Needing To Know & Needing To Be Right

"Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely."

Alcoholics Anonymous, "How It Works," p. 58.

I've often heard it said that two of the hardest things to do in life are: (a) to admit we were wrong, and (b) to admit we do not know. Doing either, it seems at first, threatens our instinctive drives for security, sex and society. If we don't know, or if (gasp!) we're wrong, what will become of us?

The first of these challenges, admitting that we were wrong, is explicitly dealt with in Step Ten. When we are wrong, we "promptly admit it." In time, and with practice, admitting we've made a mistake and/or acted wrongly becomes much easier. It is a valuable discipline which leads directly to ego-deflation and self-abnegation (i.e., the "forgetting" of "self").

Dr. Wayne Dyer

'Letting Go and Letting God', as spiritual teacher, Dr. Wayne Dyer, observes, "involves relinquishing ego’s attachment to, or fear of, something. The single most pronounced attachment for most of us during the morning of our lives," he points out, "is the attachment to being right!"

"There’s nothing (the) ego loves more than to be right," Dyer notes, "which makes it an important and satisfying attachment to practice letting go of."

The second proposition - admitting that "we do not know" - is not as explicitly addressed in the Twelve Steps, however. But it is an integral part of the Step One admission that our lives were, are and will remain unmanageable. After all, if we rather than God were omniscient, omnipotent and all-knowing our lives would not be unmanageable, and we would be just fine, thank you. But that is decidedly not how it is.

In his many talks, A.A. pioneer, and author, Chuck C. ("A New Pair of Glasses"), would point out that he was brought up to believe he must "out-think, out-smart and out-perform" all comers in order to get what is needed out of life. He, like all of us, had fallen victim to the "delusion" that all would be well and we could "wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if (we) only manage well." ('Big Book,' page 61.) It is this delusion, our pride, and the fear of the unknown that grips us when we encounter the unfamiliar that makes it so difficult to admit, even to ourselves, that we are not all-knowing. 

If we admit that "we do not know" what to do in a situation, "we do not know" the answer to a question, or, perhaps, "we do not know" some key information we think we really should know, how does that make us feel? How does it affect how others will think of us? Are we not somehow diminished in our own eyes and the eyes of others? Isn't such an admission shattering to one's self-confidence? Do we not need to know in order to manage life?

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

Paradoxically, as ever, and as counter-intuitive as it seems at first, the admission that "we do not know" is a sign of inner strength and an honest admission of our powerlessness. No one person is omniscient and knows everything he or she might wish, and this despite what he or she wishes to convey to the world. After all, as spiritual teacher, Andrew Cohen, points out, the reality is that "beyond a certain point we do not know, we cannot know, and we do not need to know."

Our readiness and ability to let go of this "need to know" is, thus, like our ability to admit it when we are wrong, a good indicator of our spiritual growth. The ego has a fierce desire to know everything and be right all of the time. In facing, accepting and admitting to others the truths that "we do not know" and/or that "we were wrong" we take giant strides towards curbing our self-righteousness and moving beyond the "small self" of the ego towards the "Authentic Self" which is the core and essence of our Being.

Life Is Inherently Unmanageable

Do not be fooled by the delusion that somehow life has suddenly become "manageable" now that you have stopped drinking and/or drugging. This is the last of the "three delusions" that are identified in the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous. Admission that one does not have the requisite power to "manage" one's  life is the completion of Step One. In reality, life becomes wholly "acceptable" to us, rather than "manageable" by us. In seeing this, the description of the individual as an "actor" at pages 60-62 of the 'Big Book' is most helpful.

"Most people try to live by self-propulsion," we read. That is, we try to manage life and all its details in order to satisfy the desires and quell the fears that arise through our constant discursive thinking - i.e., the fears and desires of the false, egoic self. In doing so we may have the best intentions. That is, if life's circumstances turn out the way we try to shape them, the results will be good for everyone, even ourselves. (But remember the old adage: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions.")

In trying to give effect to our plans and schemes we must, of necessity, try to influence and direct the thoughts, words and actions of others, for "no man is an island." In doing so, we read, we "may sometimes be quite virtuous . . . kind, considerate, patient, generous . . . even modest and self-sacrificing." Driven by what we think is necessary or desirable, we will do almost anything to have life proceed as we wish it to. And, if being the good guy doesn't work, we "may be mean, egotistical, selfish and dishonest." In short, we will do almost anything that is required to have life come off as we want it too; and, if it doesn't, we are likely to become "angry, indignant, (and) self-pitying."

"What," we are asked, is the actor's "basic problem"?

"Is he not really a self-seeker even when trying to be kind? Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction out of life if only he manages well?" (Emphasis added.)

 In his Meditations, the Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher, Marcus Aurelius, made the apt observation that: "Life is inherently unmanageable." (Emphasis added.)

It is most helpful, I find, to remember two things: (a) that "(t)he problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind" ('Big Book,' page 23); and, (b) that "lack of power (is) our dilemma" ('Big Book,' page 45). We lack the inherent power to manage life and all its many aspects; yet, when identified with the ego, and attached to its stream of incessant thoughts, we continually fall into the trap of thinking that we can - and must - shape the circumstances and outcomes of our lives. Doing so, we react to life instead of responding to it. And, typically, we react rather poorly.

"(A)cceptance," we read, "is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes."

