Fearlessness Required

"Notice that the word "fear" is bracketed alongside the difficulties (in our 4th Step inventory). . . . This short word somehow touches about every aspect of our lives. It was an evil corroding thread; the fabric of our existence was shot through it. It set in motion trains of circumstances which brought us misfortune we felt we didn't deserve. But did not we, ourselves, set the ball rolling? Sometimes we think fear ought to be classified with stealing. It seems to cause more trouble."

"We reviewed our fears thoroughly. We put them down on paper, even though we had no resentment in connection with them. We asked ourselves why we had them. Wasn't it because self-reliance failed us? Self-reliance was good so far as it went, but it didn't go far enough. Some of us once had great self-confidence but it didn't fully solve the fear problem, or any other. When it made us cocky, it was worse."

 "Perhaps there is a better way -- we think so. For we are now on a different basis; the basis of relying upon God. We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves." 

". . . The verdict of the ages is that faith means courage. All men of faith have courage." 

Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 67-68 (Emphasis added.)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * 

There is actually nothing "demanded" or "required" in A.A. (or its sister organizations), even the 12 Steps themselves are only "suggested" as a program of action that will relieve the sufferer of his or her addiction to alcohol, etc. However, we are "begged" by those who came before us to be "fearless and thorough from the very start." We are "begged" (I believe) because the author of the 'Big Book' knew that all fears are a manifestation of self, of the ego, of the seemingly ceaseless chatter in our mind. Indeed, he observes that on our old basis of living fear permeated the very "fabric of our existence."

He begged us to be fearless, I believe, because he knew that an unexpectedly new and "different basis" other than that of relying on the random, fearful thoughts of the ego/self, a new "basis of relying upon God," is essential to recovery. We are, therefore, not "asked" but "begged" to be fearless, for "fearlessness" is (as Mahatma Gandhi once observed) "the first prerequisite of spirituality." For those of us (i.e., all of us) whose very lives are dependent on an awakening of the Spirit within, we cannot allow egoically-based, self-centered fears - all of them imaginary - to cloud out and obscure the perspective of our new found inner reality.

It is often said that fear (and fear's inverse clone, desire) is generated by our thinking that we will fail to get something we think we need, or we think that we might lose something which we already have and believe that we need to hold on to. Yet, when faced fearlessly, it is abundantly clear that such thinking is fanciful: nothing nor anyone is permanently ours, nor will they soothe our existential fears or desires; the spiritual teachings of religious and wisdom traditions around the world, as well as the spiritual experiences witnessed in A.A. and its sister organizations, make this clear. After all, as an old-timer pointed out to me years ago when I first cleaned up, "You never see an armored car in a funeral procession." Nor, I would add, do you ever see the hearse pulling a U-Haul. Fear is, thus, merely an egoic and self-centered "need announced,"as Neale Donald Walsch (author of "What God Wants") observes in the video attached below.

"(P)ride, leading to self-justification, and always spurred by conscious or unconscious fears," Bill W. writes, "is the basic breeder of most human difficulties. . . . Pride lures us into making demands upon ourselves or upon others which cannot be met without perverting or misusing our God-given instincts. When the satisfaction of our instincts for sex, security, and society becomes the sole object of our lives, then pride steps in to justify our excesses."

"All these failings," he notes, "generate fear, a soul sickness in its own right. Then fear, in turn, generates more character defects. Unreasonable fear that our instincts will not be satisfied drives us to covet the possessions of others, to lust for sex and power, to become angry when our instinctive demands are threatened, to be envious when the ambitions of others seem to be realized while ours are not. We eat, drink, and grab for more of everything that we need, fearing we shall never have enough. And with general alarm at the prospect of work, we stay lazy. We loaf and procrastinate, or at best work grudgingly and under half steam. These fears," he points out, "are the termites that devour the foundations of whatever sort of life we try to build."

"So," Bill concludes, "when A.A. suggests a fearless moral inventory, it must seem to every newcomer that more is being asked of him than he can do. Both his pride and his fear beat him back every time he tries to look within himself. Pride says, "You need not pass this way," and Fear says, "You dare not look!" But the testimony of A.A.'s who have really tried a moral inventory is that pride and fear of this sort turn out to be bogeymen, nothing else."

(Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pages 48-49.)

As Gandhi points out: "Fearlessness is (thus, indeed) the first prerequisite of spirituality . . . (and) cowards can never be moral." Therefore, do not be cowed by the thoughts of the ego, a false self which is constructed and driven wholly by our misguided fears and our outsized, unfulfillable desires.

