A Spiritual Way of Life

In the attached video, A.A. pioneer, Chuck C. (author of "A New Pair of Glasses") shares his insights into living "A Spiritual Way of Life" with a non-alcoholic audience of students at the University of California.

"I don't think we have a life of our own, and I don't think we have a mind of our own," he tells his audience. "I think there is one life with many faces, (and) one mind common to all men. And you and I have our identity in It. We have our identity in life.

"We are," he says, "individualized centers of God-consciousness."



 "You cannot change the reality of your own being," he notes, "you can only change your experience in reality. . . . We can change our experience, but we can't change the reality of our own being."

"(O)ur own peace of mind, serenity and purpose," he observes, "cannot depend upon any person, place, circumstance or condition outside ourselves. (This) depends only on our own relationship to our very own God."

"And," he points out, "its an inside job!"

Higher Consciousness, the Perennial Philosophy, and the Divine Ground of Being

It was the writer and pioneering New Age philosopher, Aldous Huxley, who called Bill W. "the greatest social architect of the twentieth century," in recognition of the unique A.A. service structure that Bill worked so tirelessly to forge: ("Pass It On," pp. 368-369). Yet, Bill's affinity for, and friendship with, Huxley was based on their mutual dedication to exploring matters of spirituality, metaphysics, mysticism and higher consciousness. One wonders, in light of this, whether Huxley was not as much (or even moreso) impressed by the wholesale awakenings to a greater consciousness beyond the ego which were occurring among the early membership of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Like Gerald Heard, the polymath philosopher who brought Huxley and Bill together, Huxley viewed humankind's awakening to higher consciousness as an evolutionary imperative. In the same time frame in which he met Bill, Huxley wrote extensively on what he called the "perennial philosophy" underlying the world's sundry religions and wisdom traditions. In his introduction to a translation of the Bhagavad Gita by Christopher Isherwood and Swami Prabhavananda (titled "Song of God"), Huxley wrote:

"At the core of the Perennial Philosophy we find four fundamental doctrines."

"First: the phenomenal world of matter and of individualized consciousness - the world of things and animals and men and even gods - is the manifestation of a Divine Ground within which all partial realities have their being, and apart from which they would be non-existent."

"Second: human beings are capable not merely of knowing about the Divine Ground by inference; they can also realize its existence by a direct intuition superior to discursive reasoning. This immediate knowledge unites the knower and the known."

"Third: man possesses a double nature, a phenomenal ego and an eternal Self, which is the inner man, the spirit, the spark of divinity within the soul. It is possible for a man, if he so desires, to identify himself with the spirit and therefore with the Divine Ground, which is of the same or like nature with the spirit."

"Fourth: man's life on earth has only one end and purpose: to identify himself with his eternal Self and so come to unitive knowledge of the Divine Ground."

 Reading over these points, it is easy to see why there was such an affinity between Huxley and Wilson. By dint of his remarkable spiritual awakening at Townes Hospital - an awakening that left him initially questioning his very sanity - Bill had attained (albeit for a limited time) what Huxley would call "unitive knowledge of the Divine Ground" that lies within and yet surrounds each of us: that Divine Ground in which "we live, and move, and have our being."

Bill was obviously acutely aware of the very specific and non-dualistic "unitive knowledge" at the heart of true religious/mystic/spiritual experience, an awareness confirmed both by his personal experience and from his reading of William James' Varieties of Religious Experience, which is repeatedly cited in the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous. "When we became alcoholics," he wrote, "crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn't. What," he asked, "was our choice to be?" ('Big Book,' page 53.)

In retrospect, it seems eminently clear that Bill indeed experienced God as "everything" in his flash of spiritual insight, and it was this experience alone that arrested his slide into drunken oblivion and insanity. "The thing Bill had was a perfectly clear case of satori or somate," noted his friend Tom P. "You know by the fruits. The guy goes out and starts to act like an enlightened man. No one ever went further to prove it than that man did - he led a life of total service." ("Pass It On," page 302.)

The effectiveness of such a non-dualistic unitive experience in overcoming chronic alcoholism was confirmed by Carl Jung in his later correspondence with Bill. "(The) craving for alcohol," Jung observed, "(is) on a low level the thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed in medieval language: union with God."

"The only right and legitimate way to such an experience," Jung pointed out, "is that it happen to you in reality and it can only happen to you when you walk on a path which leads you to higher understanding. You may be led to that goal," he observed, "by an act of grace, or through a personal and honest contact with friends, or through a higher education of the mind beyond mere rationalism."

It was Bill's good fortune (and ours) - although Jung might call it a series of synchronicities - that he was introduced to the Oxford Group's methodology and was shown by Ebby (who was remarkably sober at that time) its effectiveness in overcoming acute alcoholism. The Oxford Group's "program" (from which Bill would derive A.A.'s Twelve Steps) was clearly "a path that leads . . . to higher understanding" beyond the confines of the limited and self-conscious duality of the human ego, a path that led Bill, Dr. Bob, and now millions of other sufferers, to a "unitive knowledge of the Divine Ground."

That a path to "a higher understanding of the mind beyond mere rationality" had been established, a path that had already brought about wholesale spiritual awakenings for tens of thousands of individuals, was undoubtedly a matter of the greatest interest to non-alcoholic spiritual seekers such as Huxley and Heard. In the 1940's and 1950's, these men (and their associates) were busy exploring the various means by which individuals could move from shallow, self-conscious, ego-centricity to higher consciousness, an exploration that would lay the foundations for widespread explorations of higher consciousness that would occur in the 1960's. It was this spiritual  "discovery" more so than the development of A.A.'s traditional service structure, one suspects, that led Huxley to call Bill "the greatest social architect of the twentieth century."

Deep Down Within Us

" . . (D)eep down within every man, woman, and child 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. . . ."

Alcoholics Anonymous, page 55

 * * * * *

"All sentient beings are buddhas,
But they are covered by temporary obscurations."

Hevajra Tantra

* * * * *

"This temporary obscuration is our own thinking, If we didn't already have the buddha nature ("that Great Reality deep down within us") meaning a nature that is identical to that of all awakened ones, no matter how much we try we would never become enlightened." 

. . .  

"Recognize your mind and in the absence of any concrete thing, rest loosely. After a while we again get caught up in thoughts. but by recognizing again and again, we grow ore and more used to the natural state. It's like learning something by heart - after a while, you don't need to think about it. Through this process, our thoughts involvement grows weaker and weaker The gap between thoughts begins to last longer and longer. At a certain point, for half an hour there will be a stretch of no conceptual thought whatsoever, without having to suppress thinking."

Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, "As It Is," Vol. II, pp. 48-49

* * * * *

"There is a direct linkage among self-examination, meditation and prayer. Taken separately, these practices can bring much relief and benefit. But when they are logically related and interwoven, the result is an unshakeable foundation for life. Now and then we may be granted a glimpse of that ultimate reality which is God's kingdom."