Acceptance of life's inherent unmanageability allows us to give effect to the "three pertinent ideas" set out at the end of the "How It Works" reading. Both "before and after" we give up alcohol (and/or other drugs), it must be clear:

(a) "That we (are) alcoholic and (cannot) manage our own lives."
(b) "That probably no human power (can relieve) our alcoholism."
(c) "That God (can) and (will) if He (is) sought."

Admission and acceptance of these three principles allows us to move forward to Steps Four through Step Nine which will effectively deflate our ego (and its sense of separateness), relieve of us of our old ideas and way of thinking, and thereby enable us to experience a "spiritual awakening" within our Being that truly allows us to "accept life on life's terms."

* * * * *

(Note also: The description of "the actor" applies not only to the alcoholic, but to "most people" - i.e. to so-called "normal people" - as well. When we understand that virtually everyone we encounter is self-identified and ego-centric, it helps us to understand and be unaffected by their often-times odd attitudes, their seeming eccentricities, and their selfish or self-centered behaviours. In seeing this, we are enabled to truly forgive them their "trespasses," knowing that they too are merely victims of the ego's "delusion" that they too can "wrest satisfaction and happiness out of life by managing well," and that therefore they must manage life at all costs.)

Expectations, Acceptance and Serenity

". . . (A)cceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, or thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms. I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes."

 The paragraph, above, on "acceptance" (from Acceptance is the Answer, p. 417) is likely the most familiar quote from the personal stories in the back of the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous. I have read it discussed it, and have heard it discussed in countless meetings. And, yet, as important a message as it is, in recent weeks I have been reflecting on the following simple spiritual calculus that the author includes on the last page of his story (page 420):

• ". . . (M)y serenity is inversely proportional to my expectations."

• ". . . (M)y serenity is directly proportional to my level of acceptance."

 The more expectations I have for how people, circumstances and the world should behave, the less serenity I will have, as only God is omniscient. On the other hand, the more acceptive I am of how the people, circumstances and the world change around me, the more serenity I have.

To me, this is the personal manifestation of the second part of Step One, the admission that life has become (and remains) unmanageable by me. In fact, it always was unmanageable by my efforts, but wholly managed in its totality. Thus, I was continually disturbed precisely because all my efforts to shape people, things and circumstances to the way I thought they should be almost always backfired. People, circumstances and the world continued to evolve in the most unexpected (to me) ways. Only grudgingly and belatedly would I reconcile myself to those changes, but with the caveat that I would then have new set of expectations as to how people and the world should behave in these new found  circumstances. On and on this non-virtuous circle drove me through life.

The gist of the spiritual calculus laid out by the author illustrates how expectations and acceptance are really opposite sides of a coin. The greater my expectations, the less accepting I am, and the less serenity I have. The more accepting I am, the fewer expectations I have, and the more serene I am.

"Mastery of life," Eckhart Tolle once observed, "is the opposite of control." Such mastery, I might add, lies in the acceptance of life without expectations.

Three Delusions and a Few Conclusions

"(T)he main problem of the alcoholic," we read in the 'Big Book,' "centers in the mind." Why is this apparently so? Firstly, the alcoholic addict may harbor the delusion that, against all evidence, one day he or she may be able to control and enjoy his or her drinking once again. Secondly, there is the delusion that he or she is like other people, or one day will be. And thirdly, there is the delusion that he or she may be able "to wrest satisfaction and happiness out of life" if only he manages well.

The first of these delusions, that the alcoholic addict is one day going to be able to control and enjoy his drinking is belied by the evidence, both personal and anecdotal. No one but the alcoholic addict him or herself can effectually make the diagnosis that he or she is indeed alcoholic. Yet we read in the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous that if when drinking you have little or no control over how much you imbibe, or you find that you cannot quit entirely on your own, you are probably alcoholic. Only the alcoholic addict can honestly answer those questions for him or her self. Anecdotally, medical doctors have established that the the phenomenon of craving for more and more booze when a person drinks is limited to one class of drinkers only - alcoholics.

Personally, I know that when I drank (or, in my case, used drugs) I always craved more and more, and that when I wasn't drinking or drugging, my mind was obsessed with just how and when I was going to be able to do so again.  I couldn't control how much I took, nor could I quit entirely on my own, and I thus remain convinced, even after twenty-odd years clean and sober, that I am both physically and mentally alcoholic. The delusion that one day I might be able to drink (or drug) like normal people who do not do so addictively has been smashed.

The delusion that I am like other people, or one day may be, is a delusion that is more subtle and persistent, however. I am not like other people, nor will I be, so far as booze or drugs is concerned, but am I not so in all other respects? Yes, but not exactly.

"Most people," we read at page 60 in the 'Big Book,' "try to live by self-propulsion. Each person is like the actor who wants to run the show, is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way." In this respect, we alcoholic addicts, I have come to see are like other people, only more so. Happily, but cautiously, I can say that I am no different from other people in this respect: but most importantly, I know that I am.

An attitude of selfishness, self-centeredness and self-consciousness - the underlying ego identification with whatever we are thinking at the time - we read over and over in the 'Big Book' is the underlying problem of the alcoholic addict. We pray to be relieved of "the bondage of self," we make an accurate moral self-survey and share it, we make amends where possible for the harm we have done when acting on self, and we acknowledge that we are self-centered as we endeavor to be freed from the character defects which make us this way.

