Here’s a thought experiment. What if many AA members were not actually alcoholics of the Big Book variety but were the certain type of hard drinker from page 21? Note that the certain type of hard drinker may drink as badly as the alcoholic: but the nature of the problem is different at root, though the early death from alcohol be the same. How would this play out in practice?
The hard drinkers are people who had a problem with life,
alcohol solved the problem, so, despite the consequences, they quite rightly
drank. To them, drinking was logical and rational and in accordance with their
will. They even now explain elaborately why they drank: they drank because of
their childhood, they drank on feelings of X, Y, and Z, they drank to fit in. They
drank because of … [insert grounds]. They drank on … [insert feelings]. They
drank in order to … [insert motivations.] There were always consequences, but,
when the consequences got too bad, the calculus no longer paid off, and they
stopped. Reason had them drinking in the first place, and reason now has them
stop. They have no trouble staying stopped. They do not slip. They now use the
AA programme to solve the problems that alcohol solved, and the programme is
quite obliging. Alcohol really did provide ease and comfort, and so does the
programme. As the original problems are radically and permanently solved, the
foot comes off the gas, and AA lite in perpetuity provides a sufficient daily
top-up. Sip, sip, sip. AA is nice, one of the many nice tools in a material
world of tools that help the individual. Because relapse is unusual in this cohort,
the numbers of such people build up in AA. They represent now the bulk of AA.
Then there are alcoholics who drank not because it was a
good idea, because it helped, because it solved their problems, because it made
them feel better or different or anything, because it turned the lights on, because
it filled the world with colour, because they wanted to, and because it was in
accordance with their will but because they were compelled. Although, sure, those
descriptions might apply at times, right from the beginning there was an eerie,
uncanny sense of being locked into a pattern that could not be resisted or broken.
Right from the beginning, the heavy drinking created problems, it also
sometimes made them feel worse or alienated or nothing at all, switched the
lights off, drained the world of colour; they drank even though they did not
want to, even though it was against their will, precisely and only because they
were thus compelled.
This awful truth of being in the thrall of an implacable,
merciless, destructive force was so horrific that the mind sought to
rationalise it as indeed being in accordance with the will of the individual. A
tissue of lies was woven, particularly about all of the wonderful things that
alcohol was doing for the individual, which, although based on a grain of
truth, were overblown in both nature and extent. Sometimes the real, true
alcoholic learns in AA that these are lies, and the narrative becomes one of
the insanity of the first drink. Sometimes, these unwitting lies are actually continued
into recovery through narratives that focus on what alcohol did ‘for’ the
alcoholic. The hundreds of lines in the Big Book about compulsion, bafflement,
drinking against one’s will, drinking against one’s desire, need, and interest
are ignored, and the only two lines that are picked up from the Book are the
lines about restlessness, irritability, and discontentment and about ease and
comfort (lines written by a non-alcoholic doctor). The truth was that, right
from the beginning, as much darkness, imprisonment, hardship, and discomfort were
delivered as were brightness, release, ease, and comfort. The ease and comfort
were eclipsed by infernal forces right from the start. Some real, true
alcoholics discern this dark insanity. Others, perhaps adopting the ‘I drink
because …, on feelings of …, in order to …’ trope from the certain-type-of-hard-drinker
narratives, simply never see it.
For this real, true alcoholic—who has trouble staying stopped
because his drinking was not the result of choice but the result of compulsion
justified by rationalisation—the only solution is an ongoing, ever-increasing
relationship with God, who intervenes daily in a continuous stream of miracles.
The alcoholism continues to progress, and the solution must likewise keep pace.
For this person, the programme involves utter devotion to serving God. It is
not about solving psychological or social problems, it is not about growing up,
it is not about tamping down or rechannelling emotions—although these might
indeed happen as a side effect—it is not convenient, it is not even necessarily
pleasant, but it is life-saving. It is about daily choosing God over ego in an
eternal war between light and darkness, with the alcoholic the great
battlefield where God is opting to face down the enemy. The alcoholic who has
found this solution has a great sense of purpose. The original problems have
not been resolved. The person who had them has been dissolved. He is
transfigured. For such people, AA is not an agreeable club of like-minded chums
but a life-and-death errand of fitting oneself to serve God and then going
about the business of serving God. For such people, AA is less a place to go and
more a path of action. One continues going and acting even when, temporarily, it
is far from pleasant because of the hard work, boredom, conflict, and other
difficulties: one has signed up for life, in an irreversible decision, for better
for worse, for richer for poorer.
Most people who come into AA are perhaps in this latter category
of real, true alcoholic. Confronted with an AA populated largely by the certain
type of hard drinker, unless they are lucky enough to come across other real
alcoholics with a solution, the plug-in-the-jug plus psychosocial realignment
approach to AA just won’t work or won’t work fast enough, and they drink. ‘They
just didn’t want it enough.’ No: they weren’t given swift enough access to God.
Look at Dr Bob, his failure to make amends, and his relapse: he needed to make
amends to establish a new relationship with God and thus gain access to his
only possible Source of Defence. Such real, true alcoholics have much more
trouble staying sober and are facing a bit of a lottery when joining AA: will
they discover the brutal truth and act in time to prevent a relapse? They
perhaps account for a minority of long-term sober AA members.
These two groups perhaps do not understand each other. The
first (the certain-type-of-hard-drinker category) might sometimes consider the
second (the real, true alcoholic) unnecessarily harsh, dogmatic, militant,
orthodox, cold, unfeeling, hectoring, unloving, and intransigent. The second might
sometimes consider the first lazy, sloppy, soft-minded, half-measures, and self-satisfied.
These distortions would fade when the actual predicament of the other group were
well understood. In any case, both groups would sense that the other group is
fundamentally different. These would be the two cohorts in AA. Once one becomes
aware of this distinction, one starts to discern its manifestations everywhere.
Note that the service structure might be considered a great and
valuable pastime for the former but death to the latter: the latter, the real
alcoholic, needs intensive work with other alcoholics. Service structure work just
won’t provide that. The service structure is much more likely to be populated
by the former; the bulk of the twelfth-step work is provided by the latter. God-reliance
is very difficult in the service structure, where personal God-consciousness regularly
places the individual in a situation of conflict with others. By contrast, God-reliance
is the only way to continue sponsorship long-term: the work is too much for the
individual without God’s direction and empowerment. Competence and collegiality
favour the former; the latter is suitable for the quirkily God-reliant.
All of the above is a speculative thought experiment. If the
above has a grain of truth, we might consider AA to have a problem. I would not.
Everything is in God’s hands: the above, if true in part or in full, is either
in accordance with God’s perfect will or in accordance with God’s permissive
will. Either way: God’s will. Perhaps AA solves two categorically different
problems at once. A typically elegant Divine solution.