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 98

* * * * *

"And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:

Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." 

Luke 17:20-21

We Atheists

On the night of November 11, 1989, I experienced what many alcoholic addicts describe as "a moment of clarity." Alcohol and drugs had not been working for me the way they used to. They could no longer alleviate the punishing, self-conscious thoughts in my mind, and they only added to the fear and emotional turmoil I was regularly experiencing, particularly when I was "in my cups." Thankfully, I acted upon that brief moment of quiet acceptance and I was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous. I had a fixed desire to quit drinking and drugging.

From the start I had great difficulties with the program's spirituality. Raised in a scientific household and community (my father was a nuclear scientist, though my mother was a Christian Scientist), I had no belief in God or a Higher Power. For religion, or religionists, I had no time. Fortunately I quickly got myself a sponsor. I made my first and most crucial mistake in sobriety, however, on that first day we talked (the significance of which will be described below). Knowing me from the time I was out "performing" - his description, not mine - he told me point blank that I would have to take Step Two.

Having been in A.A. a number of weeks before we hooked up, and knowing that this "Power" greater than myself referred to the God of my understanding from Step Three, I asked him what his idea of God was. He told me he viewed God as "Good Orderly Direction," and I adopted this, believing that without the booze and drugs I would sure be able to able to turn around my thinking into some semblance of "Good Orderly Direction." This I tried with a vengeance. I returned to university and then law school, where I graduated at the top of my classes. Surely this was a sign of "Good Orderly Direction?"

Nonetheless, and needless to say, the material success I had in sobriety did not suffice to deepen my spiritual experience, even though I went through the Twelve Steps several times and went to many, many meetings in the first nine years of my sobriety. (I am, I know now, an alcoholic addict that needs more than a handful of meetings a week to maintain my sobriety.)

With life's success taking me to a future I could not have imagined, working long hours as a lawyer at one of Canada's oldest and most reputable law firms in order to support my family and give them the luxuries I thought they wanted and deserved, I turned my back on A.A. I could not imagine taking myself away from my family during the admittedly few family hours my professional responsibilities afforded me. Thus, I made a conscious decision not to attend A.A. in the community we had just moved to. (My second great mistake in A.A.)

For the next 4 and 1/2 years, I held it together as best I could before falling into a profound depression that cost me all that I had worked for, and which nearly cost me my life. In and out of psychiatric wards for the next eighteen months of this tortured sobriety, my life, my family and my career fell apart. All without taking a drink or drugs.

(In his Step Three essay in The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Bill W. writes: "More sobriety brought about by the admission of alcoholism and attendance at a few meetings is very good indeed, but it is bound to be a far cry from permanent sobriety and a happy and contented life.") (Emphasis added.)

Fortunately, in October of 2003 the best-friend of my first sponsor (who had passed away when I was only 5 years sober) heard I was in trouble and left me a telephone message. I would not return that message until January of 2004 (after a botched suicide attempt), but when I did my sponsor's friend hit the nail on the head: I had become a dry drunk. He took me to an unforgettable A.A. meeting, and forthwith I got a new sponsor and joined a group in the community I was living in, having been separated from my wife and my role as a full-time father

I attended A.A. on a daily basis thereafter. Fourteen-and-a-half years clean and sober, but without a clue as to how the program of Alcoholics Anonymous worked though, as I mentioned, I had gone through the entire Twelve Steps several times in my early, ineffective years in the Fellowship. I had been held back by the prejudice and contempt I had for all matters religious or spiritual.

My new sponsor -  a man who drank at 15 years of sobriety, but had once again reached that threshold - took me through the Steps once more, getting me all the way to Step Seven before he succumbed to cancer. Little did I know that there were other old-timers watching me, and watching me continue to suffer because I did not have a God of my own understanding. (Although I wished to believe in a Higher Power, I could not find one of my own understanding, prejudiced as my thinking was by my understanding of science. I needed a Higher Power that was compatible with what I knew of both psychology and science.)

Fourteen years clean and sober, with my life in shreds and acutely feeling the demise of both my marriage and a brief fling with a very lovely woman, my best A.A. friend and I were out looking for a new apartment for me to live in. On finding and renting the perfect apartment for me, my friend and I went to celebrate by having lunch on a nearby patio. My friend is an interesting and talkative man, so I just listened to him talk as I basked in the incredible feeling of peace, ease of mind and well-being I was enjoying as a result of our morning's work.

Suddenly, however, I stopped listening to my friend and my thoughts turned I know not where, likely to my family or my recent failed relationship. It does not matter, for what I felt as soon as I turned my mind from what my buddy was saying to my own thoughts a wave of great fear washed over me from head to toe. I knew then that my problem was an inside problem, and that the solution to it must somehow also be an inside job.

Several days later, one of the old-timers who had been watching me saw that I was through suffering. (He had been urged by another friend to talk to me, but his reply was, "No. He hasn't done suffering yet.") Approaching me, he offered to lend me a book: Eric Butterworth's "Discover the Power Within You." It was the first book of a spiritual nature (including all the books A.A. had published) that I read with an entirely open mind and new perspective. It was the first book of a spiritual bent in which I did not throw away the 'baby' of those things I could understand and believe with the 'bathwater' of concepts that were beyond my understandings and belief.

A day later, this old-timer and I spent about four hours going through the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous and discussing our mutual experiences. It was not a thorough dissection of the 'Big Book.' Rather, it was an exposition of some of the principle parts of our basic text that I would need to understand if I were to progress spiritually. The main sections he discussed with me were:

• Page 23: "(T)he main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind

• Page 55: "We found that Great Reality (i.e., the God of our own understanding) deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that it can be found." 

• Page 567: "With few exceptions our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves. . . . Most of us think that this awareness of a Power greater than ourselves is the essence of spiritual experience. . . . Our more religious members call it God-consciousness." (Emphasis added.)

True sobriety, I was shown, is a matter of replacing the self-conscious stream of thinking in our minds ('self' or the human 'ego') with a greater awareness and higher consciousness - one unaffected by the seeming duality and separateness of the human ego and our ego-centric thinking.

The "first and most significant mistake" I had made so long ago then became clear to me: Instead of asking my first sponsor what God is, I should have asked what "self" is. After all, it was only a Power greater than my "self" that I would need in order to restore me to sanity, not the God of some of the more perverse religious teachings. It is only once we know, understand, address and overcome the workings of the ego/self through meditation and prayer that we can understand God, Allah, Brahman Bhudda-nature, or whatever you may wish to call It. Indeed, I know that it was only then that I, a former atheist, came to believe and then to experience God's presence within and all around me.