This is both a curse and a blessing. Acknowledging that we are "self-centered to the extreme," we can look around and see that most other people are merely 'extremely self-centered.' For most 'normal' people, their self-centeredness works to a greater or lesser degree - and it is usually the latter. But for the alcoholic addict whose two solutions to the innate irritability, restlessness and discontent of egoic self-consciousness is either to drink (and/or drug) or to seek a spiritual solution that will provide us with ease and comfort, such self-centerdeness is, we read, "infinitely grave." Shattering the delusion that we are like other people, or some day will be, is thus imperative if we are to make changes in our lives so that down the road (and, many times, years down the road) we do not run into a seemingly intractable situation in which our only alternative looks like a drink.

On the other hand, knowing that so-called 'normal people' are also predominantly self-centered (or egocentric) confers advantages upon the alcoholic addict in recovery. It allows us to understand the oftentimes peculiar motivations that drives others, it allows us to truly forgive others for their actions that may have hurt us, it allows us to make amends for harm done where we can, and when we are wrong it allows us to promptly admit it. We all, it turns out, have feet of clay.

Lastly, the delusion that we will be able to "wrest satisfaction and happiness out of life" if only we manage well also has to go by the boards. Each of us (and all our loved ones) will struggle, age, get sick and eventually die. Self-centered 'normal' folks will continue to step on our toes. The unexpected will continue to happen. The best laid plans will continue to go awry, and life will continue to be inherently unmanageable. Neither sobriety nor spirituality will make life "manageable." But working the Twelve Steps, if practiced diligently, will make life "acceptable" to us if we allow ourselves to "Let Go and Let God." "Mastery of life," noted an enlightened man, "is the opposite of control."

"Here is the how and the why of it," we read at page 62 of the 'Big Book.' "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," we read, "are simple, and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we pass to freedom."

We will not be able to control and enjoy our drinking one day, we are not like other people, and our lives do not become manageable by us. The acceptance of these facts of our lives, together with accurate self-survey, prayer, meditation and selfless service to others, however, allows us to live full, God-conscious, productive and loving lives.

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?

Expectations, Anger and Resentments

Anger and fear - in fact all my character defects - seem to be inversely proportional to the expectations I have for myself, for others, and for life in general. In this, I do not think I am alone.

My egoic thinking has constant expectations about how circumstances should and will unfold, despite a lifetime of experience to the contrary; and my self-centered, egoic thoughts about what I am convinced is happening, or is about to happen, give rise to the emotional upheavals characteristic of my defects of character. Thus it is the thoughts of the ego that lead to the feelings of restlessness, irritability and discontent that characterize the alcoholic addict in the throes of his or her disease.

It is precisely to the extent that I continue to identify with my ego, or smaller "self," and thereby continue to harbour such expectations, that I suffer. And if such thinking persists over time, fears grow into phobias, desires grow into entitlements, and anger turns into seething resentments. If I am to be free, I must be free of this selfish, self-centered egoic thinking that is the root of all my problems.

But how is such a shift in the focus of my thinking to come about? First, by truly admitting that life is unmanagable by any individual. Second, by truly turning my will and life over to the care of God, and leaving it there. And, third, by accepting that life is unfolding exactly the way in which it is. For, as the emperor-philosopher Marcus Aurelius observed: "To argue with what is is insanity; and yet, the thoughtless can seldom refrain from doing so."

It is precisely at this point that the well-known passage on "acceptance" is invaluable.

"(A)cceptance," we read, "is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes."

[Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., p. 417.]

Acceptance of life on life's terms is thus directly proportional to my serenity and peace of mind, just as my expectations are inversely proportional to my egoic, self-centered malaise. Therefore, the old question arises: "Do I want to be right, or do I want to be happy?" What will I strive for acceptance, or the fulfillment of my expectations?

The answer should be clear to anyone who has long suffered the unchecked turmoil of his or her character defects. Acceptance, brings the freedom, hope and love which is the grace of God; expectations breed the anger and despair which is "the bondage of self."

Power, Coercion and Acceptance

In yet another paradox, the first half of Step One - the admittance that we are alcoholic - is perhaps the easiest one to take, yet admitting (and acting like one has admitted) that our lives "have become unmanageable" - the second half of Step One - is perhaps the most difficult of all. After all, from our earliest years on, we have been taught by our society and culture that life needs to be managed, and managed well - or else!

The great analogy of the alcoholic as "the actor" who insists on running all of the show, including, lights, scenery, ballet etc., is startlingly apt when we consider it deeply and see that it addresses the second half of Step One explicitly and directly.

"Most people try to live by self-propulsion," we read on page 60 of the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous. "Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show, is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way. If only his arrangements would stay put, if only people would do as he wished, the show would be great. Everybody, including himself, would be pleased. Life would be wonderful. In trying to make these arrangements our actor may sometimes be quite virtuous. He may be kind, considerate, patient, generous, even modest and self-sacrificing. On the other hand, be may be mean, egotistical, selfish and dishonest. But as with most humans, he is more likely to have varied traits.

"What," we are asked, "Usually happens? The show doesn't come off very well. He begins to think that life doesn't treat him will. He decides to exert himself more. He becomes on the next occasion, still more demanding or gracious, as the case may be. Still the play does not suit hum. Admitting he may be somewhat at fault, he is sure that other people are more to blame. He becomes angry, indignant, self-pitying. What is his basic trouble? Is he not a self-seeker even when trying to be kind. Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this life if he only manages well? Is it not evident to all the rest of the players that these are the things he wants? And do not his actions make each of them wish to retaliate, snatching all that they can get out of the show? Is he not, even in his best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony?