Trusting Infinite God vs. Our Finite Selves

"Courage is the first requirement of spirituality. A coward can never be moral."

-- Mahatma Gandhi --

In the discussion on the Fourth Step in the 'Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, we read (at page 68) the following passage on self-reliance, self-confidence, fear and faith in God:

"Self-reliance was good as far as it went, but it didn't go far enough. Some of us once had great self-confidence, but it didn't fully solve the fear problem, or any other. When it made us cocky, it was worse."

"Perhaps there is a better way - we think so. For we are now on a different basis; the basis of trusting and relying upon God. We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves. We are in the world to play the role He assigns. Just to the extent that we do as we think He would haves us, and humbly rely on Him, does He enables us to match calamity with serenity."

The ego, "self" in its many manifestations (such as self-reliance, self-confidence, self-centeredness, even self-esteem ), is the root of the alcoholic addict's problem. The raw fuel that feeds the ego are our fears that can never be allayed and our desires that can never be quenched. Thus, to move beyond the limited "self" of the ego, we must move toward the unlimited "Self" of God. It is essential, therefore, that we establish and maintain a conscious contact with a Power greater than ourselves so that we may truly "trust infinite God rather than our finite selves."

"(D)eep down in every man, woman, and child," we read in the 'Big Book,' "is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there." In establishing a conscious contact with God, and learning to rely upon Him, God "enables us" to strip away all these coverings and to truly "match calamity with serenity."

Such serenity is the hallmark of our deeper God-consciousness that is utterly devoid of fear and desire. Thus, the simple prayer that has been widely adopted by A.A. (and its sister organizations) is a prayer for serenity, courage and wisdom - all of which are aspects of the higher Self but wholly unavailable to the smaller self of the ego.

In The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (at pages 40-41) we read: "(I)t is really easy to begin the practice of Step Three. In all times of emotional disturbance or indecision, we can pause, ask for quiet, and in the stillness simply say: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Thy will, not mine, be done."

God is the "serenity" we seek. Asking for "courage" (from the French cour meaning 'heart') is to move from lower, egoic self-consciousnes' to the higher Self of God-consciousness. And "wisdom" is to know that there is within us both the lower self and the Higher Self of God. In affirming and invoking this Power that is greater than ourselves, we move from our reliance on, and our narrow identification with, the ego to a realization of, and a reliance upon, the God of our understanding.

In the end, we find and access this "Great Reality" deep down within our Being. "In the last analysis it is only there that He may be Found." ("Big Book,' page 55.)

On Resentment and Forgiveness

Resentments, we are reminded over and over, are the number one "killers" of alcoholic addicts. But just what are resentments? The word, itself, comes from the Latin sentiere meaning "to feel." So, quite literally, resentment (which in medieval English was  resentiment) means "to feel again." We think about past events over which we are still upset, rub our supposed 'wounds' raw, and then act on the basis of the resulting feelings.

Thus, the process seems to be "re-think --> re-feel --> re-act." And the usual reaction? Far too often, the reaction of the alcoholic addict is to drink or use again, proving yet again the truth of the Chinese proverb: "Anger is a toxic poison, that corrodes the vessel that contains it from the inside out." "The problem of the alcoholic," remember,"centers in the mind."

So how do we do deal with resentments? Listing the resentments by name, writing down the cause of the resentment, and how it affects us, is a start. We then look rigorously and honestly about what part, if any, we played in the circumstances that set the whole train of wronged emotions in play. In most cases we find that we have played a part, and where we have wronged that individual we forgive and make amends where where that is possible. But what about the deeply held resentments where,quite honestly, we played no part?

The resulting thoughts and simmering anger surrounding circumstances in which we were victimized are just as dangerous and perhaps more so than the instances where we played an active role. Requiring a one-sided true forgiveness, these instances may offer us the greatest opportunites for spiritual growth that there are. Mark Twain remarked, "Forgiveness is the scent the violet leaves on the heel of the boot that crushed it." But just how do we get there? Perhaps the key is in recognizing that the other person, though his or her wrong actions may vary in kind from ours, is nonetheless just like us - human, fallible and thus prone to all the same soul sickness that we are.