Most helpful, was the following passage from the eminent theologian, Paul Tillich, which was included in Butterworths' "Discover the Power Within You." (Tillich was a friend and colleague of Reinhold Niebuhr, the man who wrote our Serenity Prayer.) In a book of his collected sermons, Tillich talks directly to the atheist about the "depths" of his or her being:

"The wisdom of all ages and of all continents speaks about the road to our depth," Tillich notes. "It has been described in innumerably different ways. But all those who have been concerned - mystics and priests, poets and philosophers, simple people and educated - with that road through confession, lonely self-scrutiny, internal or external catastrophes, prayer, contemplation, have witnessed to the same experience. They have found they are not what what they believed themselves to be, even after a deeper level had appeared to them below the vanishing surface. That deeper level itself became surface, when a still deeper level was discovered, this happening again and again, as long as their lives, as long as they kept on the road to their depth. . . . "

"The name of this infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of all being," he continues, "is God. That depth is what the word God means. . . . For if you know that God means depth, you know much about him. You cannot then call yourself an atheist or an unbeliever. For you cannot think or say: Life has no depth! Life itself is shallow. If you could say this in complete seriousness, you would be an atheist; but otherwise you are not. He who knows about depth knows about God."

[Paul Tillich, "The Shaking of the Foundations," Scribners, pp. 56-57.]

That "depth" is an ever-increasing refinement of  consciousness, a consciousness that is inextricably entwined with all matter. In its purest form it is God. "When we became alcoholics," we read in the 'Big Book,' "crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn't. What was our choice to be?" I faced that proposition and came to know that God is, in fact, everything - the manifest and the unmanifested, everything within and everything without all beings and even matter itself.

Having experienced the higher consciousness ( or "God-consciousness") that underlies but is obscured by the ego/self, I came not only to believe, but know, that there is a "Power greater than ourselves" that can restore us to sanity. While I may not understand that higher consciousness in all its facets, I know that it is there at every moment. It is "by self-forgetting" that it is found, and found in the last place most people would think to look for it: "deep down within every man, woman and child."

Escape From the Bondage of Self

To be trapped in the prison-house of the smaller "self" - mired in the incessant stream of involuntary thinking that is the the human "ego" - is to be prey to the full range of destructive emotions such thinking produces. It is to be powerless with seemingly no way out. Unaddressed, the alcoholic addict - "irritable, restless and discontented" unless he or she can can once again experience "the ease and comfort" once afforded by alcohol and/or drugs - is exceedingly prone to seek chemical relief from how he or she is feeling. "Many of us tried to hold onto our ideas" - along with the toxic emotions such ideas produced - "and the result was nil until we let go absolutely."

"The problem of the alcoholic centers in the mind," we read in Alcoholics Anonymous. It is our incessant, involuntary thinking which is the true root of the alcoholic addict's problem. Alcohol and/or drug use is merely the symptom of the problem. While drinking and/or drugging once worked to alleviate "the painful inner dialogue" of the ego, for most alcoholic addicts such fleeting relief was lost long before they sobered up. Hence the need for a "spiritual awakening." It is the resurgent spirit of our higher consciousness that returns the alcoholic addict to sanity as the ego is deflated "at depth."

Self-consciousness, or ego-identification, is of course the bane of every man and woman's existence. The non-alcoholic addict may seek relief from the thoughts and emotions generated by ego-identification in any number of ways - exercise, work, watching t.v., etc. - some of which may conventionally be deemed 'constructive' or others which become obsessive and 'destructive.' For the alcoholic addict, however, the temptation (which may at times of great emotional upheaval seem an imperative) is to return to booze or drugs. After all, at some time in the near or distant past, these once worked and provided, however fleetingly, the relief from acute self-consciousness that was desired. Unlike the means the so-called "normal" person turns to for such ego-relief, however, alcohol and drugs have the power to enslave and kill the alcoholic addict.

To counter the inevitable emotional maelstrom that accompanies one's old ideas and attitudes - our habitual thoughts and way of thinking - the Twelve Steps are designed to foster a spiritual awakening. Describing the effect of the "vital spiritual experiences" that relieve alcoholic addicts of their obsessive, self-conscious thinking and its accompanying emotions, Carl Jung (at page 27 of the 'Big Book') observed: "Ideas, emotions and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them." Bill W., at page 107 of The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, describes it as "a new state of consciousness and being."

Steps Four through Step Nine are designed to rid us of our old ideas and obsessions, Step Ten is designed to keep new obsessions from arising, while Step 11 is designed to prolong and deepen our experience of God-consciousness.

"There is a direct linkage among self-examination, meditation, and prayer," Bill observes. "Taken separately, these practices can bring much relief and benefit. But when they are logically related and interwoven, the result is an unshakeable foundation for life, now and then we may be granted a glimpse of that ultimate reality which is God's kingdom." (Twelve and Twelve, page 98.)

* * * * * 

"We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that He may be found. It was so with us." 

 Alcoholics Anonymous, page 55.

* * * * *

"And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you."

Luke 17:20-21 (Emphasis added.)

* * * * *

"With few exceptions our members find that they have tapped  an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves. . . . Most of us think this awareness of a Power greater than ourselves is the essence of spiritual experience. Our more religious members call it God-consciousness."

Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 567-568

H.O.W. It Works

"We find that no one need have difficulty with the spirituality of the program. Willingness, honesty and open-mindedness are the essentials of recovery. But these are indispensable."

Alcoholics Anonymous (4th ed.), page 568

Referencing the above passage taken from the "Spiritual Experience" appendix to the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous, the acronym "H.O.W." (as in "H.O.W. It Works") is often cited as representing the three qualities of mind that are necessary prerequisites for effectively working the AA program and, thus, attaining the spiritual awakening that allows the alcoholic addict to recover from "a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body."

Spirituality, with its ever-deepening understandings,  is by its nature a nuanced phenomenon. There are then, of necessity, both plain and more subtle aspects to all of its dimensions. There are both  conventional and extraordinary, mundane and subtle, layers to all spiritual teachings. To this end, it seems to me that there are both surface and deeper meaning to the requisite qualities of honesty, open-mindedness and willingness. And, of course, even beyond these meanings there are undoubtedly evermore deeper meanings to all three qualities, for in working the Twelve Steps, as in all spiritual practices, "more will be revealed."

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

- Matthew 7:13-14

Honesty: At the conventional level, becoming honest means that we do no further harm to others by lying, covering up, taking what does not belong to us and being untruthful etc.. Often referred to as "cash register honesty," this level of truthfulness is necessary in order that we can make an admission of powerlessness over alcohol (and/or drugs) and move forward in working the Twelve Steps. It is particularly important as we undertake our moral inventory which is both a 'fact-finding' and 'fact-facing' exercise that is wholly dependent on the alcoholic addict's being honest about the facts of his or her life.

At a deeper level, however, the requisite honesty requires our facing the illusions and delusions that are at the core of our self-centeredness, or ego-centricity. (The ego, in the sense that it is used here and throughout A.A. literature does not mean 'pride, per se, but rather the false sense of 'self'' that is a construction of our ordinary, worldly consciousness.)