"Our actor is self-centered - ego-centric, as people like to call it today." (Emphasis added.)

Bluntly, or perhaps very, very, subtly, almost everyone of us - alcoholic addict and non-alcoholic addict alike -  try in our own ways to manipulate and shape life in order to satisfy our instinctive drives, staunch our fears, and/or quench our fundamentally unquenchable desires. We in A.A. (or any of its many sister organizations) are very fortunate, indeed, in that we learn that life is inherently unmanageable, it is already organized under a far Higher Power that we often cannot or do not see, and that our task is to accept and adapt ourselves to life, rather than trying to bend it to our own narrow self-interests.

That our futile grabs for power to control the fundamentally unmanageable is all-pervasive, and ultimately futile and frustrating is illustrated in the following passages written by the late, great Sufi teacher, Idries Shah:

"Almost all human organizations," Shah notes, "are power organizations."

"Since the receipt and and exercising of power is imagined to be connected with forceful behaviour," he observes, "people cannot any longer identify a power organization. Consequently they do not understand what they are doing and what is happening to them."

"As an example," he points out, "force and influence are contained in the 'emotional blackmail' situation to exactly the same extent as in one where anger or fothrightness are expressed."

"When people in authority have the reputation for being kind and soft-hearted, others assume (quite wrongly) that the pressure exerted by such people is not pressure at all. If someone says: 'You must do this because I would be disappointed if you did not,' he is saying exactly the same as 'Do this because I demand that you do it.'"

"To say that this fact has been observed already is of no importance whatever, because something which has been said or observed and not acted upon is as good as non-existent as a lesson."

"People try to exercise power upon those 'below' them," he notes. "But people upon whom power is supposed to being exercised are, in fact, by frustrating the effect of that power, themselves exercising power."

"Power situations can only exist," Shah observes, "where there is a contract arrived at violently or otherwise, in which people will do things or else things can be made uncomfortable for them. 'Do this or I will make you uncomfortable' is the formula for both types of power: the power exerted by people above on those below, and the power exerted from the people below upon those above."

"Where there is no such contract," he notes, "where one party can do without the other, NO POWER SITUATION CAN EXIST. Neither can it be deemed to exist. But, faced with a situation in which there is no power ingredient, people CONTINUE TO BEHAVE AS IF THEY CAN COERCE OR BE COERCED."

"In doing this," Shah points out, (people) give themselves away. To any observer who is aware of the power phenomenon, they clearly show that they belong to the power structure and want to operate it. They generally become furiously angry when this is pointed out to them.

[Idries Shah,"Knowing How to Know," pp. 79-80.]

At Step Three, we make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand Him. Yet, how often when we are in a situation where there is no effective power that we can personally exert ("a situation in which there is no power ingredient," to use Shah's terminology) do we act as if there is some personal power we can exert to change things? How many of us lean on the horn to let out our frustrations when stuck in slow traffic? How many seethe inwardly or act rudely when forced to wait at the checkout counter as a clerk checks the price of some item or another? How many of us are judgmental and inwardly self-righteous when they see people doing things that they assure themselves they would never do? Almost all of us, I am sure.

Having nominally accepted our personal powerlessness to manage life, and having done (we assure ourselves) our best to turn our will and our lives over to the care of a Power greater than ourselves, we continue to forget our personal inability to manage life and, in accordance with Khan's analysis, we continue to behave as is we can coerce others to bend to our will, or we ourselves continue to be coerced to bend to the will of others.

Accepting the inherent unmanageability of life, and turning our will and our lives over to the care of the God of our understanding - and leaving it there - are ideals that take both great insight and years of practice to even approach.

Acceptance: An Old Take On a New Perspective

(A)cceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes."

[Alcoholics Anonymous, page 417.]

Bill W. once commented that the only thing original in A.A. was the ability of one alcoholic to relate to another alcoholic at depth, and that all the rest had been borrowed from other sources. Not a surprising comment when one considers the universality of true religious or spiritual insights and teachings.

On "acceptance" we have the oft-quoted passage, above, from the story "Acceptance Was The Answer" in the back of the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous. Below, is a similar passage on the need for acceptance of people, places, things and situations as they manifest in our lives, this time from Marcus Aurelius, a Roman Emperor more famous for his Meditations than for his then-renowned victories over the Germanic tribes.

"If you are distressed by anything external," writes Aurelius, "the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. If the cause of your trouble lies in your own character, set about reforming your principles; who is there to hinder you? If it is the failure to take some apparently sound course of action that is affecting you, then why not take it instead of fretting? 'Because there is an insuperable obstacle in the way.' In that case, do not worry; the responsibility for inaction is not yours. 'But life is not worth living with this thing undone.' Why then, bid life a good-humoured farewell; accepting the frustration peacefully, and dying like any other man whose actions have not been inhibited."

[Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations," VIII:47.]

Of course, Marcus Aurelius, was a philosophic stoic, a mindset that is increasingly uncommon in a culture that tells us we can do anything, achieve anything, be anything we want if we just apply enough power and have enough fortitude to prevail. But "lack of power," remember, "was our dilemma." Fortunately for him (and for us), this 'philosopher-king' recognized that all power comes from a higher Power - i.e., the divinity within himself.

