AA is the anchor

The discussion of The Dark Night of the 12 Year Itch this past weekend has gotten me to thinking about the role of AA in my spiritual development.  During discussions like this I find myself referring a lot to people like Thomas Keating, St. John of the Cross and Bernard of Clairvaux (and brace yourself for coming references to Beatrice Bruteau).  So where does AA and its literature fit in my spiritual path?  Do I think I've somehow graduated from the Big Book and the Steps and moved on to 'higher things'?

The Dark Night of the 12 Year Itch

I have written before about the '12 Year Itch', that dry spot people tend to hit when they reach double digit sobriety, often leading to a relapse.  I firmly believe that this is a sign that we are reaching a new stage in our spiritual growth, in facing ourselves and seeing what and who we are.  


My observation (admittedly of the limited sample of AAs I know)  is that this itch can take two forms, depending on the AA's program. (I'm generalizing here.  There are, of course, exceptions to this pattern.)  For those who have spent 10 or so years 'just going to meetings and not drinking' it is a spiritual depression that almost always leads to a relapse, usually lasting years.  For those who have been seriously working the steps it leads to a deeply felt spiritual crisis that often includes a short but nonetheless extremely painful relapse, sometimes lasting as little as a few days.  This crisis is characterized by a feeling of confusion and loss and the experience that the program just isn't working. The AA is resolved to renew their spiritual journey but is usually at a loss as to how.  (Hint: You're REALLY ready for very hard, temporarily unsatisfying Step 11 work and a Step 12 that organically grows out of 11.)


As I have said before, this type of crisis is a known stage in the spiritual path, one that has been written about in popular literature (for example, Willam Styron's Darkness Visible) as well as in all of the great spiritual traditions.  In the Christian mystical traditions is often referred to as the Dark Night of the Sense and of the Soul.

Heard at a meeting and random thoughts

I am most dangerous when I am right.

It's hard to be here now when you're spending all your energy pretending you weren't there then.

"Call it by whatever name you like, that which gives one the greatest solace in the midst of the severest fire is God". - Mahatma Gandhi

 

Oh, that needy ego

In my last post I wrote about Thomas Keating's teachings on the false self, that bundle of high roads to happiness consisting of gratifying the instincts ingrained in us as children for security, power/control, affection/esteem, and approval.  I am not a psychologist, so I can take no position on the scientific accuracy of this description of the ego, but I am an alcoholic and I can certainly assert that, for me at least, it is very useful.

One of the things I find most useful about this description of the false self is how every time I look at it it deepens.  When I look, for example, at my need for security I think of money.  Now, that makes some sense, since I am unemployed and have none, but I was shocked recently to read the following:

For example, the need for security can be expressed  materialistically in an overwhelming focus on possessions, emotionally in over-attachment to  people, intellectually in the need always to be right, socially in the desire for status, religiously in a legalistic attitude, and even spiritually in an attachment to spiritual consolation. This is all to the detriment of true human freedom. (David Frenette, Three Contemplative Waves)

Whoof!  Here I had been struggling to avoid all the little obsessions and projects my false self was building around money and possessions and I was ignoring all those other forms of Avarice that my ego had been offering as sure-fire get-happy-quick schemes.  

As always, there is a lot of work to do, a lot of grace to acknowledge.

I am not my ego but my ego thinks it's me

One of the gifts of the 11th Step is a gradual (at least for me) realization that I am not my thoughts, emotions, character defects, character assets, in short, all those things that constitutes what I normally refer to as my self.

This bundle of naughty and nice makes up what Thomas Keating calls the 'false self', constructed through our confusing happiness with the gratification of the instincts of the child: security, power/control, affection/esteem, and approval.  The false self promises happiness but leads us to a necessarily unfulfilled life, in my case one where I was constantly slightly pissed off at the world and every bit as fun to be around as that implies.  But meditation shows me, in a very real, direct way, that while I have these characteristics they are not what I am.

Heard at a meeting and random thoughts

The difference between feeling grateful and being grateful is action.

What you are afraid to do is a good indicator of what you should do next.

A closed mouth gathers no feet.

Spiritual is not the same as non-material

I think that a lot of the time when we talk about spirituality we are going off in a dangerous direction.  When we think or speak about the spiritual we tend to think in terms of the mind: reason, imagination, art, ideas.  We picture the ideal 'spiritual' person as someone absorbed in meditation, prayer, and 'spiritual' reading.  The more 'spiritual' a person is, the less concerned they are with the tawdry material world.   Spirit and body are split apart.  One is pure, the other at least a bit sordid.

Which image?

I recently had a conversation with a friend about her search for a new sponsor.  She specified the type of person she is looking for and we started to run through the women at our home group looking for a good candidate.  After a while I noticed that all the women we were talking about had programs that were strong in the same areas as my friend's program: very intellectual, a very open approach to the literature, a sensitivity to the historical circumstances in which the program originated, etc.  After a while I suggested we look in the opposite direction, at women who were strong where my friend was weak: those with a very strong background in the Big Book, those with a relatively strict approach to the Steps, and so on.

I think the 'look to your weaknesses' approach has some real value.  If we build on our strengths and on our view of where we should go and what we should be we are making ourselves in our image, not God's.  It makes me think of the story of the Tower of Babel.  If we single-mindedly build our way to heaven it is bound to end badly.

Heard at a meeting and random thoughts

Resentment is about not getting my way in the past.
Anger is about not getting my way today.
Fear is about not getting my way tomorrow.

Meetings are good; the 11th Step is essential

Last night an AA I recently met told me that he tried to stop drinking for 23 years.  All that time he came to AA meetings and followed the advice he kept getting: "Just don't drink and come to meetings."  He kept pointing out to people that this wasn't exactly working for him and the reply was pretty much always "keep coming back."  Finally someone suggested that he try working the Steps.  For 23 years the only tool he was offered was meetings.  Using the Steps he has now been sober for 5 years.

Feelings are not facts (or even character defects)

As I have mentioned so many times, I am unemployed and it gets to me in varying degrees at various times. I frequently let the feeling of depression overwhelm me and actually cripple me, keeping me from doing anything serious about the problem.  The fact is that I always focus on the unemployment itself or maybe the feeling of depression, but I have a lot of trouble looking at the real source: my ingrained belief that the path to happiness goes through economic security, respect or admiration from others, and power to run my own life.

The dangers of sponsorship

Over the last 6 months or so a friend and I have grown into a 'co-sponsorship' relationship.  He had decided to go through the Steps again and wanted a fresh perspective on them and I need someone to slap me around a little when I let unemployment get me depressed.  It's funny, because we both have sponsors, but this sort of arrangement on these particular issues just seems to work.
This morning I sent my friend some comments on his working of the 3rd Step and it got me thinking about just how careful we have to be when sponsoring.

Welcome Prayer

I ran across this prayer  this week.  I've been having a rough week and finding this is a gift I would like to share.

Welcome, welcome, welcome.
I welcome everything that comes to me in this moment
because I know it is for my healing.
I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions,
persons, situations and conditions.
I let go of my desire for security.
I let go of my desire for approval.
I let go of my desire for control.
I let go of my desire to change any situation, condition, person, or myself.
I open to the love and presence of God
and the healing action and grace within.
––– Mary Mrozowski