Derived from the Latin honestas, which originally designated a plant with semi-transparent seed pods, honesty means to be "free of deceit and untruthfulness" - in this instance, self-deceit. At page 55 in the 'Big Book,' we are assured that "the fundamental idea of God" is deep down within everyone - man, woman and child - but that it is "obscured" by the "calamity, pomp and worship of other things" that are characteristic of most people's ordinary thoughts - i.e., the thought patterns that are characteristic of the human ego, the thought patterns Bill W. called a "painful inner dialogue.". Thus, in this instance, to be honest is to be free from the self-deceit and inherent untruthfulness of our egoic and addictive thought patterns, the fearful thoughts and emotions which block us off from our true inner nature.

In becoming honest and recognizing the "ideas, emotions and attitudes" that habitually veil the divine or spiritual nature of our being, the curtains of "calamity, pomp and worship of other things" are at least temporarily or partially lifted and we can then see and sense the truth of what and who we are. In this sense, we can then truly become "a channel of His peace."

Indeed, in describing the nature of the "spiritual awakenings" that were known to relieve alcoholic addiction, Carl Jung (at page 27 of the 'Big Book') observed that:

"Ideas, emotions and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them."

 In this sense, one becomes honest with one's "self."

Open-Mindedness: There are, I have come to realize, at least two facets of being truly open-minded. In the simplest terms, to be open-minded is to be free from the prejudice and contempt we may feel for spiritual and/or religious matters. Most often arising from our skepticism towards religious doctrines or the resentments we hold towards religious institutions, such prejudices (i.e., pre-judgments) must be set aside. Indeed at page 87 in the 'Big Book' we are enjoined to "(be) quick to see where religious people are right."

(In this regard, I note that the very word 'religion' comes from the Latin phrase 're ligare,' which means "to rejoin" or "reunite." In this sense a "religious experience" - as discussed in the second paragraph of the Spiritual Experience appendix - is what reunites the suffering alcoholic addict with the totality of the world and all things, that is God.)

At a deeper level, to be open-minded is to have a clear mind that is free of compulsive thinking and old ideas. In the 'How It Works' reading (from page 55 in the 'Big Book') we are told that many of the early members of A.A. had "tried to hold onto (their) old ideas," but that "the result was nil until they let go absolutely." My experience is that "old ideas" are not only those that I held for years in respect of spiritual, religious and other matters, but they also consist of new ideas that I cannot easily get rid of - thoughts about people, circumstances, ideas and institutions - that occupy my mind unduly.

Like chewing gum, it does not take long for such 'new ideas' to grow old and lose their appeal once I have chewed and ruminated on them for any length of time. Thoughts that frighten me, anger me or provoke envy in me etc., can quickly overwhelm my consciousness, bolstering my ego and separating me from everyone and everything, thereby obscuring that "Great Reality" that exists deep down within (all of) us." Indeed, it is only through the practice of meditation and prayer that we are effectively enabled to rid ourselves of such thoughts, and so improve "our conscious contact" with the God of our own understanding, however we may understand that Being.

Willingness: The conventional meaning of 'willingness,' I believe, is merely the determination to take the steps that others have taken to attain and maintain their sobriety. To this end, the 'How It Works' reading specifically notes that "(i)f you want what we have and are willing to go to any lengths to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps." That includes admitting to one's self that you are alcoholic, to believe (or, at least, be willing to believe) that there is a Power greater than one's self which can restore you to sanity, making the decision to turn one's will and one's life over to the Power of the God of your understanding, and then proceeding with the moral inventory and amends making process laid out in the Twelve Steps. Those who are unwilling, are those who do not want what we have, and thus "are not ready" to work the Twelve Steps . . . at least yet. Their sobriety, if any, is typically tenuous, precarious and desperately uncomfortable. They are in real danger.

At a more fundamental level, an act of one's will is a decision to do something, in this instance to live life one's life on a spiritual basis. (At page 83 of the 'Big Book, we read: "The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it." Why? Because life is inherently spiritual. It was the late great spiritual teacher, Krishnamurti, who observed: "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a human experience.") And living one's life on a spiritual basis requires practice - a practice that starts with Step Three.

"Practicing Step Three," we read in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, "is like the opening of a door which to all appearances is still locked and closed. All we need is a key, and the decision to swing the door open. There is only one key, and it is called willingness." This, as above, signifies our decision to take the Twelve Steps in order to walk through that locked door and live a spiritual life.

"Once we have come into agreement with (the steps to be taken)," we read, "it is really easy to begin the practice of Step Three. In all times of emotional disturbance or indecision," (emphasis added), "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."

The serenity, courage and wisdom we ask for are only truly available to us when we effect (or re-effect) a conscious contact with the God of our understanding; that is, when we are released from our ordinary ego-consciousnesss, and thus attain our higher God-consciousness. (The human ego is, by its nature, troubled, frightened and lost, the very antithesis to the serenity, courage and wisdom of higher consciousness.) Dissecting the power of this Serenity Prayer, we can observe that:

• 'Serenity' is the nature of our Being when we shed ordinary, self-consciousness/ego-consciousness and effect a conscious contact with our higher nature - i.e., with God.
• 'Courage' (from the Latin 'cour,' meaning heart) is to change the only thing we can in any instance - that is, to deepen the level of our consciousness. Symbolically it is to shift the center of our consciousness and thinking from the head/ego and its "painful inner dialogue," to the heart/soul (or deeper seat of consciousness) wherein there is a total acceptance of people, circumstances and the world exactly as they are in this instant of time.
• 'Wisdom' is to know, from experience, that there are two wholly different realities within us. One is the ego - i.e., the 'self' or 'self-consciousness - which lies at the root cause of our alcoholic addiction, the reality which we sought to escape from through the use of alcohol and/or drugs. The other is our authentic Being, wherein we are wholly at one (i.e., in communion) with God.

In his last public talk, Dr. Bob pointed to the "absolute necessity" of the teachings that he and Bill W. derived from the Beatitudes, First Corinthians 13, and the Book of James. A close reading of the latter identifies the problem of not just alcoholic addicts, but of all men and women: 

"A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." (James 1:8)

• So long as we respond to life and act on the basis of our egoic, rather than God-conscious, thinking. We are apt to think, say and do almost anything. Our old ego-centric thinking and ideas will always be prone to lead us back into active addiction. Thus, we must be willing to work the Twelve Steps in order to deflate the ego "at depth." Nothing changes - "the result is nil" - unless we let go of our old ideas and our habitual ego-consciousness.

 "Draw near to God, and God will draw near to you. Wash clean your hands ye sinners. Purify your hearts ye double-minded." (James 4:8)

• "We found that Great Reality deep down within us," we read at Page 55 of the 'Big Book.' Indeed, we are told, "(i)n the last analysis it is only there it may be found." When we shift from the self-consciousness and egoic thinking of our separated "self" to the essence of our Being, we effect a conscious contact with our Higher Power; that is, God "draws near" to us. 
• In Steps Four through Step Nine, and again in Step Ten, we face and face down our narrow "self" and, where possible, we right the wrongs which occurred (or occur) as a result of what is really a soul sickness. Figuratively, we 'wash our hands' and 'clean house.'
• Through prayer and, importantly, through meditation we "purify (our) hearts," letting go of our fear-based egoic consciousness in order to effect God-consciousness. In doing so, we increasingly live a single-minded spiritual life, rather than the unpredictable and injurious life of "the double-minded."

