposed to do. People have said we must not go where liquor is served; we must not have it in our homes; we must shun friends who drink; we must avoid moving pictures which show drinking scenes; we must not go into bars; our friends must hide their bottles if we go to their houses; we mustn't think or be reminded about alcohol at all.

"We meet these conditions every day. An alcoholic who cannot meet them, still has an alcoholic mind; there is something the matter with his spiritual status. His only chance for sobriety would be some place like the Greenland Ice Cap, and even there an Eskimo might turn up with a bottle of scotch and ruin everything! Ask any woman who has sent her husband to distant places on the theory he would escape the alcohol problem.

To my way of thinking, this definitely references the idea of "keeping away from old playgrounds" - and the Big Book sets up that straw man just to tear it down - it's telling us that it simply will not work. And the book references what the real trouble is - "there is something the matter with his spiritual status".

That's sort of interesting, to me - the Big Book reminds us, over and over again, that what we are implementing here is a spiritual solution to a physical and mental problem. Attempting to keep away from booze is a mental gimmick with a physical implementation, and it's not going to work.

The Big Book gets just plain nasty about the whole thing - much nastier than I could ever get :)

"In our belief any scheme of combating alcoholism which proposes to shield the sick man from temptation is doomed to failure. If the alcoholic tries to shield himself he may succeed for a time, but usually winds up with a bigger explosion than ever. We have tried these methods. These attempts to do the impossible have always failed."

It says "ANY scheme". It says "DOOMED to failure". It says that we've tried them, and they are "attempts to do the impossible."

We've been given something so far beyond white-knuckle sobriety that I find myself disliking the "keep away from playmates and playgrounds" advice not just because it doesn't work, but because (to my mind) it cheapens what we really have, and what we have to offer.

Speaking of "setting up a straw man", I'll do that now - those who are proponents of the "keep away from temptation" plan are always quick to point out that this passage comes from Chapter Seven, which is all about Step Twelve - they point out that this advice is for the newcomer, who's not on Step Twelve yet.

I have only one question - why? Why are we giving the newcomer advice about what to do while he's waiting around and deciding whether or not to work the Steps - or, perhaps even worse, why are we giving him advice that allows him to think that the doesn't have to work the Steps?

Why are we telling people to do what the Big Book says will always be impossible to do (i.e. schemes of combating alcoholism which propose shielding the sick man from temptation) instead of telling them to do what the Big Book
tells them to do - i.e., work the steenkin' Steps? How long are we supposed to tell the newcomer to do ANYTHING else except work the Steps?

Why do we soft-pedal the Steps - which work, and work immediately, and always work - in favor of giving advice that forces the newcomer to lean on his own power and resources?

I think that it's because that we - the corporate "we" here - don't really believe Steps One and Two.

We really think that the newcomer is supposed to figure out a better way to keep away from alcohol; that God won't really solve the alcohol problem; that what we get from AA is a better life, so that the temptation to drink is reduced, rather than a spiritual awakening, which removes the very issue of drinking.

The Big Book says that this program will work, when it is grasped with all the desperation with which a drowning man grabs a life preserver; we soft-pedal the Steps because maybe the newcomer isn't hungry enough; not hurting enough; not desperate enough to go ahead and work them right now.

Our book - the same book that tells us that attempts to avoid temptation are doomed to failure - says that, if the newcomer isn't ready to do whatever it takes, then we're supposed to leave him alone.

So I think what's really going on is that we've given up miracles for marketing, and we're trading devices for desperation. Instead of requiring of a newcomer the only thing that he really has to give - his awareness of his own dire need - we tell them that it's hanging around their playmates and playgrounds that's the problem. We tell them that their problem is their circumstances.

Heck - they've believed that all along.

But the truth is that we've got something better.

This AA oldtimer walks into a meeting room early, and sees a newcomer sitting at the table. The oldtimer says "Hey, how are you doing?"

The newcomer says "Oh, I'm doing okay, under the circumstances."

The oldtimer says "What are you doing under there?"

                            


I had a young fellow come up to me one day after a meeting and ask me why I was such a stickler for doing things by the Big Book.