The Roman Emperor and stoic philosopher, Marcus Aurelius advised in his Meditations

"Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will and selfishness - all of them due to the offender's ignorance of what is good and evil. But for my part I have long perceived the nature of Good and its nobility, the nature of evil and its meanness, and also the nature of the culprit himself who is my brother (not in the physical sense, but as a fellow-creature similarly endowed with Reason and a share of the Divine); therefore none of these things can injure me, for nobody can implicate me in what is degrading. Neither can I be angry with my brother or fall foul of him, for he and I were born to work together, like a man's two hands, feet or eyelids, or like the upper and lower rows of his teeth. To obstruct each other is against Nature's law - and what is irritation or aversion but a form of obstruction?"

More simply put, in the Lord's Prayer we are advised to ask God to "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. The operative word being "as" in this instance. Thus, so long as our thinking returns to the one-sided wrongs that have been done to us, we can dedicate those thoughts to our Higher Power, recognize our own continuing defects of character, and ask to be relieved of the anger that still resides within us. When true forgiveness comes - as it will if it is sought - we will seldom if ever think of those past injustices, usually only in those instances when sharing such wrongs will help someone struggling with wrongs of a similar nature.

Fear, Desire, and Instincts Run Wild

"Creation gave us instincts for a purpose. Without them we wouldn't be complete human beings. If men and women didn't exert themselves to be secure in their persons, made no effort to harvest food or construct shelter, there would be no survival. If they didn't reproduce, the earth wouldn't be populated. If there were no social instinct, if men cared nothing for the society of one another, there would be no society. So these desires - for the sex relation, for material and emotional security, and for companionship - are perfectly necessary and right, and surely God-given."

"Yet these instincts, so necessary for our existence, often far exceed their proper functions. Powerfully, blindly, many times subtly, they drive us, dominate us, and insist upon ruling our lives. Our desires for sex, for material and emotional security, and for an important place in society often tyrannize us. When thus out of joint, man's natural desires cause him great trouble, practically all the trouble there is."

-- The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 42 --

 In taking our 4th Step inventory, Bill W. points out that "(w)e want to find out exactly how, when, and where our natural desires have warped us. We wish to look squarely at the unhappiness this has caused others and ourselves. . . . Without a willing and persistent effort to do this," he warns, "there can be little sobriety or contentment for us." (The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 43)

It is necessary for us to get to the root of our discontentment, if we wish to remain clean and sober. After all, we alcoholic addicts drank primarily for the effect that it had upon us. The discontents which we harbored and drank to overcome, we learn, are rooted in the overblown, unquenchable desires of instincts gone awry. Thus, by objectively examining (and sharing) our resentments, fears and sex conduct, we become able to find not only how our actions have affected and affect others, but how and why we too were so affected.

In elaborating upon how and why our overblown instinctual desires fuelled our drinking, Bill asserts that "(a)lcoholics, especially, should be able see that instinct run wild in themselves is the underlying cause of their destructive drinking,"

"We have," he observes, "drunk to drown feelings of fear, frustration, and depression We have drunk to escape the guilt of passions, and then have drunk again to make more passions possible. We have drunk for vainglory - that we might the more enjoy foolish dreams of pomp and power."

"This perverse soul-sickness is not pleasant to look upon," he warns. "Instincts on rampage balk at investigation. The minute we make a serious attempt to probe them, we are liable to suffer severe reactions." (The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pp. 44-45.) But, if we are to free ourselves from addiction, investigate them we must. Hence, the importance of sharing them with not just ourselves, and the God or our own understanding, but with another human being, preferably one who has taken the lonely road of self-examination him or herself.

"The unexamined life is not worth living," Socrates observed. To that we may add, for the alcoholic addict, an unexamined and unreconciled life cannot be lived soberly. Why? Simply because without a working knowledge of how our warped instinctive desires have driven us blindly, and the ability to make amends for how we have hurt others, we will find no relief from ourselves. And, sooner or later, we will need to seek relief - in whatever form it takes.

"Each of us would like to live at peace with himself and his fellows," Bill notes. "We would like to be assured that the grace of God can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We have seen that character defects based upon shortsighted or unworthy desires are the obstacles that block our path towards these objectives."

"The chief activator of our defects has been self-centered fear," he points out, "primarily fear that we would lose something we already possessed or would fail to get something we demanded. Living upon a basis of unsatisfied demands, we were in a state of continual disturbance and frustration. Therefore, no peace was to be had unless we could find a means of reducing these demands."

[The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 76.]