How does it work? It works through "ego-deflation at depth." It works by awakening to the spiritual nature of our Being and the world we live in. It works by turning our will and our lives over ot the care of God as we understand Him. It works by fearlessly facing the proposition that "God is either everything, or He is nothing." God either is, or is not,

What is our choice to be?

It works by trusting God, cleaning house, and helping others . . . . Namaste!

Guilty . . . With An Explanation???

In criminal law, there is no such thing as pleading guilty "with an explanation." One is either innocent or guilty. Yet how often in our thinking do we rationalize or justify past behaviours we are uncomfortable with by saying: "Yes, I did that, but I was justified in my actions"? Indeed, it is for this reason that we read in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (at page 90) that anger - even so-called "justified" anger - "ought to be left to those better qualified to handle it."

We know that our resentments (i.e.,  the built-up or sustained anger which we hold over time), quite literally, have the power to kill us. And, as it is with anger, so too it is with guilt, shame and remorse, etc. If we do not face and deal with the residual feelings of guilt, shame and remorse which we feel for our past and/or current actions, these too have the power to drive the alcoholic addict back to booze and or drugs. Unremedied guilt, like "justified anger," is thus an ego-feeding proposition, a "dubious luxury" that we can no longer afford.

Guilt is essentially an unexpressed fear that our past behaviours will be revealed for all to see, and that named or unnamed "others" will judge us by (and reject us for) such past actions - many of which (at least initially) were taken when we were in the grips of our addiction. Thankfully, in Steps Four through Step Nine we are enabled to face and address past actions that now produce such fears of discovery. And, in Step Ten, we are enabled to proactively face and make amends for any present missteps that could later develop into powerful and dangerous guilt complexes.

By admitting and making amends for our past and current misbehaviour, we rob the ego - that "punishing inner dialogue" which Bill W. so ably describes in the Twelve & Twelve - of much of the raw fuel which it consumes in order to hold sway over us.

The "spiritual awakening" which we seek in order to relieve us of our alcoholic addiction is essentially a matter of consciousness, a matter of slipping the bonds of our limited self or egoic-consciousness in order to effect an inner "God-consciousness"  - i.e., a "conscious contact" with the God of our understanding: see the "Spiritual Experience" appendix at pages 567-568 in the 4th Editions of Alcoholics Anonymous. Thus, in the Third Step Prayer, set out at page 63 of the "Big Book," we pray to be relieved of the powerful and dangerous "bondage of self."

In criminal law, the defendant who elects to plead guilty must do so without reservations or explanations, no matter how powerful they may be. There is no such plea of "guilty with an explanation." It is only in the sentencing phase of the trial, after wrongdoing has been established by his or her admission of guilt, that the defendant may address such factors that may (or may not) mitigate or explain the wrong committed.

So, too, in the case of the alcoholic addict an admission of our wrong thinking and wrongdoings must precede the amends we make and the redemption we seek; for it is through the admission of our wrongs in our initial and continuing moral inventories, and in making amends for such wrongs where possible (i.e., when doing so does not harm others), that we address the root cause, rather than the symptoms, of our alcoholic addiction - the acute self-consciousness and ego-centric thinking we had seemingly escaped from by using booze and/or drugs.

We must freely admit our wrongdoings and then make amends for them, where possible, if we are to overcome the powerful grip of the human ego, a grip that is only strengthened by the feelings of guilt, shame and remorse that we continue to harbour. Like anger, such powerful feelings are best left to those "better qualified" to handle them, for unresolved they are likely to lead us back into the throes of our active addiction, or worse.

Thus, it is by facing and making amends for our wrong actions, rather than by trying to explain away (mostly to ourselves) the guilt and shame we feel in light of such actions, that we are freed from "the wreckage of our past." It is by doing so that we are cut loose from (or, at least, we loosen) the ties of our "old ideas, emotions and attitudes," the mental constructs which seemingly grip us so irrevocably in the throes of our egoic, smaller selves. And, it is by doing so, that we finally awaken to at least the possibility of our emergence into what Bill W. so aptly described as "the sunlight of the Spirit."

If we balk from examining our resentments, fears and conduct, we will inevitably remain in the sway of our own unremedied self, and it will be this smaller self (i.e., the false self of the human ego) that will continue to act as our prosecutor, judge, jury, jailer and (potentially) executor.

On Ego as One's Sense of Self

ego / n. (pl. -os) 1 Metaphysics a conscious thinking subject. 2 Psychology the part of the mind that reacts to reality and has a sense of individuality. 3 a sense of self-esteem.

 self / n., adj. & verb (pl. selves) 1 a person's or thing's own individuality or essence (showed his true self). 2 a person or thing as the object of introspection or reflexive action (the consciousness of self). 3 a one's own interests and pleasures (cares of nothing but self) b concentration on these (self is a bad guide to happiness). . . .

[Source: Concise Oxford English Dictionary.]

The Twelve Steps are a process designed to bring about "ego deflation at depth." It is critical, therefore, to understand from the start just what "ego" is. Popularly, "ego" is seen as "pride" or "a sense of self esteem," but in recovery and recovery literature "ego" is used (as above) to denote the individual as "a conscious thinking subject" and/or "that part of the mind that reacts to reality and has a sense of individuality." As such, the term "ego" is used interchangeably with the term "self" (including its derivatives, "yourself,"  "themselves," "ourselves," etc.) to denote a person's sense of "individuality."

"Ego" as a person's "sense of self-esteem," on the other hand, is not used in recovery literature. Rather,  "ego" as a sense of "pride" or "self esteem" is seen as one of the individual's defects of character and is discussed in depth as such in the Step Seven essay in The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, where it is examined as the first of "the Seven Deadly Sins" - pride, greed, anger, lust, gluttony, envy and sloth.

Unfortunately for the individual who is new in recovery, "ego" and "pride" are often confused and discussed as one and the same concept, while "ego" as a person's "conscious thinking subject" or his or her sense of "self" is overlooked. This, despite "selfishness" and "self-centeredness" (rather than "pride" or "self-esteem") being clearly identified as the primary problem of the alcoholic addict (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 62).

"The main problem of the alcoholic," we read at page 22 of the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous, "centers in his mind, rather than his body." Thereafter, we are shown that we need to establish (and resolutely improve) a conscious contact with "a Power greater than ourselves" - i.e., greater than our egos - that will relieve our alcoholic addiction and restore us to sanity. We are shown, therefore, that we need to tap into a deeper consciousness than that of our ordinary ego consciousness if we are to recover. Fortunately, that is precisely what the Twelve Steps are designed to achieve.