Here's what I told him:

There's a highway that heads west out of Salt Lake City called "Interstate 80". It is the ONLY highway that goes all the way across the state to Wendover. There are a few other roads that lead west out of Salt Lake, but they quickly merge with I-80, or they wander away to the north and south.

If you are in Salt Lake, and you want to go to Wendover, then there are an infinite number of paths that you can take. You can, if you wish, take your car and drive off to the north, all the way up into Idaho, and then work your way west into Nevada and then come south.

Or you can wander off to the south, and come across lower Utah into the area around Great Basin Nat'l Park, and then head north to Wendover. Eventually you'll get there.

If you are feeling adventurous, then you can - if you load up on water and supplies (and water) - head off into the trackless wastes north or south of I-80, and make your way through the Great Salt Lake Desert. You'll spend a lot of time, and you may not make it at all (there are a lot of folks that never made it across that desert) but at least you won't be following in anybody else's footsteps - you'll be blazing your own trail.

However - if you absolutely must get from Salt Lake to Wendover, and if death for you and disgrace for your loved ones are the alternatives, and if they are following close behind you - then you're just an idiot if you don't take I-80.

It's a paved route that is well travelled. There are a lot of folks travelling on it, they all know the way because they've gone that way many times. If by chance you do find yourself stranded alongside the road, they are more than happy to help you get going again.

There's cell service all along the route so that you're never out of touch, and roadsigns appear ever so often to remind you that you are, indeed, on the proper path, and they tell you how far you have to go. 

Once you get past those first few roads, there aren't any exits or detours; once you get well into this journey, you have to finish it along the marked route in order to get where you are going.

That's how I see the Big Book. It's a well-marked path that was laid out a long time ago for folks who HAVE to get sober, and who are willing to go to any length. If there's any rebellion in them, then there's no reason for them to follow this route; maybe booze'll knock the rebellion out of 'em, or maybe it'll kill 'em first.

But those who demand their own individuality - who rebel against being told what to do - don't see why they should have to follow somebody else's directions. And the writers of the Big Book understood this; they told us that so long as the newcomer thought that he could try his own way, we are to wish him well.

But we don't have to walk out into the Great Salt Lake Desert with him; we can stay on the well-worn path and wave bye-bye. That, to me, is the real sense of the word "suggestions" in the Big Book. We've got a path that we suggest, but we're not going to ENFORCE it. We're not going to make them follow these suggestions; at the same time, we're not going to alter our program to accomodate their demands.

They can, if they wish, join us on the Broad Highway (just like the Big Book says) - and they are welcome, so long as they mean business (just like the Big Book says).

I'm aware that there are folks who don't like the idea that there is actually a set of instructions; that there are folks who've decided that they know which parts of the Big Book need to be "changed" or "updated". That's their balliwick; once again, there's no reason to accomodate them. They are certainly free to go start their own recovery programs.

Sometimes they do. MM and RR are some recent examples of recovery programs started by folks who quite openly did not like the structure and strictures in the Big Book. I haven't heard much about them lately, though.

However, usually these folks don't go start their own programs. They don't go build their own highways across the desert; instead, they come onto I-80 and set up roadblocks. They put up exit signs, telling the folks who've never travelled this route before that they don't have to stay on the road, that they can head off anytime and that they'll be just fine.

I'm just an old Big Book Thumper. I haven't figured out where the Big Book is wrong (well, sometimes I find passages that bother me - but I let them bother me, and keep my focus on the fact that the error is in ME and in my understanding, and not in the Big Book itself). I don't want to give anybody my ideas or my opinions; I fired my own brain something close to 8447 days ago, and said out loud that, for the rest of my life, if the Big Book said one thing, and my brain said another, then my brain was wrong.

The pundits standing beside the freeway, yelling loudly that there are other ways to get to Wendover, say that "Big Book Thumping" is arrogance. And I'll admit that I'm arrogant, but that's a cheap shot - there's not a single flaw that you can name that I don't have in abundance :)  However, my attempts to follow the Big Book (and to carry its message to others) are not INITIATED by my arrogance, even though my arrogance is certainly capable of jumping along for the ride.