 Steps Four through Step Nine are the initial means we take to reduce our instinctive desires to the level where we can attain and maintain our sobriety and continue on the spiritual path. Steps Ten through Twelve is where we work to continue reducing our overblown desires - and the egoic self-consciousness that fuels them - at depth.

On Overcoming Remorse and Self-Loathing

In the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous, one of the most prominent but least discussed aspects of the alcoholic addict's dilemma is the crushing shame and remorse that he or she feels for their actions when they are not tied directly to another person. Of course, Steps Five through Step Nine deal minutely with the whats, whys, whens and hows of making amends for harm done to others, but little is said about the "free-floating" remorse and self-loathing generated by years of alcoholic addiction.

Sometimes one hears that "the first amends I had to make were to myself," or worse, that "the 12 Steps are a selfish program." Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth. The basic problem of the alcoholic addict is that he or she is utterly self-absorbed and self-centered to the extreme, and a radical process of "ego-deflation at depth" is needed if he or she is to recover.

"Selfishness," we read, "self-centeredness! That we think is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred different forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking and self-pity, we step on the toes of others and they retaliate. . . . So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must or it kills us!"

[Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 62.]

How then, are we to be rid of the remorse and self-loathing for the seemingly horrible things we have done that did not directly, or even indirectly, affect others? How do we account for those actions at which we shudder when we remember: "Yes, I did that?"

The solution to this dilemma is found in taking and then sharing our Step Four inventory. "Being convinced," we read, "that self, manifested in various ways, was what had defeated us, we considered its common manifestations."

 [Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 63.] 

In regards to our "moral inventory," we read: "The first thing apparent was that this world and its people were often quite wrong." But, we continue reading, "(t)o conclude that others were wrong was as far as most of us ever got."

"The usual outcome" of this, we read, "is that people continued to wrong us and we stayed sore. Sometimes it was remorse and then we were sore at ourselves. But the more we fought and tried to have our own way the worse matters got. As in war, the victor only seemed to win. Our moments of triumph were short-lived." (Emphasis added.)

[Alcoholics Anonymous, pp. 64-65.]

Thus, rather than making amends to one's self, one takes a moral inventory of one's self, highlighting the remorse we feel for our actions that did not affect others as resentments we hold against ourselves. We are told that "an alcoholic in his cups is an unlovely creature," and we need highlight those most unlovely incidents not affecting others that we have nonetheless come to abhor.

The other place where we deal with remorse is in listing our fears, for each of us holds memories of what we have done unwitnessed that we live in dread of ever having exposed. Who, at first, has not thought, "if only they knew . . ."?

Rather than holding some vague and fallacious idea that somewhere in Step Nine we need to "make amends to ourselves," it is rather in Step Five where we admit "to ourselves, to God and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs" that we earn freedom from our remorse and self-loathing.

Most often, we will find that are personal peccadilloes are not so unique, and that they vary only in kind rather than in quality to those "wrongs" committed by others. That, at least, has been my experience.

Moreover, such personal and dreadful incidents, once shared, lose their power over us. If we think of them at all, we are no longer filled with remorse, but rather we are in a position to use them to demonstrate to another alcoholic addict that they, too, are not as "bad" or "unique" as they may believe themselves to be. Our most shameful memories, are thus turned into assets we can use to help others.

Step Four: 'The Tao of Fear'

When we put pen to paper and begin to take a moral inventory of ourselves, we read in the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous that it should be "searching and fearless." Writing down the resentments we hold, their cause and how they effect us, we are then told to examine them closely, looking for our own mistakes and listing where we had been "selfish, dishonest, self seeking and frightened."

Looking deeply at our fears, we are told to "put them down on paper, even though we had no resentment in connection with them," as fear is "an evil and corroding thread" that runs through "the fabric of our existence." All these fears, great and small, we are to find, cut us off from what Bill W. called "the sunlight of the Spirit."

[Alcoholics Anonymous, pp. 64-68.]

"Small fear is fearful," writes Thomas Cleary in his translation of  "The Essential Tao," great fear is slow. In action they are like a bolt, an arrow, in their control over judgment. In stillness they are like a prayer, a pledge, in their attachment to victory." Thus, we read in the 'Big Book,' it is fear that "set(s) in motion trains of circumstances which brought us misfortune we felt we didn't deserve."

In the face of fear the human tendency is to fight, take flight or freeze. Consumed and identified as we are with the inner dialogue of the "self" or ego - a psychological phenomenon that is wholly dominated by fear, and the flip side of fear, desire - we usually choose the wrong option, freezing when we should take flight, fighting when we should freeze, etc.