In describing the purpose of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, the author (at page 45) writes:

"Lack of power, that was our dilemma. We had to find a Power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves. Obviously. But where and how were we to find this Power?"

"(T)hat's exactly what this book is about," we read. "It's main object is to enable you to find a Power that is greater than yourself which will solve your problem."

The 'how' of finding a Power greater than one's self or ego is straightforward: it is the surrender, self-survey and house-cleaning set out in the Twelve Steps. The 'where' of finding a Higher Power is similarly straightforward, although it may run counter to many of the beliefs we have been raised with. Rather than looking 'out there' or 'up there' for a God of our own understanding, we are directed to look 'within.' Thus, at page 55 of the 'Big Book,' we read:

"(D)eep down in every man, woman, and child, 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. For faith in a Power greater than ourselves, and miraculous demonstrations of that Power in human lives, are facts as old as man himself."

"We finally saw that faith in some kind of God was a part of our make-up. Sometimes we had to search fearlessly, but He was there. He was as much a fact as we were. We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that He may be found." (Emphasis added.)

"With few exceptions," we read in the Spiritual Experience appendix to the 'Big Book', "our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves. Most of us think this awareness of a Power greater than ourselves is the essence of spiritual experience. Our more religious members call it God-consciousness." (Emphasis added.)

God-consciousness, rather than self-consciousness (or ego-consciousness) is thus the solution to our dilemma. A "new state of consciousness and being" (as described at page 107 of The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions) as distinct from the "calamity, pomp and worship of other things" central to the ego, allows us to think, say and do what we were incapable of doing before. It relieves the irritability, restlessness and discontent that characterizes the ordinary, self-consciousness of the alcoholic addict when not drinking or using.

Through working the Twelve Steps, and by practicing meditation, prayer and contemplation, we are thus relieved of "the bondage of self" from which we sought escape with alcohol and/or drugs, and we emerge (however briefly and sporadically at first) into a new consciousness of being devoid of ego, seeking daily to improve our conscious contact with God.

Ideas, Emotions and Egoic Attitudes

In the second chapter of the 'Big Book' of Alcoholic Anonymous we read that "the main problem of the alcoholic centers in the mind rather in his body." If it were not so, if the alcoholic addict only suffered from a physical craving for more alcohol once he or she begins to drink, not drinking would be the full solution to the addiction. But we know that he or she also, and more importantly, suffers from an obsession of the mind when not drinking. Thus, there is a need for a psychic solution that is more than mere abstinence. The Twelve Steps work because, if taken effectively, they provoke "an entire psychic change" that relieves the obsessive nature of the alcoholic mind.

In retelling Carl Jung's description of the "vital spiritual experiences" that were then known to periodically relieve alcoholism, the renowned psychologist reportedly observed: "Ideas, emotions and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them."

The "ideas" and "emotions" Jung describes are the thoughts and feelings experienced in the alcoholic addict's state of acute self-consciousness, the thoughts and feelings he or she drinks to escape from. "Attitude," on the other hand, is his or her "usual or habitual mode (or way) of thinking." Alcoholic addiction is thus, primarily a problem of self-consciousness, i.e., the existential problem of the human ego.

From this perspective, "ideas" are the fundamental thought content of the ego, "emotions" are the physiological and emotional response to this content, and "attitude" is the habitual identification of the alcoholic addict with the incessant stream of self-conscious, egoic thinking - a "painful inner dialogue" that most individuals (alcoholic and non-alcoholic) take to be "who" they are.

Steps Four, Five, Eight, Nine and Ten are designed to identify what the recurrent thoughts and painful memories of the alcoholic addict are. The sentiments, fears and desires of the ego are identified, and the alcoholic addict soberly faces, perhaps for the first time, what the predominant themes that make up his or her internal life are. Restitution is made for harms caused to others so that the sting is taken out of those thoughts, and an ongoing moral inventory is undertaken to identify egoic thinking and actions.

Steps Three, Six, Seven and Eleven, in their turn, are designed to allow the alcoholic addict to experience those areas of the psyche that lie beneath, but which were formerly obscured by, his or her ordinary self-conscious, egoic thinking. They allow the spiritual dimension of the alcoholic addict's soul to express itself. These are the "new conceptions and motives" that begin to dominate the alcoholic addict in recovery. Suddenly a newly found state of higher consciousness and being - a state of consciousness and being that was lost as the alcoholic addict became almost wholly self-conscious - begins to emerge.

Awareness of the content, feel and incessant nature of the ego, together with an ever growing experience of higher consciousness, is thus the key to kindling a spiritual awakening which will relieve alcoholic thinking. "With few exceptions," we read in the Spiritual Experience appendix to the 'Big Book,' "our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves." More religious members call it "God-consciousness," a part of our Being wholly separate from the ego and which provides the comfort and ease we sought in alcohol and/or drugs.

Higher Consciousness and a New State of Being

"When a man or a woman has a spiritual awakening, the most important meaning of it is that he has now become able to do, feel, and believe that which he could not do before on his own unaided strength and resources alone. He has been granted a gift which amounts to a new state of consciousness and being. He has been set on a path which tells him he is really going somewhere, that life is not a dead end, not something to be endured or mastered. In a very real sense he has been transformed, because he has laid hold of a source of strength which, in one way or another, he had hitherto denied himself." (Emphasis added.)

-- The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pp. 106-107 --

Spiritual awakening, as mystics, philosophers and sages have recognized for millennia, amounts to a "new state of consciousness and being," As Carl Jung describes it in the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous: "Ideas, emotions and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them." Yet such a seemingly new state of consciousness and being is not something foreign to any of us. It is innate.

In the Spiritual Experience Appendix (added in the second edition of the 'Big Book' when there were approximately 150,000 alcoholic addicts in recovery) we read that: "With few exceptions our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves." "Most of us," we continue to read, "think this awareness of a power greater than themselves is the essence of spiritual experience. Our more religious members call it "God-consciousness."" (Emphasis added.)

Once one recognizes that the fundamental problem of the alcoholic addict is not booze and/or drugs but "self" (or the ordinary human "ego") - and that booze and or drugs were but artificial, and therefore temporary, solutions to the existential problems of self-consciousness that ultimately failed to work anymore - then one becomes truly able to believe that there is a Power greater than one's "self" that will restore sanity.

It is not that sanity has disappeared per se, but rather that it has become lost to the sufferer. He or she can no longer effect a conscious contact with a Power greater than him or herself which will restore her to sanity. The "unsuspected inner resource" which exists within all of us - the peace and quiet of mind of a higher consciousness - has been obscured by the calamitous, pompous and outwardly focused and worshipful inner dialogue of the ego. "Ego deflation at depth" is, thus, required so that the sufferer can effect a conscious contact with this Higher Power and then turn his or her will and life over to the God of his or her own understanding.