I cranked up this blogspace as a rest stop on I-80; a place where fellow travellers can stop for a bit and get reassurance that the road really does lead to Wendover. If you want what we have, and are willing to go to the same length that we went to to get it - or, congruently, if you have what we have, and you want to keep it along with us - then feel free to hang around. Post comments, generate discussion, invite others of like mind.

I need to surround myself with folks who are on the same road - because I have an illness in my head that still whispers to me that I don't really, really still have to follow all of those rules after 23 years. So if you want to help me stay sober using the means that we were given by those who came before us, please - please! - hang out with me and tell me that this is the right road.

But if you want to wander off onto the Salt Flats, then I'll just wave goodbye. And I'll remind you to take plenty of water.

I've had to revisit many of the things that my sponsor told me when I was new.

This is NOT any kind of disparagement of my sponsor - Scotty had about five years when he started sponsoring me. He had those five years in a small group, in a transient Army town - the "oldtimer" for Delta Group had eight years, I believe. Scotty taught me what he knew, the best he knew, and I'm forever grateful.

However, I suspect that, wherever Scotty is now (he was from Minnesota) then I'm sure he's probably learned a few things since then; I'd be willing to bet that he's learned that some of the things that he used to think of as "good AA practices" maybe aren't any such thing, at all.

But maybe not. Maybe he's fallen for the trap of thinking "hey, my sponsor told me <blank>, and so it must be true!" and believes that to revisit those things that his sponsor told him would somehow be disloyal. We drunks are like that, you know - we'll make a mistake, and then stick by that mistake out of what we will believe to be "loyalty" but is actually (more often than not) simple stubbornness - or unwillingness to admit a mistake.

It's actually a terrible trap, and I'm beginning to believe that it may be causing the Fellowship a lot of harm. You can point to a sentence in the Big Book, and the guy that you're talking to is incapable of seeing that sentence, because it doesn't say what his sponsor said - and may, in fact, say something completely contradictory.

This allows us to treat our sponsor's opinions as sacrosanct FACTS - and give them precedence over the Big Book.

That, by itself, is bad enough - but there are two corollaries that go along with this silliness:

1. Since we drunks have such bad memories - no, forget that little bit of pretense. Since we're so steenkin' DISHONEST, we probably don't remember exactly what our sponsors told us, which means that we are really setting up our distorted memories of what our sponsors told us as untouchable AA "truth".
2. Since we, ourselves, become sponsors, this silly practice allows us to CREATE OUR OWN DISTORTED NEW NOTIONS, and then our pigeons turn the things that we say (or, even, their distorted memories of what we say) into new AA "truths".
   

My sponsor has a term for all of this stuff - he calls is "AA folklore". Quite often, it's simple stuff indeed - stuff that maybe sounds like it might be pretty good stuff; but the peril is that it diverts us from what we, as AAs, have decided we really DO believe and practice, and that we want to pass on to the newcomer.

Here's one of my favorites, and it's the first entry in this new category of blog posts that's titled "Ain't In My Big Book" - are you ready? Here it is:

"Just ask God every day to keep you sober/abstinent".

Yep, that's it - the old "Ask God to keep you sober" business. There are other bits of AA folklore that are very similar, or perhaps the same thing in different wrappers, such as "Ask God to remove the obsession/compulsion" or even (very subtly different) "Ask God to help you stay sober".

(N.B. - if you're already down at the "comments" section, ready to fire off something about how your sponsor told YOU this, and by jingo it's true, and blankety-blank*&^%$#@! - here's the question. What are you so mad about? :)

These sound perfectly reasonable, to somebody who's never studied the Big Book - or, to whom the Big Book is not, actually, the authority on how to work the AA program (N.B. - that's one assumption that's being made in these posts; that, as Chapter Two says, "we have a way out upon which we can absolutely agree". If that's not the case for you, then please don't even bother commenting on this post - just move along, move along. Plenty of recovery sites full of bogus, newcomer-killing claptrap looser interpretations for you to hang out where you'll feel totally welcome :)

But anyone who has, indeed, read the Big Book - a book which is designed to give us a way to find a Power greater than ourselves which will solve our problem - and who has also heard the bit about "just ask God to keep you sober" might have noticed that this Book, which gives "clear cut directions" to tell us "precisely how [they] recovered" NEVER EVER MENTIONS ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT ASKING GOD TO KEEP US SOBER.