"(Fears) kill like fall and winter," according to the Tao, "in the sense of daily dissolution. Their addictions to what they do is such as to be irreversible. Their satiation is like a seal, in that it disintegrates with age. The mind drawing near to death cannot bring about a restoration of positivity." The relentless and insatiable demands of the ego for perfect security and happiness, indeed, seem to place us beyond human aid.

"Joy, anger, sadness, happiness, worry, lament, vacillation, fearfulness, volatility, indulgence, licentiousness, petentiousness," says the Tao, "are like music issuing from hollows, or moisture producing mildew. Day and night they interchange before us, yet no one knows where they sprout. Stop, stop! From morning to evening we find them; do they arise from the same source?"

And, once again, we find that the source of all these fear-based states of mind is the "ego" - our selfish, self-centered smaller "self." ("The chief activator of our defects has been self-centered fear," we read in The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, "primarily fear that we wold lose something we already possessed or would fail to get something we demanded.")
"If not for other, there is no self," according to the Tao. "If not for self, nothing is apprehended. This is not remote, but we don't know what constitutes the cause. There seems to be a real director, but we cannot find any trace of it. Its effectiveness is already proven, but we don't see its form. . . . Evidently there is a real ruler existing therein: the matter of whether or not we gain a sense of it does not increase or decrease its reality."

"(D)eep down in every man woman, and child," we read in the 'Big Book,' "is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there. . . . We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that it may be found."

[Alcoholics Anonymous, page 55.]

"We can only clear the ground a bit, the 'Big Book' continues. "If our testimony helps sweep away prejudice, enables you to think honestly, encourages you to search diligently within yourself, then, if you wish, you can join us on the Broad Highway. With this attitude you cannot fail. The consciousness of your belief is sure to come to you."

(Excerpts from Thomas Cleary, "The Essential Tao," pp. 70-71.)

Character Defects: "The Seven Deadly Sins"

As at best an agnostic by natural temperament, I was taken aback (as I suppose many others were) when I first read the characterization of my defects of character as "sins" in Step Four of The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. Not surprisingly, of course, my objection was one that had been anticipated by Bill W.

With foresight in writing the Step Four essay, Bill presciently observed that "(s)ome will become quite annoyed if there is talk about immorality, let alone sin. But," he reasoned, "all who are in the least reasonable will agree upon one point: that there is plenty wrong with us alcoholics about which plenty will have to be done if we are to expect sobriety, progress and any real ability to cope with life."

Thus, in writing the Step Four essay he settled on the "the Seven Deadly Sins of pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth" as "a universally recognized list of major human failings" that could be used as a yardstick by which we could measure our "shortcomings." (Bill observed elsewhere that there was no distinction in meaning between "character defects" and "shortcomings," stating simply that he did not like to have adjoining sentences ending with the same words.)

Meanwhile, I remained quietly and silently opposed to this characterization of my "shortcomings" as "sins" until it was explained to me by an old-timer, who unbeknownst to me was a retired nun with a Ph.D., that the word "sin" had its origin as a term of art in archery, denoting when an archer missed his target. Thus, when I was beset with one or more of these "deadly sins," it was explained to me, it was a most definite indication that my thoughts rather more than my morals were askew.

Later, in reading "The Gnostic Gospels," by acclaimed biblical historian, Elaine Pagels, I came across the following explanation:

"The New Testament term for sin, hamartia," she notes, "comes from the sport of archery; literally, it means "missing the mark." New Testament sources teach that we suffer distress, mental and physical, because we fail to achieve the moral goal toward which we aim: "all have sinned, and fall short of the Glory of God." (Romans 3:23).

 Thus, when prideful, greedy, angry, etc., it is a clear indication that once again I have lapsed into and identified with my egoic, "self-consciousness." My thinking, centered in "self" or ego, has once again "missed the mark," so to speak.

Note, however, that these "Seven Deadly Sins" are all associated with feelings, emotions and sentiments, rather than with thinking per se. One doesn't think angry, one has thoughts that arouse feelings of anger, which is a subtle but important point.

When entertaining a resentment (which is just the manifestation of a lasting anger), for example, one thinks again of the person or situation that angered him or her in the first place and then re-experiences the same feelings, emotions or sentiments that were aroused before. (Thus, resentment is a re-experiencing or 're-sentiment' of old feelings sparked by entertaining one's old ideas or thoughts.) Similarly, when thinking about how much better or less one is compared to others, one feels pride; when thinking how much one wants something he or she lacks, one feels greedy, etc.