Meditation and prayer are essential to reconnect to this inner core of our being, but the accurate self survey and sharing of our moral inventory are equally necessary to mute our "old ideas, emotions and attitudes." In completing and sharing our moral inventory, by "admitting to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs," certain things happen. "We can look the world in the eye," we read. "We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. We begin to feel the nearness of our Creator. We have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience." (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 75.)

By building on this newfound spiritual experience, by asking for the courage and humility to face the people we have harmed, by making restitution (where possible) for wrongs done, we transform our inner experience. More and more we can be alone and not be prey to the punishing and unrelenting inner dialogue of the egoic self. We move from being utterly self-conscious to potentially God-conscious people.

Yet this "new state of consciousness and being" requires practice if we are to perfect it. When we are wrong - that is, when we act upon the dictates of our lower self rather than those of our higher being - we can promptly admit it and make restitution if harm has been done. Thereby, by conscious and continual attention to just what we are thinking and doing, we continue to deflate the ego and to reinforce our Higher Self.

Most importantly, by the practice of meditation we improve our ability to attain to this new state of consciousness and being, and when we fall short, we pray to be relieved of "the bondage of self." By practicing these basic principles in all our affairs, this hitherto "unsuspected inner resource" truly becomes a working part of our consciousness, and we are indeed transformed.

Anger: A "Dubious Luxury"

"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 --

There is, perhaps, no stronger emotion than anger. Fueled by fear, it takes over the individual's mind and body. The option of flight, of turning the other cheek, goes out the window and it is, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" Anger is, thus, the ultimate weapon that the ego wields to capture the unwary individual. And once the monster of anger is set in motion it is virtually impossible to arrest the inevitable blow up.

One could liken the individual's struggle with anger to the struggle with a python. One struggles to get out of its grasp, yet the more one struggles the more the beast tightens its coils until it is literally suffocating.

But why is anger so damaging? Why is it pointed out as the most dangerous of our character defects? Why in our moral inventory are resentments the first thing we deal with?

We read in the 'Doctor's Opinion' that alcoholics are "restless irritable and discontent unless they can again experience the the sense of comfort and ease that comes at once by taking a few drinks - drinks that they see others taking with impunity." When gripped by anger or resentment (which is simply the anger we hold onto over time), the feelings of "irritability, restlessness and discontnet" are incalculably multiplied. The alcoholic addict, if he cannot overcome his anger (or does not strike back at the object of his anger, which is inadvisable) is almost certain to drink and/or use drugs to get rid of the emotional maelstrom that anger engenders.

So how, then, does one deal with anger? Perhaps the answer lies in the quotation from the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous, above. If we can recognize anger before it is activated, when it is still either just a "grouch" or a "brainstorm" it is possible for us to deal with anger mindfully. Once our resentments are stoked like a fire, however, the inferno of full-blown anger is nearly impossible to smother.

Our first line of defence against anger is, thus, in listing our resentments in our Fourth Step inventory. When we write down who and what still angers us, identify what causes our resentments, and examine how they affect us, we are then in a position to see the role that we, ourselves, played in past instances of anger. We see that almost inevitably our actions, to some degree or other, have brought on the behaviour that seems to have been directed against us. Knowing, then, that we have been at least in part responsible for how the world treats us, we begin to treat the world itself more charitably. Life is not as serious as our egos make it out to be.

Our second and ultimate line of defense is a reliance on our Higher Power to shape and order our world. Thus, we read in the Third Step essay in The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions that "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 acceptthe things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Thy will not mine be done."

The God of our own understanding is the serenity that allows us to accept the things we cannot change. And who amongst us can change a single outside thing in the moment it takes to say this prayer? The only thing which we can instantaneously change is the state of our consciousness and being. Serenity, is thus the ability to tap into the "unsuspected inner resource" each of us has buried beneath our egoic self-consciousness. Realizing this, we ask for the courage (from the Latin cour meaning 'heart') to go to this deeper, higher consciousness. And, finally, we ask for the wisdom to know that there is a clear difference between our egoic self-consciousness and its cauldrom of fears and desires, and the higher God-consciousness of peace and quiet.

Anger is thus the "dubious luxury" of so-called "normal people." To the extent that they can sustain their anger, so much the better (or the worse) for them; but we need not suffer. Clearing away the wreckage of old resentments allows us the psychic room to effectively utilize the "spiritual toolkit" we learn in sobriety, knowing that "this too shall pass" - albeit quickly or slowly. And, if that is so, why not let it pass quickly?

A New State of Consciousness and Being

". . . (T)he disciplining of the will must have as its accompaniment a no less thorough disciplining of the consciousness. There has to be a conversion, sudden or otherwise, not merely of the heart, but also of the senses and of the perceiving mind."

-- Aldous Huxley --
("The Perennial Philosophy," page 72.)

The Twelve Steps utilized by Alcoholics Anonymous (and its sister organizations) have as one of their principle objectives the goal of "ego deflation at depth." Just as the alcoholic addict drinks and/or uses drugs to counteract and overcome his or her ordinary self-consciousness (or ego-consciousness), so too our ordinary state of egoic self-consciousness must be overcome in sobriety if we are to enjoy the "new state of consciousness and being" that Bill W. describes at page 107 of The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.

A "new state of consciousness and being" may perhaps be better described as a "renewed" state of consciousness and being. That is, in overcoming the thought structures of the ego (or separated "self") we regain the sense of wholeness and completeness we had as children; that is, we regain the state of consciousness and being we had before self-conscious thought became our sense of identity; that is, we are in effect "reborn" (as described at page 63 of the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous).

Our acceding to this renewed state of holistic consciousness and being may rightly be called a "conversion" experience, as it is labelled, above, by Aldous Huxley (one of Bill W.'s many non-alcoholic spiritual friends). And, albeit whether it happens suddenly or over a prolonged period of time, it is clear that such a "spiritual awakening" is the solution to the existential problem of self-inflicted alcoholism and addiction, a point reinforced in Carl Jung's correspondence with Bill W. 

In his letter of January 31, 1961, explaining how one might achieve such a "spiritual awakening," Jung observed:

"The only right and legitimate way to such an experience is that it happens to you in reality and it can only happen to you when you walk on a path which leads you to higher understanding. You might be led to that goal by an act of grace or through a personal and honest contact with friends, or through a higher education of the mind beyond the confines of mere rationalism."

The Twelve Steps are just such a path "in reality" which leads "to higher understanding." It does not matter, as Jung notes, whether we are led  to this path through a sudden "act of grace," through the "personal and honest contact with friends" which we attain with our sponsors and fellow alcoholic addicts, or through the "higher education of the mind" we attain through prayer and meditation. The point is that there occurs within each of us not only a change of "heart," but also a change in both our "senses and perceptions" that could not have been readily achieved through other, non-spiritual means.