"Take me and cast me where you will," he writes, "I shall still be possessor of the divinity within me, serene and content so long as it can feel and act as becomes its constitution. Is the matter of such moment that my soul should be affected by it, and changed for the worse, to become a cowering craven thing, suppliant and spiritless? Could anything at all be of such consequence as that?"

[Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations," VIII:45]

Wise words from a wise sage. Further wise words, with which I will close this posting, concern Aurelius' take on that "Great Reality" which each of us, knowingly or unknowingly, have "deep down within us;" the higher Power which, in this passage, Aurelius calls his "master-reason."

"The master-reason is never the victim of any self-disturbance; it never, for example; excites passions within itself. If another can inspire it with terror or pain, let him do so; but by itself it never permits its own assumptions to mislead it into such moods. By all means let the body take thought for itself to avoid hurt, if it can; and if it be hurt let it say so. But the soul, which alone can know fear or pain, and on whose judgement their existence depends, takes no harm; you cannot force the verdict from it. The master-reason is self-sufficient, knowing no needs except those it creates for itself, and by the same token can experience no disturbances or obstructions unless they be of its own making."

[Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations," VII:16.]

"When force of circumstance upsets your equanimity," Aurelius advises, "lose no time in recovering your self-control, and do not remain out of tune longer than you can help. Habitual recurrence to the harmony will increase your mastery over it."

Dealing with Fear: "Face Everything and Avoid Nothing"

"(Fear) was an evil, corroding thread; the fabric or our existence was shot through with it."

-- Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 67 --

"The achievement of freedom from fear," wrote Bill W., "is a lifetime undertaking, one that can never be wholly completed. When under heavy attack, acute illness, or in other conditions of serious insecurity, we shall all react, well or badly, as the case may be. Only the vainglorious claim perfect freedom from fear, though their very grandiosity is really rooted in the fears they have temporarily forgotten."

"Therefore," he observed, "the problem of resolving fear has two aspects. We shall have to try for all the freedom of fear that is possible for us to attain. Then we shall need to find both the courage and the grace to deal constructively with whatever fear remains. Trying to understand our fears, and the fears of others, is but a first step. The larger question is how, and where, we go from there."

[Bill W., January 1962 Grapevine article.]

There are two widely repeated acronyms for the word "fear" that one often hears: "Face everything and recover," or, "F**k everything and run," The first, is of course, the spiritual solution to the fears that underlie and are prone to activate our character defects, while the second is the way that so often leads to a relapse into addictive behavior. "The first requirement of spirituality is courage," Gandhi observed. "A coward can never be moral." We must, therefore, uncover and encounter our fears, as while they remain active within us, we will inevitably have to face them.

Spiritual teacher, Andrew Cohen, observes that "facing everything, and avoiding nothing," one of the central tenets of leading an enlightened life, "is the ultimate form of spiritual practice." The human ego - our egocentric smaller "self" - is a false identity that is primarily created by the fears and desires that we identify as being central to the very essence of our being. It is a false and powerless construct, however, as we find "the Great Reality deep down within us." (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 55.) Listing, facing, and ultimately facing down our fears whenever and wherever they crop up is, thus, an essential requirement of attaining and maintaining our sobriety, and thereafter finding out just 'who' and 'what' we are - what Cohen calls "the authentic self" as opposed to "the ego."

"Only an individual who truly wants to be free will be prepared to abandon the pretense of the ego and to see things as they are," Cohen notes. "Only one who strives for transparency, authenticity, and emptiness of self, and who is deeply motivated by the impulse to evolve, is going to be able to face reality in this way. Anyone else, in the end, will find that they are too invested in maintaining the pretense of a separate self to even begin to practice (facing everything and avoiding nothing) in earnest."

"But," he notes, "as we begin to identify less and less with the fears and desires of the ego and more and more with the evolutionary passion of the authentic self, we will experience less fear, hesitation, and resistance to seeing what is true. We will find the strength and the moral courage to be able to bear whatever we need to bear in order to face everything, and avoid nothing, at all times, in all places, under all circumstances. Why? Because we want to be free more than anything else. "                                                                   [www.andrewcohen.org/teachings/face-everything.asp]

This, I believe, is thus the answer to Bill's larger question of "how and where to go" after the recognition and listing of our fears. It is where our fears - and their flipsides of desire - are burnt up in the crucible of our higher God-consciousness and our faith in "a Power greater than ourselves," that is, our self-centered egos.

"In my own case," Bill observed, "the foundation stone of freedom from fear is faith: a faith that, despite all worldly appearances to the contrary, causes me to believe that I live in a universe that makes sense. To me, this means a belief in a Creator who is all power, justice and love; a God who intends for me a purpose, a meaning and a destiny to grow, however little and halting, towards his own image and likeness." A God, he might add, that embraces, and is embraced by, our "authentic selves."

Spiritual Conceit and Prejudice: From Closed to Open-Mindedness

"Instead of regarding ourselves as intelligent agents, spearheads of God's ever advancing Creation, we agnostics and atheists chose to believe that our human intelligence was the last word, the alpha and omega, the beginning and end of all. Rather vain of us, wasn't it?"