An even more subtle tool for examining our character defects, and one that goes further in helping us understand the root cause of why our thinking "misses the mark," is the list of "the Nine Capital Sins" (sometimes referred to as "the Enneagram") that are compiled in Fr. Richard Rohr's book, "The Naked Now." These consist of:

(1)  The need to be right.
(2)  The need to be needed.
(3)  The need to be successful.
(4)  The need to be special.
(5)  The need to perceive.
(6)  The need to protect self.
(7)  The need to avoid pain.
(8)  The need to be against.
(9)  The need to avoid.

Each of these can breed a fear that the particular "need" will not be fulfilled, thus threatening the ego; and such self-centered fears - "primarily fear that we would lose something we already possessed or would fail to get something we demanded" - are, we know, "the chief activators of our defects."

[The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 76.]

On Humility and Ego

"The average man is not humble; he may appear to be so, but inwardly he sets up mental resistance and barriers, and builds walls of prejudice against the truth. Humility consists in having a perfectly open mind, as though you were a new-born, and being able to receive with complete faith not only the words of those who know, but that which is still more important, that which is behind words, which is Spirit."

[Paul Brunton, "Discover Yourself," p. 68.]

The most leveling, the most humbling experience when we undertake the work of recovery - once we have admitted that life was is and will remain unmanageable -  is most typically taking and sharing a moral inventory.

Yet it is only through this process of self-scrutiny, and sharing its result with another person, that we can begin to deconstruct the root of our difficulty - egoism. We face who we are in front of the God of our own understanding and another person so that we no longer have to keep up the false pretenses we have been living our lives under

"More than most people," we read, "the alcoholic leads a double life. He is very much the actor. To the outer world he presents his stage character. This is the one he likes his fellows to see. He wants to enjoy a certain reputation, but knows in his heart he doesn't deserve it."

[Alcoholics Anonymous, page 73.]

In the "Co-Founders" pamphlet, Dr. Bob relates how at the very beginning of A.A., when it was just Bill, Bob and Bob's wife, Anne, sitting around their kitchen table in Akron, they found inspiration from the Bible, with the "Beatitudes," I Corinthians 13, and the Book of James being "absolutely essential" as they tried to carve out a life of sobriety and spiritual growth.

"A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways," we read in the Book of James, (James 1:8). Yet, further on, we also find an answer to the double life that we have been leading. "Draw near to God, and God will draw near to you," we read. "Wash clean your hands ye sinners; purify your hearts, ye double minded." (James 4:8).

These passages speak to the process of self-examination that we must go through before we can rid ourselves of the memories, fears and old ideas that are the raw fuel of the ego, the mental clutter which keep us separated and apart from both God and our fellow man.

How can I establish and then improve my conscious contact with a Power greater than my "self," if I am wholly caught up in the self-centeredness of egoic thinking? At that point, when haunted by what lurks in the dark crevasses of my lonely and separated ego, I have conscious contact only with my self and my old ideas and distorted memories.

Being honest, many of us were told, means we no longer have to remember the story. Being truly humbled, I would add, means we never have to remember who to be in any given situation. In this way, and this way only,  can we truly develop and foster a truly "open mind" cleansed from all the "calamity, pomp and worship of other things" that have separated us from our fellow beings and from the perhaps unsuspected Spirit we all have deep down within us.

[Alcoholics Anonymous, page 55.]

Establishing "Conscious Contact" with God

"In meditation," we read in the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous (at page 69)," we ask God what we should do about each specific matter. The answer will come, if we want it."

This instruction dealing with our sex relations, and simple on its face, is found in the instructions for how to do Step Four, yet its forward looking implications are for Step Nine and (perhaps more importantly) for Step 12, where we endeavour to "practice these principles in all our affairs." Its inclusion in Step Four is an indication that as part of Step Two and Step Three we have already begun to seek out, through the practice of prayer and meditation, a conscious contact with God.

Indeed, the "word-of-mouth program" from the Oxford Group that Ebby T. passed on to Bill W. stressed the need for daily periods of meditation. In the "Three Talks to Medical Societies" pamphlet, we read that the sixth 'step' that Ebby relayed to Bill was: "By meditation, (we) sought God's direction for (our) life and help to practice these principles of conduct at all times." Similarly, Step Eleven in A.A.'s suggested program of action says that we seek "through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact" with the God of our understanding.  If we are to "improve our conscious contact with God," we must have already established such conscious contact at some earlier point in the Steps.

