The Discoveries of Alcoholics Anonymous: Part One

[nandm]

More than most people I think alcoholics want to know who they are, what life is all about, whether they have a divine origin and an appointed destiny, live in a system of cosmic justice and love.
---Bill W.

Ancient thought about the paradox of being human was transported into twentieth century life by the most unlikely group imaginable: a handful of "hopeless" drunks. The founding members of Alcholics Anonymous did not intentionally resurrect the spirituality of imperfection, nor were many of them even aware that they had tapped ancient wisdom in their search for a new way of life. And so the story of how they achieved this becomes all the more fascinating.

The historical context is important. In the mid-1930's, alcoholism was viewed by medical practitioners as a "hopeless" disease; the only cure medicine suggest was a "moral psychology" capable of inducing "an entire psychic change" of sufficient magnitude that it could overcome the "compulsion" to drink. The earliest members of AA knew about "hopeless" from their own experience of the disease and their previous efforts at recovery. Drawing on those experiences, as well as on their origins in the Oxford Group and on the philosophies of William James and Carl Jung, they set out to fashion a way of life that would allow them to live with their "hopeless disease," with their basic imperfection.

In this process, they re-discovered four insights that reflected the teachings of spiritual thinkers from all ages and all traditions. What they discovered were not commandments----Thou Shalts or Thou Shalt Nots---nor even suggestions, as AA's Twelves Steps are sometimes presented. They found instead what might be thought of as beacons or signal lights that guide those who seek a spirituality that fits their imperfect condition, safeguaridn them from the rocks, shoals, and other avoidable traps that could abort or impede their journey.

Although we can describe these guiding insights as "discoveries made for the modern age by the earliest members of Alcoholics Anonymous," these discoveries cannot be made for us, or for anyone else by someone else. Not are they ever found once and for all. For these are truths that must be rediscovered, sometimes on a daily basis, by each person interested in spirituality. Because others have gone before, the way is in some sense easier; yet it remains true that spirituality like daily bread, comes "one day at a time." Each day requires constant rediscovery and continually new insight into what it means to be human, what it means to exist as a fully human being.

What were these "discoveries of Alcoholics Anonymous"? Four such insights can be discerned----insights that, although they did not and do not flow in any straight-line fashion, nevertheless do reveal a pattern, a kind of order, in how they tend to be discovered....or at least such a pattern emerges from the experience of Alcoholics Anonymous.

The first discovery made by those earliest members of Alcoholics Anonymous was that spirituality is essential but different: essential to their recovery as human be-ing, but different from what anyone imagines it to be on first hearing that statement.

Second came the discovery that there exists a vast difference between magic and miracle, between magic and mystery---and that spirituality involves not magic's manipulation, but the wonder inherent in mystery and miracle.

The third discovery of those earliest members was that spirituality is essentially open-ended; unable to be "grasped" or "possesed," it is more at home with questions than with answers.

Fourthly and finally, they discovered that any true spirituality must pervade every aspect of one's existence---that spirituality is a reality that touches everything in one's life, or it touches nothing in one's life.

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Each of these discoveries comes only by experience. One "discovers" not by being told, but by doing; the spirituality of imperfection is necessarily pragmatic. And so those earliest members of Alcoholics Anonymous made their discoveries by putting them into practice---trying them on and trying them out, in the awareness that we learn first, and most, from our own successes and failures, our own triumphs and tragedies, our own story. The first AA's borrowed amply and widely for thier Twelve Steps, but they tested everything against thier own experience. "The spiritual life is not a theory," their Big Book states. "We have to live it."

How Bill Wilson, Dr. Bob Smith, and those who followed them made that discovery and how they put into practice what they discovered is the story we will tell in Part Two.

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Source:
The Spirituality of Imperfection.---
"The discoveries of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Earnest Kurtz
and
Katherine Ketcham

[sugErspun]

Thanks Nandm - a great book on a variety of spiritual 'paths'..

[jimhere]

One of my favorite books. Thank you Judith.

[miss communicat]

Thank you Judith! I LOVE this book and the interweaving of history and ancient wisdom teachings. Yum!

[nandm]

....an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer.
----Alcoholics Anonymous. page 44

Dr. Bob Smith and Bill Wilson looked down at the falsely hearty, still shaking figure on the hospital bed. Dr. Bob Smith and Bill Wilson looked down at the falsely hearty, still shaking figure on the hospital bed. Both men knew the torn feelings and the desperate hope that hid under that façade. Wilson had been sober six months; Dr. Smith for barely a week. The spectre of what they had once been stared back at them both, and they endured a moment of doubt. Had they bitten off more than they could chew?

The nurse had filled them in on some of the details of this case, Bill D., a prominent attorney, was a former city councilman and church vestryman. He was also, the weary nurse confided a “real corker.” This was his eighth detoxification in six months, and within minutes of entering the hospital he had physically assaulted two nurses, leaving both with black eyes.

The three men chatted for a while, and it quickly became apparent to Bill D. that his visitors knew what they were talking about, that they were real drunks who were not happily sober----an earth-shattering concept if there ever was one----and maybe he’d better listen up, see if he could learn something. But like most alcoholics, Bill D. was better at talking than listening, and he droned on and on about his drinking, his despair, and the utter ruin of his life.

Wilson finally interrupted, explaining that he and Dr. Smith had to give their “program” to someone else if they were to stay sober themselves. And so they had to know: was Bill D. really certain that he wanted it? Because if he wasn’t certain, he was doing something much worse than wasting their time----he was actually endangering their sobriety. They wouldn’t stay around and nag at him if he wasn’t ready; they would have to “be going and looking for someone else.’

Entranced by the clear-eyed enthusiasm of these two men eve as they spoke of their own hopelessness, Bill D. declared that Yes, he wanted the program. But when his visitors began talking about “a spiritual program” and a “Higher Power,” he shook his head. “No, no,” he said emphatically. “It’s too late for me. I still believe in God all right, but I know mighty well that he doesn’t believe in me any more.

Smith and Wilson were not about to give up on their first recruit. They told Bill D. they understood how he felt, and then they left, promising to visit again the next day. They did return, and over the next several days, they visited again and again. One morning they arrived to find Bill D. sitting up in bed, talking excitedly with his wife. During the previous night, he explained, “hope had dawned,” and he understood that “if Bob and Bill can do it. Maybe we can all do together what we could not do separately.”

A few days later Dr. Smith, the more conventionally religious of AA’s two co-founders, stopped by on his daily visit with Bill D., who would some years later be known as “Alcoholics Anonymous Number Three.” As they chatted, something in one of this first recruit’s remarks-----a bit of cynicism about help from “ a power greater” than himself----caught the surgeon’s attention, and he decided to confront him. “Young man,” Dr. Smith challenged in his resonant baritone. “Have you abandoned your God?”

Bill D. was not even momentarily taken aback. Calmly, but with a great deal of quiet pain, he answered: “Gee, no, Doc, I don’t think so…….but I sure feel that my God has abandoned me.”

[Tazman53]

Maybe we can all do together what we could not do separately.”

WOW!!!!!!! Sums up the fellowship doesn't it?