"We, who have traveled this dubious path, beg you to lay aside prejudice, even against organized religion. We have learned that whatever the human frailties of various faiths may be, those faiths have given purpose and direction to life. People of faith have a logical idea of what life is about."

[Alcoholics Anonymous, page 49.]

Religion - from the Latin 're' + 'ligare' - means to retie or reunite, and all of the world's great wisdom traditions lay out methods and practices by which this reunification of the individual with a Power greater than his or her "self" may be accomplished. Thus, there is nothing in the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous that need threaten the religious newcomer. It is more often than not, I suspect, the non-religious or decidedly atheistic newcomer that is threatened by all this talk of a God of one's understanding. I am sure that many, like me, were nearly fatally put off by all mention of a Higher Power.

When I got my first sponsor in A.A., he told me that I had to look beyond the First
Step and its admittance of alcoholism and unmanageability, that I had to look at the Step Two. Being swift on the uptake, I immediately asked him the absolutely wrong question: "What is God?" Of course, at this stage I was not even concerned with God. Step Two merely suggests belief in a power greater than one's "self." I would have been far better served, it turns out, to have asked him what was meant by "self."

As it was, my first sponsor gave me the old fob, by explaining that "God" in his view was "Good Orderly Direction." Don't get me wrong, my first sponsor thus made A.A. "acceptable" to me. But for ten years after his premature death I chased after getting some kind of "good orderly direction" in my thinking, and the two university degrees and professional training I received culminated in a near-fatal suicide and admittance to a psychiatric facility. This is the power that "self" unchecked can have - without picking up a drink.

I was fortunate, indeed, to have an A.A. "old-timer" - not ironically, my first sponsor's best friend - reach out to me and reclaim me from the ash heap of the life I'd burned through. With a new sponsor, one who had drank after 15 years, and at that time had achieved another 15 years of the very best sobriety, I worked through the Twelve Steps again, this time with a truly open mind. With his assistance, and the later assistance of two 35-year A.A. veterans - one who showed me "what" it was I was in need of, and the other who taught me "how" through meditation and prayer I could find it - my eyes were finally opened, and I was able to experience the spiritual awakening others had experienced.

My mind had been closed by "prejudice" towards all things "spiritual" or "religious." While we are told to "be quick to see where religious people are right," I could not get beyond where they were so clearly wrong.* After all, with my education and scientific background, I knew that dinosaurs had existed, and that all the evidence showed the universe to be about 13.8 billion years old. But I was wholly ignorant of the "religious experiences" that have manifested in individuals since time immemorial, nor was I a believer that just such an experience was what restored alcoholics to sanity and emotional sobriety. I did not know anything of higher states of consciousness (other than being an alcoholic and drug addict for 20 years!), nor did I have any notion of the connection that these higher states of consciousness and being have with spirituality, the God of my understanding, or my recovery from alcoholic addiction and final restoration to sanity. But I was set to learn.

"There is a state of mind, known to religious men, but to no others," wrote the great psychologist, William James, "in which the will to assert ourselves and hold our own has been displaced by a willingness to close our mouths and be as nothing in the floods and waterspouts of God. In this state of mind, what we most dreaded has become the habitation of our safety, and the hour of our moral death has turned into our spiritual birthday. The time for tension in our soul is over, and that of  happy relaxation, of calm deep breathing, of an eternal present, with no discordant future to be anxious about, has arrived Fear is not held in abeyance as it is by mere morality, it is positively expunged and washed away."

[Wm. James, "The Varieties of Religious Experience," page 47.]

An eternal present. Who would have thought?

Of course, many had. Marcus Aurelius, the great Roman Emperor more famous for his Meditations than his victories on the Teutonic battlefield, pointed out that "all we have to live or lose, is this ever-passing present moment."

Could it be, I wondered, that what science, psychology and religion all point to is a spirituality of the present moment, and that consciousness itself, is an integral (or, perhaps, the integral) component of the universe? Could we be, in fact, as Bill describes above, "spearheads of God's ever advancing Creation?" It sure seems, I found out, that we are.

"At bottom," James observes, "the whole concern of both morality and religion is with the manner of our acceptance of the universe. Do we accept it only in part and grudgingly, or heartily and altogether?"

Could I discerningly accept as true whatever science provided evidence for, yet remain unswayed by the "religious" or "spiritual experiences" - including eventually my own - reported by men and women throughout the ages?

"It makes a tremendous emotional and practical difference to one," James points out, "whether one accept the universe in the drab discolored way of stoic resignation to necessity, or with the passionate happiness of Christian saints. The difference is as great as that between passivity and activity, as that between the defensive and the aggressive mood."

"Gradual as are the steps by which an individual may grow from one state into the other, many as are the intermediate stages which different individuals represent, yet when you place the typical extremes beside each other for comparison, you feel that two discontinuous psychological universes confront you, and that in passing from one to the other a 'critical point' had been overcome."

[Wm. James, "The Varieties of Religious Experience," pp. 42-43.]

 For me, it took a crisis in life to get sober. Being close-minded, however, it took a greater crisis deep into my sober life for me to reach the 'critical point' that James referred to before I was restored ('somewhat') to sanity. When sharing my experience, I emphasize the need to set aside prejudices and develop an open mind - the sooner, the better - and to question what concepts such as "self," "sanity" "consciousness" and "a Power greater than ourselves" mean.