That seems to me to either be one heck of an omission on Bill W's part - I mean, if asking God to keep us sober was a part of the AA program, then wouldn't Bill have at least mentioned it in passing?

Come to think of it, if asking God to keep us sober worked, why would we ever bother with all of those silly Steps?

Come to think of thinking of it, if asking God to keep us sober worked, would any priests or ministers ever find their way to AA? Do you suppose Father Hillary got to his first AA meeting, and found out that all he was supposed to have done all this time was ask God to keep him sober - and then hit himself in the forehead and said "Gee! Why didn't I ever think of that?"

By the time I got a sponsor, I had already sorta started on the Step thing, and he gave me what seemed like pretty good advice at the time:

"When you get back to the barracks tonight, put your boots underneath your bunk - and, while you're down there on your knees, thank God for keeping you sober today. Tomorrow morning, when you get on your knees to get your boots out from under your bunk, ask Him to keep you sober for that day."

At the time, it made plenty of sense - there was an problem with implementing it exactly like this because I wasn't exactly living in the barracks at the time; I was living outside of the barracks, in a pup tent. But I was still able to put this suggestion to quick use.

And I worked the rest of the Steps, and started sponsoring folks, and told them the same exact same that my sponsor had told me (of course, if the new pigeons weren't in the Army, then I didn't say "bunk" and "boots"; I made appropriate substitutions :) I also repeated something that I heard during this period - "I've never met anybody who relapsed who had asked God to keep them sober that day".

And then - whups! - I did, indeed, meet somebody who had gotten drunk and has asked God to keep them sober that day. I believe that what I did was the same sort of thing that anybody does who relies on AA folklore; I assumed that the poor guy's memory was confused, and he hadn't really asked God that day - maybe the day before.

Then I met several folks who reported that they had asked God to keep them sober, and eventually had to look at what I was passing on. And that's about the time that I noticed that the Big Book never said anything about asking God to keep us sober, or remove the obsession, or the compulsion.

No, the Book was entirely clear on this point - it said that, if we do these things (the 12 Steps) then we WON'T drink - that we will seemingly be unable to drink, even if we want to do so, and that at Step 10, the problem will simply be REMOVED.

Then I remembered something else that I had heard in those early days, and that's the thing that I stuck with - I was told that the Steps keep us sober, and that nobody ever relapses while they are working a Step.

Now I sit in meetings and I will hear most of the older people telling a group of newcomers, repeating the phrase over and over again, "...I just know that I always ask God to keep me sober in the morning, and I thank Him at night, and that works for me" and I wonder - how did this get started? And why do we carry it on?

I don't for a minute believe that it's because the newcomers are NEWCOMERS, and thus can't work the Steps -
most of the the newcomers that I see these days are completely capable of driving to the meeting. They can certainly get going on the Steps. Early on, in some locations, new members were taken through the first three Steps before they were allowed to attend their first meeting - I'm not advocating that practice, but it sort of plays havoc with the notion that newcomers can't start on the program of recovery.

If the idea is that we don't want them to know what is going to be required of them - if we're soft-pedaling the Steps, hoping that by the time the newcomers have been around a while, then they might be willing to take on more - then we've really missed the boat. Once we've told them that all they have to do is ask God to keep 'em sober, why would they do anything else?

(N.B. - I think that what I thought early on was that I was supposed to ask God to keep me sober - however, if I didn't work the Steps, then my life wouldn't get better, and then I would just say "the heck with it" and stop asking. No, wait - that 's not what I think that I thought. I now remember - that's what some folks TOLD me.)

No, I think that the reason that we - as a Fellowship - tell the newcomers these things is because we heard them when we got here, and so we're just passing on what we heard.

Funny, though - we also heard "...thoroughly followed our path" and "At some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way" - why aren't we stressing THAT at newcomer's meetings?

It comes back to that same old question - do I owe the newcomer the best that I have? Or do I owe him what I heard - with my bad hearing and bad memory and poor understanding - when I got here?