All of this implies, of course, that meditation is one of the fundamental practices that facilitates the spiritual awakening that is necessary for recovery from alcoholic addiction, and that we are faced with the necessity of practicing meditation even before we hit Step Four. It implies, it would seem, that beginning the practice of meditation is an integral part of "turning our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand Him" in Step Three, for without it we are flying blind.

Steps Four through Step Nine will, of course, relieve the sufferer of many of the punishing thoughts and emotions based on past events that fuel his or her sense of discomfort, irritability, restlessness and discontent, but it is in the state of higher God-consciousness attained in meditation that we find real release. Thus, we are urged to make time for a period of quiet each morning before we start the affairs of the day, seeking guidance for what we should do; and we are urged to take a similar period of quiet each evening, before we retire to bed.

By establishing such a routine we find a place of quiet consciousness to which we can retreat when the going gets tough during our day, and in which we can recollect ourselves and what we are aiming at - i.e., to be of maximum service to God and our fellow beings. It is, as a plaque on Dr. Bob's desk says, "to have a blessed home in (ourselves) where (we) can go in and shut the door and pray to (our God) in secret and be at peace, as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and about is seeming trouble."

Resentment: Digging One's Own Grave One 'Old Idea' at a Time

Resentment  (or 're-sentiment') is to experience all over again the feelings of anger  - towards someone, something, or some situation  - that we once felt in the past each time that we think such "old ideas" anew.  It is, we read in the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous, the "number one" offender, and that "(i)t destroys more alcoholics than anything else," and that "(f)rom it stem all forms of spiritual disease."

"It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. for when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.

If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics, these things are poison."

[Alcoholics Anonymous, page 66.]

At the beginning of the "How It Works" chapter of the 'Big Book,' we read that "many of us tried to hold onto our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely." We cannot afford, it seems, to entertain (or hold onto) the old ideas about people, things or circumstances that still anger us. That may well be the "dubious luxury" of so-called normal people, but nothing will change for the alcoholic addict in recovery unless he or she at least tries to get rid of such old ideas. That is what Steps 4 through Step 9 are specifically designed to do.

It has been said that anger is a corrosive acid that eats away the container that holds it from the inside out. In Steps Four through Step Nine, we list discuss, forgive and make restitution in order to get rid of, or at least neutralize, those corrosive old ideas that continue to crop up as a large part of the painful inner dialogue that is our ordinary 'self' consciousness or 'ego'.

In describing the type of vital spiritual experience that can enable alcoholics to attain and maintain sobriety, Carl Jung noted that "ideas, emotions and attitudes" that are the "guiding forces" of the alcoholic addict are "cast aside." The thoughts of past, future or imagined wrongs that a person, place or circumstance brings to mind are old 'ideas'. The resentments (or 're-sentiments')  are old 'emotions'. And, our vengeful and obsessive thought patterns that are shot through with righteous (or supposedly righteous) indignation are old ''attitudes. We must be free of all these if we are to lead a spiritually awakened life.

"If a man goes out seeking revenge," the Daoists said, "he had better dig two graves." For us, to mentally turn the thoughts of what and who has offended us over and over again in the mind is to seek revenge, if only mentally. If we continue to do so instead of forgiving and making whatever restitution might be necessary to get rid of such old ideas emotions and attitudes, we are obsessively digging and perfecting that second grave.

Thus, revenge, even the imagined mental revenge that we mental 'blowhards' are prone to obsess over, is therefore not a dish best served cold, but a dish not served (or even prepared) at all. Resentments can and have killed many an alcoholic addict.

Self-Esteem and Realizing 'Objectivity'

Like most everyone else - but perhaps more so - the alcoholic addict who is newly clean and sober most likely remains obsessed with his or her self-image. And it is likely a thread that runs deep into the fabric of their being. It is for most folks.

How many times have we heard a variant of someone saying they just wanted their 'insides' to match the 'outsides' of the people all around them? Perhaps, this is why the discussion of the Fourth Step inventory specifically includes self-esteem and fear as the primary effects on a bruised ego that leads to resentments.

