The Miracle

"Don't leave before the miracle happens!" It's a saying we tell newcomers, but what do we mean by it? And for that matter, do we all mean the same thing when we say it?

For those of you who know me, or have read any of my previous posts, know that I am not a huge fan of platitudes, slogans and sayings. It's not because they aren't useful or meaningful for people, it's just that, in my experience I have seen too many many members use them as a short-cuts to working through an issue, or in order to provide an answers to something they are unsure about.

I know early on when I heard people say "Don't leave before the miracle happens!" I had no idea what the miracle was, but I assumed it was some magic point where all of this stuff would make sense and I would know how to 'not drink' anymore. The thing was that as time went on no one ever described to me what the miracle was! And, like most newcomers, I was too shy to ask because I didn't want to look like an idiot.

As time passed I did what I usually do with things I don't really understand, I ignored it. Then one day while reading the Big Book I came across the following lines in Step 10:


p.84-85 - "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."

So the miracle they were talking about here was that I was going to be returned to sanity in my attitude toward liquor! The book was telling me that after I did the preceding Steps I would experience a profound alteration in my reaction to life, and that this change would be sufficient enough to bring about recovery from alcoholism. And that this change would come from a Power greater than myself because science has not been able to help me... which is why they defined it as a miracle!

Of course this saying means many things to many people and none of them are wrong, but for me it took reading this passage to finally get a definition that would work for me and my exacting nature, and one that I could reconcile with our literature.