"What often takes place in a few months could seldom have been accomplished by years of self-discipline," we read in the Big Book's Spiritual Experience Appendix. "With few exceptions," we are told, "our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves." "Most of us," we then read, "think this awareness of a Power greater than ourselves is the essence of spiritual experinece," while "(o)ur more religious members call it "God-consciousness.""

We can thus see that is not sufficient just to turn our will and our lives over to the care of the God of our understanding, as set out in Steep Three. We must have as the"accompaniment" of this critical Third Step "a no less thorough disciplining of the consciousness," as Huxley points out.

It is precisely through Steps Four to Step Eleven that we "discipline" our consciousness, moving however slowly from the self-centeredness of our ego-consciousness to the other-centeredness of God-consciousness. It is by following this path "in reality" that we attain to the "new state of consciousness and being" that arrests both our alcoholism and our overwhelming and painful self-consciousness. It is on this "path" that we are "reborn."

Overcoming Our Fears and Desires

"Since most of us are born with an abundance of natural desires, it isn't strange that we often let these far exceed their intended purposes. When they drive us blindly, or we willfully demand that they supply us with more satisfactions or pleasures than are possible or due us, that is the point at which we depart from the degree of perfection that God wishes for us here on earth. That is the measure of our character defects, or, if you wish, of our sins."

-- The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 65 --

Fear, we read at Step Seven in The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, is the "chief activator" of our defects of character. But what, we should ask, is the root of this self-centered fear? In Step Six, above, Bill W. suggests that the root cause of fear is desire - in this instance, otherwise natural desires that far exceed their natural bounds. Such overblown desires, he notes, are "the measure" of our character defects. That is, our blind desires create the mental room for our character defects to manifest and operate.

This is unsurprising, for if we look at the resentments list in our Step Four inventory we will see again and again that the action of others had impinged on our desires - our desires for security, for sex relationships, for personal relationships etc. These are (as Bill notes) natural desires; however, to the extent that we demand more security, more personal relationships, and more sex "than is possible or due to us," we create a fear that we will never have enough - enough security, enough money, enough friends, enough sex etc., etc., etc.

And just to the extent that these overblown desires manifest in fear, will we act act self-centeredly in response to them, trying vainly to satisfy and fulfill desires that are in all reality unquenchable. Chasing these desires we are, thus, stuck in a rut of our own making. "Living upon a basis of unsatisfied demands," we read, "we are in a state of continual disturbance and frustration. Therefore no peace was to be had unless we could find a means of reducing those demands." (Twelve and Twelve, page 76.)

How then do we go about reducing these demands? The answer it seems is, not surprisingly, right in the Steps. If we continue to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, we will experience a freedom from these desires gone wild.

Not convinced? Consider for a moment the propositions and promises we read concerning Step Three in the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous (at pp. 62-63):

"(W)e decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to be our Director. He is the Principal, we are His agents. He is the Father, and we are His children. Most good ideas are simple, and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we passed to freedom."

"When we sincerely took this position, all sorts of remarkable things followed. We had a new Employer. Being all powerful, He provided what we needed, if we kept close to Him and performed His work well. Established on such a footing we became less and less interested in ourselves, our little plans and designs. More and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life. As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully, as we became conscious of His presence, we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow, and the hereafter. We were reborn." (Emphasis added.)

To the degree that we seek and perform God's will for us, rather than relying on our own narrow selves, life itself will provide what we need, but not necessarily what we want. Our choice then, is whether we rely on self-will or God's will. If we rely on God's will, not only will we find that we have what we "need," we are also promised that we will "lose our fear of today, tomorrow and the hereafter."

Thus, conscious faith in the efficacy of "a Power greater than ourselves" to provide what we need is the solution that removes the desires that underlie our fears. Thus in relying on the God of our understanding rather than our self-centered thinking, we are released from the cycle of fear and desire that activates our character defects. We are then, in effect, "reborn."

"We Were Reborn"

"This is the how and why of it. First of all we had to quit playing God. It didn't work. Next, we decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to be our Director. He is the Principal, we are His agents. He is the Father, and we are His children. Most good ideas are simple, and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we passed to freedom."

"When we sincerely took this position, all sorts of remarkable things followed. We had a new Employer. Being all powerful, He provided what we needed, if we kept close to Him and performed His work well. Established on such a footing we became less and less interested in ourselves, our little plans and designs. More and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life."

"As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully, as we became conscious of His presence, we began to lose our fear or today, tomorrow, and the hereafter. We were reborn."

-- Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 62-63 --

Continuing the analogy of "the actor," the basic text observes that as we come to believe that there is "a Power greater than ourselves" that can restore us to sanity, that we can find a new "Director" in life, and that we can, in fact, "be reborn." What, then, are we to make of such promises?

In the Step One essay in The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions we read that we have so "warped our minds" with the obsession for drinking that "only an act of Providence can remove it from us." Thus, unless the obsession to drink is lifted, we are doomed to go on drinking. However, we are also told that there is something already provided and established within us - i.e., "Providence" - that can remove the obsession to drink. Our task, then is to tap into this "unsuspected inner resource." To do so is to be "reborn." How, then, is this to be accomplished?

First, it seems, we must acknowledge that there is in each of us (i.e., "deep down within every man woman and child") a spark of the Divine. Although in nearly every instance this Inner Divinity is covered over and obscured by the unrelenting thoughts of the egoic self-consciousness that has firmly rooted itself during our active addiction - and, perhaps, beyond - it is there. Our job, then, is to get past "the calamity, pomp and worship of other things" that obscures our true being. (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 55.) This is the purpose of the first three of A.A.'s Twelve Steps.

Recognizing our own Inner Divinity (literally 're-cognizing,' or becoming 'cognizant of' once again) is to re-establish a conscious contact with "the God of our own understanding." It is to recognize that there are many inner realities, the Primary Reality being that we are part of a Unitive Whole. This is, indeed, Providence, as it is innate within each of us. Learning what separates us from this Providence, however, requires an inner housekeeping. "Trust God, clean house, and help others." we are often reminded. This inner housecleaning (and keeping our "inner house" clean), in turn, is the purpose of Steps Four through Ten - i.e. the second phase of the Twelve Steps.

Finally, if we are to "be reborn," we must learn to live life on a different basis, and within our newly rediscovered higher God-consciousness. To do so, we are warned again and again, we must be free of self. Thus, we devote ourselves to how we can contribute to life and help others, rather than focusing on what we can drag out of life in order to gratify our narrow, self-conscious egos.

It is in endeavouring to live life on this Higher Plane, that we truly express the God-consciousness that Providence has provided each of us with, irrespective of how others act. It is a large and elusive existential challenge, but in the end, it is the challenge of our lives. Before, we unknowingly tried to seek and maintain a higher consciousness by getting high on alcohol and/or drugs. Now, we seek to attain to a natural Higher Consciousness by consciously striving for the Divine in reality. In doing so, we are reborn to our natural lives, and to the highest challenge that any of us can meet.  "We are," indeed, "reborn."