“Perhaps your husband will make a fair start on the new basis, but just as things are going beautifully he dismays you by coming home drunk. If you are satisfied he really wants to get over drinking, you need not be alarmed. Though it is infinitely better that he have no relapse at all, as has been true with many of our men, it is by no means a bad thing in some cases. Your husband will see at once that he must redouble his spiritual activities if he expects to survive.” (Chapter Eight, Big Book)
Bill W. coined the term ‘slip’ from the notion of ‘slipping from the grace of God’.
It’s not a slip. It’s a fall.
Except it’s not a fall, it’s a jump.
How does the fall (the jump) take place?
Consider the fall, in the Garden of Eden. Consider the conversation between the serpent (the devil) and Eve. You can go and read about that in your free time. But you’ll have something of an awareness already, I’m sure.
With addiction (alcohol, drugs, other behaviours), it goes like this:
- The devil knocks on the door
- I let him in, to give him an audience
- Whilst he is in the hallway (the first few seconds, before he’s taken his shoes off), there is the opportunity to kick him back out and lock the door (note he’s smaller than me, but quick)
- Once he’s in, he’s much harder to get rid of (he’s quick)
- And I start listening to what he is saying
- What he says sounds rational, so I conclude he is rational
- His premises seem reasonable, so I conclude they are reasonable
- His logic (his syllogisms) seem sound, so I conclude they are sound
- [I’m doing a lot of concluding?]
- And, once he’s done the groundwork, he starts to make suggestions as to a course of action
- And I say: Very good! Yes, sir!
- This is the last moment at which I can be saved, if I call out to God and ask for direction (on my knees)
- If I do not call out to God and ask for direction (on my knees) and then follow that direction, I take the devil’s suggested action.
Once the first action takes place, I’m really lost. The fog descends, and that’s the end of me, until I’m washed up on the other side of the spree.
That’s the slip, the fall, the jump.
The problem lies not in what the devil is saying, the content: the problem lies in having a relationship with him.
Behind every slip, every fall, every jump, I’m hedging my bets instead of trusting God by getting a second opinion, and the only second opinion in town is the devil’s.