"Seek until you find," I was advised by one of my old-timers, "and study all religions until you can see the sameness in them all." Or, as Bill advises in the 'Big Book," "(b)e quick to see where religious people are right."*

* Alcoholics Anonymous, page 87.

On Acceptance of Spiritual Teachings

Are the first 164 pages of the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous really, as I've heard so often lately, all we need to practice A.A.'s program of daily living? What about the the "Spiritual Experience" appendix and "our personal stories before and after" which are contained in the back of the 'Big Book' but are clearly referenced in the first 163 pages? What about William James' "The Varieties of Religious Experience," which is also directly referenced on page 24 of the 'Big Book', let alone The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions and the six other books that A.A. in its collective group conscience has seen fit to publish? What about the Serenity Prayer and the 11th Step Prayer, which are both contained in the '12 & 12'?

All these, are vital material for the alcoholic addict seeking to attain and perfect his or her conscious contact with a Power greater than him or herself. Perhaps the most potent example of what is left out when we discourage others to look beyond the first 163 pages (which, indisputably, are of the uttermost importance for taking the newcomer through the Steps) is the passage on 'Acceptance' from the story, "Acceptance Was the Answer" contained in the 'Big Book's' Stories section.

"And, we read (at page 417), "acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I could accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I couldn't stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes."

"Between the banks of pain and pleasure," Sri Nisargadatta observed, "the river of life flows. It is only when the mind refuses to flow with life, and gets stuck at the banks that it becomes a problem. By flowing with life I mean acceptance - letting come what comes and go what goes. Desire not, fear not, observe the actual as and when it happens, for you are not what happens, you are to whom it happens. Ultimately, even the observer you are not. You are the ultimate potentiality of which the all-embracing consciousness is the manifestation and expression."

Read the first 164 pages of the 'Big Book'. Diagnose your condition in the way it is set out, find the solution within, and take the newcomer or serial relapser through this process. But do not restrict your, or others, spiritual growth by dogmatically clinging to the idea that the first 163 pages is the sum of all, and nothing more, that is needed to attain sobriety and grow in Spirit.

"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation."

- Herbert Spencer

[Alcoholics Anonymous, page 568.]

Life's Inherent Unmanagability: From Fear to Acceptance

"Life is inherently unmanageable," say the Greek Stoics, but this is the antithesis of all we learn, and all we are fed by media advertisers in our modern consumer culture. That "painful inner dialogue" all too often tells us, "With the right investment account, the right shoes, the right hair colouring, the right prescription, you too can enjoy 'the good life!'"

But it is all a fiction. And meanwhile, we live in a manufactured fear that we are not 'winning' in the game of life, that somehow our lives (unlike the lives we see on television, or imagine all around us) are 'unmanageable;' and, worse yet, that there there must be 'something' out there, some product or adventureous 'change', that will magically make our life not only 'manageable,' but somehow flawless, beautiful and majestic - just like the lives that are portrayed to sell such products.

"It is a spiritual axiom," we read at page 99 of the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, "that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us." Even if our upset is just a general 'dissatisfaction' with our lives, and a subtle feeling that somehow, some way we should be 'managing' things better, and that better 'things' should be in our life.

This is perhaps the biggest con game that the ego (our self-consciousness) uses against us, and it leads many alcoholic addicts in recovery - and nearly all non-alcoholics - into a state of despair at some point in their lives, even if only at their life's end.

That life is inherently unmanageable is an ageless truth that is addressed in the famous passage on acceptance in the 'Big Book,' and which is also addressed, below, by the best-selling author and spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle, a non-alcoholic with profound insights into the addiction we all have to our egoic minds.

“… (A)cceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in [this] world by mistake… . (U)ntil I accept life completely on life’s term, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes.”

["Alcoholics Anonymous," 4th ed. page 417.]

We learn in Alcoholics Anonymous (or any one of AA's sister 12 Step recovery groups) that our lives do not become suddenly and magically manageable once we give up our addiction, but rather that life becomes acceptable to us, no matter the gains or losses that life hands to us along its path.

Surrender Part II: Letting Go & Letting God

"When we became alcoholic, 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?

["Alcoholics Anonymous," page 53.]

Paris Peace Conference, 1919

The First World War (which was known as "the Great War," because it was assumed to be 'the war to end all wars') ended in an armistice or truce, and not a surrender. Afterwards, the representatives of 29 countries met in Pais and hammered out a number of treaties (the "Paris Peace Treaties") that imposed conditions on the defeated nations, including crippling war reparations, that virtually assured that the peace wouldn't last. It didn't.

During the course of the ensuing Second Word War, the leaders of the main Allied Powers met and decided their would only be one condition for ending the war, that being the "unconditional surrender" of the Axis Powers (principally Germany, Italy and Japan).

Japan's "Unconditional Surrender," 1945

It's been said, that Japan, in particular, as the last combatant to surrender, faced the toughest conditions of all in implementing its "unconditional surrender," Their emperor, considered a living God by the people of Japan, had to go on the radio (in itself unheard of) and admit defeat; all of Japan's weapons were then inventoried and turned over to its former enemies; a new constitution was written for it by the Allied Powers (including a provision that it would never rearm); and those leaders that had led Japan into war (who hadn't killed themselves) were tried and executed.

