I've been sober in AA for over seventeen years, and Al-Anon really helps.
Sometimes someone you are sponsoring and who, apparently, has been 'doing everything right' relapses. I have had this experience myself with my own alcoholism (and other neat addictive patterns over the years).
Unless my surrender is unconditional, the 97% of me that has surrendered will be periodically sabotaged by the 3% that has not, which has strewn landmines throughout what looks, superficially, like recovery. Until that 3% has been surrendered, all other activity is dancing blithely in an unmarked minefield.
What helps was looking at conditions I am placing on my sobriety, such as these:
• I will stay sober as long as it is not too painful.
• I will stay sober as long as God removes the obsession to drink without any effort on my part.
• I will stay sober as long as I get what I want when and how I want it.
• I will stay sober as long as 'he' stays.
• I will stay sober as long as I keep my job.
• I will stay sober as long as it is convenient.
I have to want sobriety for its own sake, come what may, and cost what it may. Only then will anything be achieved.
The big question in Step Twelve is how to help someone else reach that point.
The Big Book is jam-packed full of warnings and pieces of advice generated from experience of what kills people and what saves their lives.
The Book really does speak for itself: no one could bring about my rock bottom and ensuing surrender. What people were capable of doing, however, was of obstructing that rock bottom in one of two ways.
The nags and killjoys
When I am nagging a sponsee, I become the focus of his attention, because I am getting in his way. Rather than him seeing and facing the consequences of his own actions or inaction, I become the distraction, the thorn in the side. I create resentment within him, which, as we know, is fatal to an alcoholic, and impede his progress towards his rock bottom. What I am really doing in such situations is attempting to exert my will that he stay sober and force sobriety or recovery on him, because I find his self-destruction and my own powerlessness uncomfortable. In my own alanonism, I will choose guilt over powerlessness and imagine I live in a world where, if only I explain things carefully enough and take charge of the situation, I will conjure his recovery, and guess who will get the credit? Old, reliable, wise, sane, rational, insightful, organised me! I'm essentially after my own credit. Sure, I care about the person, but what God's will is as far as his best and quickest path to surrender takes second place to my own Little Plans and Designs for him.
If there is any anger in me, I am useless—it means that I am trying to impose my will and failing.
If there is no compassion in me, I can achieve nothing, because God's love will not flow through the thin, pursed lips of judgement.
What are my faults in this case?
Worst of all: I am preventing the alcoholic from reaching his rock bottom. I am aiding in his destruction.
The nurse for the sprees
At the other extreme, I will see someone suffering—even dying—and want to stick an emotional or practical elastoplast on the situation.
Truth is, every time I nurse someone away from the brink, I am preventing the rock bottom from happening, and thus preventing absolute surrender to God. I may be killing him.
To quote Don P.:
* * * * *
"I recognise balance when I swing right past it"
How do I know where helping stops helping or where detachment becomes cruelty?
This is not about what is right and wrong. This is not about legalism.
The only question is 'what spirit am I walking in?'
Am I walking in patience, tolerance, understanding, and love (118:2) or in revenge, attack, control, or a quest for manifesting the mental illusion of power in my life and in the lives of those around me?
If I am not walking in patience, tolerance, understanding, and love, I am playing God. Period. And that is blocking God from playing God—being the only and single source of all knowledge and power to bring inspiration, direction, and strength into the life of the person I am trying to help.
Am I following the spirit of God inside me or my human intelligence?
Am I following the programme or am I following personalities?
* * * * *
Worked example
This week, I have had to watch someone I care about approach the brink of death, without interference, in order that the path he was following be followed to its natural conclusion. To rescue would have been to deny to him the lesson lying at the end of the path and to obscure to him the true nature of the path he was on.
Do this, and, for a while, he will royally hate you for it. And you will have to be prepared for the worst.
I must know I am on the floor before I can ask God to lift me up. I must not prevent another from falling, because how else will he ask for God's help with no reservation?
Sometimes, there will be blood. But I surely do not want blood on my hands for loving an alcoholic to death—through refusing to let him reach, through suffering, the absolute surrender to the only power that can save us: the God that lives within us and within every atom of the universe. I dare not become the human shield protecting the disease, preventing the swift, firm, and decisive action of God in the lives of others.
Sometimes someone you are sponsoring and who, apparently, has been 'doing everything right' relapses. I have had this experience myself with my own alcoholism (and other neat addictive patterns over the years).
Unless my surrender is unconditional, the 97% of me that has surrendered will be periodically sabotaged by the 3% that has not, which has strewn landmines throughout what looks, superficially, like recovery. Until that 3% has been surrendered, all other activity is dancing blithely in an unmarked minefield.
What helps was looking at conditions I am placing on my sobriety, such as these:
• I will stay sober as long as it is not too painful.
• I will stay sober as long as God removes the obsession to drink without any effort on my part.
• I will stay sober as long as I get what I want when and how I want it.
• I will stay sober as long as 'he' stays.
• I will stay sober as long as I keep my job.
• I will stay sober as long as it is convenient.
"Some of us have taken very hard knocks to learn this truth: Job or no job—wife or no wife—we simply do not stop drinking so long as we place dependence upon other people ahead of dependence on God." (98:1, Alcoholics Anonymous)
I have to want sobriety for its own sake, come what may, and cost what it may. Only then will anything be achieved.
The big question in Step Twelve is how to help someone else reach that point.
The Big Book is jam-packed full of warnings and pieces of advice generated from experience of what kills people and what saves their lives.