In setting out the instructions for how to make a personal inventory, the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous tells us: "We listed people, institutions or principles with whom we are angry. We asked ourselves why we were angry. In most cases it was found that our self-esteem, our pocketbooks, our ambitions, our personal relationships (including sex) were hurt or threatened."

Throughout the third column of one's personal inventory, we are likely to find (as in the example on page 65 of the 'Big Book') that our 'self-esteem' has been affected by others, and/or that we live in fear about what others may think of us. Perhaps that is a legitimate fear for the alcoholic addict who is still using, but it is no way to lead a spiritual life. We are endeavouring to live life on a spiritual basis, after all, and not on the basis of what others' opinions of us are. Besides, they are in all likelihood too busy worrying about how they appear to others to take too much notice of us.

In his book, "Enlightenment is a Secret," the modern spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen observes that we all need to "realize objectivity," and that cannot be accomplished when we are obsessed with our self-image.

Andrew Cohen, Editor-in-chief,
EnlightenNext magazine.

"Self image is always a dark corner," he writes. "Most people are all suffering from the same agony, tormented by ideas of who they are and who they don't want to be."

"It helps," he observes, "when you realize that this predicament is the human condition. It helps when you realize that almost everybody is suffering in this same misery. Realizing this can help. It can help you to see through the illusion that you are suffering in your own misery isolated and alone. Because of this idea many people feel sorry for themselves. When you realize that this is the average condition of almost everyone it is the beginning of a big change in perspective."

"Realize its not 'your' problem," Cohen urges. "Realize that it is the problem. Realize that this one mistake is the crux of the human predicament. Try and make the effort to depersonalize every aspect of your experience, from the gross to the subtle."

"Realize objectivity," he urges. "It is the only way out."

[Andrew Cohen, "Enlightenment is a Secret," page 144.]

On reviewing our inventory, the 'Big Book' specifically shows us how this lack of objectivity about what others may (or may not) think about us is all-pervading and lethally dangerous. "We began to see that the world and its people really dominated us," we read, "(a)nd in that state the wrong-doings of others, fancied or real, had power to actually kill."

Realizing that the false ego of the 'self' - our ordinary self-consciousness, rather than a deeper and higher, God-consciousness - is the real cause of our suffering, we strive to "realize objectivity," as Cohen puts it. Or, as the 'Big Book' puts it: "We realized that the people who had wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick themselves. Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too."

It is, therefore, helpful to realize that ego, or ordinary self-consciousness - "thinking without awareness," as another spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle, called it - is not just our problem, but that is 'the' problem, just as Cohen notes. Or, as another enlightened spiritual master said, "Of myself, I am nothing, the Father doeth the works." (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 75.)

Why Do So Many of Us 'Balk' At Sharing Our Inventory With Others?

Why do so many of us resist the 4th and 5th Steps? Is it because we are ashamed and fearful of what we will find, let alone having to disclose it to "another person?" Are we afraid that if we share what we might find, we will be more alone than ever?

Bill W. insightfully writes in the "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions" that we tend to suffer from a sense of "anxious apartness."  Ironically, it is this sense of "anxious apartness" which seems to keep us from taking a deep, honest and thorough 4th Step, yet it is precisely this sense of "anxious apartness" that the Fourthth and Fifth Steps are designed to eradicate.

In an insightful, 'must-see video' from Ted.com, one of those 'so-called normal people',  Dr. Brené Brown (a researcher professor at the University of Houston, Graduate College of Social Work), talks about everyone's  sense of connectedness, shame, worthiness, courage and vulnerability. She notes that we are wired biologically for "connectedness, and that"shame" is really "the fear of disconnection," and an almost-universal emotion.

We are afraid, Brown says, that if someone really "saw" us they would find us unworthy of being connected to. The "courageous" among us, however, she says are those who are willing to embrace their vulnerabilies and their fear of being disconnectedness and ostracized if they allow themselves to really "be seen."

Ms. Brown takes us through the story of her intensive research into "shame,"  shares how this research took her into her own dark places, and tells how the resulting nervous "breakdown" led her to her own "spiritual awakening."




The truly "courageous" are those, she observes, who believe (or, presumably 'come to believe') "their vulnerabilities are what make them beautiful."

The video may perhaps be an explanation to those of us going through the 12 Steps for the first time why Alcoholics Anonymous does not suggest but, rather, begs us "to be fearless and thorough from the very start." And, perhaps it will serve others as a reminder that we are not bad people trying to be good, but that we are sick people striving to get well.