". . . never force yourself upon him. Neither should the family hysterically plead with him to do anything . . . but urge them not to be over-anxious, for that might spoil matters." (90:4)
"If your man needs hospitalization, he should have it, but not forcibly unless he is violent." (91:1)
"Under these conditions your prospect will see he is under no pressure. He will feel he can deal with you without being nagged by his family. . . He may be more receptive when depressed." (91:2)
"Make it clear that he is not under pressure . . ." (94:1)
"If your talk has been sane, quiet, and full of human understanding . . ." (94:1)
"Do not wear out your welcome." (95:1)
"Never talk down to an alcoholic . . ." (95:1)
"He should not be pushed or prodded by you, his wife, or his friends. If he is to find God, the desire must come from within." (95:3)
"The first principle of success is that you should never be angry . . . patience and good temper are most necessary." (111:1)
"Our next thought is that you should never tell him what he must do about his drinking. If he gets the idea that you are a nag or a killjoy, your chance of accomplishing anything useful may be zero. He will use that as an excuse to drink more. He will tell you he is misunderstood." (111:2)
"Do not set your heart on reforming your husband." (111:3)
The Book really does speak for itself: no one could bring about my rock bottom and ensuing surrender. What people were capable of doing, however, was of obstructing that rock bottom in one of two ways.
The nags and killjoys
When I am nagging a sponsee, I become the focus of his attention, because I am getting in his way. Rather than him seeing and facing the consequences of his own actions or inaction, I become the distraction, the thorn in the side. I create resentment within him, which, as we know, is fatal to an alcoholic, and impede his progress towards his rock bottom. What I am really doing in such situations is attempting to exert my will that he stay sober and force sobriety or recovery on him, because I find his self-destruction and my own powerlessness uncomfortable. In my own alanonism, I will choose guilt over powerlessness and imagine I live in a world where, if only I explain things carefully enough and take charge of the situation, I will conjure his recovery, and guess who will get the credit? Old, reliable, wise, sane, rational, insightful, organised me! I'm essentially after my own credit. Sure, I care about the person, but what God's will is as far as his best and quickest path to surrender takes second place to my own Little Plans and Designs for him.
If there is any anger in me, I am useless—it means that I am trying to impose my will and failing.
If there is no compassion in me, I can achieve nothing, because God's love will not flow through the thin, pursed lips of judgement.
What are my faults in this case?
Presumption: "preference for our own ideas, customs, schemes, or techniques. . . Failure to recognise our job as a divine vocation or to offer our work to God. Unwillingness to surrender to and abide in God, to let him act in and through us. Failure to offer to God regularly in intercession the persons or causes that . . . should enlist our interest and support"
Arrogance: "insisting that others conform to our wishes, recognise our leadership . . . Being overbearing, argumentative, opinionated, obstinate."
Domination: "insistence that they conform to our ideal for them contrary to their own vocation. Imposing our will on others by force, guile, whining, or refusal to cooperate. Over-readiness to advise or command; abuse of authority. . . considering ourselves ill-used when others' . . . compliance is not for sale." (St Augustine Prayer Book, sacraments of penance)
Worst of all: I am preventing the alcoholic from reaching his rock bottom. I am aiding in his destruction.
The nurse for the sprees
At the other extreme, I will see someone suffering—even dying—and want to stick an emotional or practical elastoplast on the situation.
"Can we really delude ourselves into believing that such stop-gaps will work? Do we imagine they will do anything but prolong the alcoholic agony, since we know the disease is progressive? We would do well to realize that the inevitable collapse may be far worse than if we had allowed him to face up to his own responsibilities and mistakes, free of our interference.
If I take no part in protecting the alcoholic from the consequences of his drinking, and allow disaster to overtake him, then the responsibility for what happens is not mine. I should not create a crisis to "bring the alcoholic to his senses"—but I must have the courage to keep hands off and let the crisis happen.
. . . I will leave to Him whatever action is to be taken, and guard against interfering with the working out of His plan for us." (One Day At A Time In Al-Anon, 7 April)
Truth is, every time I nurse someone away from the brink, I am preventing the rock bottom from happening, and thus preventing absolute surrender to God. I may be killing him.
To quote Don P.:
"I was killing him with my own version of love. I kept rescuing him. In the middle of his life lessons I was rescuing him. And if you cut someone off in the middle, they don't get to start in the middle and finish, they have to go all the way back to the beginning and start over again. And that's not love. In my hands he was surely dead. In God's hands he had maybe one chance in a thousand. At least he had a chance."
* * * * *
"I recognise balance when I swing right past it"
How do I know where helping stops helping or where detachment becomes cruelty?
This is not about what is right and wrong. This is not about legalism.
The only question is 'what spirit am I walking in?'
Am I walking in patience, tolerance, understanding, and love (118:2) or in revenge, attack, control, or a quest for manifesting the mental illusion of power in my life and in the lives of those around me?
If I am not walking in patience, tolerance, understanding, and love, I am playing God. Period. And that is blocking God from playing God—being the only and single source of all knowledge and power to bring inspiration, direction, and strength into the life of the person I am trying to help.
Am I following the spirit of God inside me or my human intelligence?
Am I following the programme or am I following personalities?
* * * * *
Worked example
This week, I have had to watch someone I care about approach the brink of death, without interference, in order that the path he was following be followed to its natural conclusion. To rescue would have been to deny to him the lesson lying at the end of the path and to obscure to him the true nature of the path he was on.
Do this, and, for a while, he will royally hate you for it. And you will have to be prepared for the worst.
I must know I am on the floor before I can ask God to lift me up. I must not prevent another from falling, because how else will he ask for God's help with no reservation?
Sometimes, there will be blood. But I surely do not want blood on my hands for loving an alcoholic to death—through refusing to let him reach, through suffering, the absolute surrender to the only power that can save us: the God that lives within us and within every atom of the universe. I dare not become the human shield protecting the disease, preventing the swift, firm, and decisive action of God in the lives of others.