And what was the result? Aid flowed into Germany and Japan as part of the Marshall Plan, and within scant years, each was amongst the richest and most productive economies in the world, and they in turn became not only functioning democracies, but trusted and crucial allies of their former enemies.

Admitting complete defeat, and the unconditional surrender of the right to manage and care for one's own life, is, of course what is necessary for one to enjoy the full promise that the 12 Steps hold out to the newcomer.

"Who cares to admit complete defeat?"

"Who cares to admit complete defeat?," we read in the opening chapter of the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. An admission of complete defeat, we read, is necessary because, "We perceive that it is only through utter defeat (that we are) able to take our first steps towards liberation and strength." Like Germany and Japan, we are asked to make an unconditional surrender, in order to access the help that A.A. and its sister programs so gladly offer. ("The war is over," as my first sponsor's sponsor so often said "And the good news is . . . you lost," he always added.)

Then, if we can answer this call for an "unconditional surrender" in the affirmative, we face a number of interrelated questions that are really a subset of that first and all-important questions as to whether we are completely defeated, have "hit bottom," and have admitted that we are "powerless over alcohol" and that "our lives have become unmanageable."

" . . . (F)ew people," we read, " will sincerely try to practice the A.A. Program unless they have hit botton. For practicing A.A.'s remaining eleven Steps means the adoption of attitudes and actions that almost no alcoholic who is still drinking can dream of taking. Who wishes to be honest and tolerant? Who wants to confess his faults to another and make restitution for harm done? Who cares anything about a Higher Power, let alone meditation and prayer? Who wants to sacrifice time and energy in trying to carry A.A.'s message to the next sufferer? No, the average alcoholic, self-centered in the extreme, doesn't care for this prospect - unless he has to do these things in order to stay alive himself."

If we can answer these questions in the affirmative, then we are truly in a position to finally let go of our old ideas and attitudes (our old thoughts and ways of thinking) in order to let that "unsuspected inner resource," which we all have, guide our thoughts and our actions.  (See the Spiritual Experience appendix.)

Yet a lifetime of desperately trying to manage the unmanageable - i.e., trying to manage life - is going to be a hard habit to kick. And, so, Step Three is all about the practice of letting go of our need to act upon the first fear-driven thoughts that pop into our heads, and in relying upon the deeper God-inspired thoughts of our higher consciousness to guide our words and actions.

"It is when we try to make our will conform with God's that we begin to use it rightly," we read in Step Three of the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. "To all of us, this was a most wonderful revelation. Our whole trouble had been the misuse of will power. We had tried to bombard our problems with it instead of trying to bring it into agreement with God's intention for us. To make this increasingly possible is the purpose of A.A.'s Twelve Steps, and Step Three opens the door."

The "whole purpose of A.A.'s Twelve Steps" is to get us to exercise our will in conformity with God's will? That is a powerful statement. And, if God is indeed "everything" rather than "nothing," as we read at page 53 in the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous, this must mean that we have to bring our will into conformity with the will of the Whole, with the will of "life" itself. That's a tall order. How is it possible?

Thankfully, each of us has a conscience - and are capable of being conscious of that conscience - and, therefore, each time we are about to say something or do something (or refrain from doing or saying something) that will bring us into conflict with the will of the Whole (or the will of God), we are capable of feeling the pangs of conscience. as expressed in our emotions .

In such instances, we will feel wounded pride, greedy, angry, lustful, gluttonous, envious, or tired and slothful, to utilize the range of emotions that go along with the "seven deadly sins" that are discussed later in the Twelve and Twelve. In short, we will again begin to suffer the pangs of "anxious apartness" that arises each time the "self" (or the"ego") feels threatened and seemingly needs to express itself in action or words. And that's where the rest of the "practice" of Step Three kicks in.

At the very end of Step Three in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, we read that it is, indeed "easy to begin the practice" of Step Three," for it very much a spiritual practice which is every bit as important to our long-term recovery as is our meditation practice, or our practice of taking a daily inventory. It is through this Third Step "practice," that in each time of "emotional disturbance or indecision, we can pause, ask for silence, and in the stillness" recite the Serenity Prayer.

For it is only in the deeper, higher consciousness of the "God of our own understanding" that serenity is to be found. It is only in going to this deeper, higher consciousness, that we become able to display the "courage" to change the only "thing" that we can - that is, the level of our consciousness. And, it is only in knowing that there is within us each the lower, normal self-consciousness of the human ego, and the higher, deeper consciousness of God, that we begin to actually display "wisdom."

In short, it is in making our decisions about what to say or do (or not say or do) based on this higher, deeper God-consciousness that we begin the practice of "letting go" of our egoic, self-consciousness, and "letting (the) God" of our higher consciousness run the show.

Life is, in fact, unmanageable by our lower, egoic "selves;" and, yet, it requires no management when we are attuned in consciousness to the Higher Power of the Whole, the Ground of Being, or just simply, God. "The war is over," then. "And the good news is . . . you lost!"

Courage: The Ability to Continue in Spite of Fear

"And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes."

("Acceptance Was the Answer," Alcoholics Anonymous, page 417)

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Of the three attributes that we ask for in the Serenity Prayer - serenity, courage and wisdom - it seems to be courage in the face of our life circumstances, with their messiness, emotional challenges and their sheer, fundamental unmanageability, that is often the most difficult for the alcoholic addict to obtain.

Why this is so, seems to be (a) that courage is almost wholly an internal matter, (b) that sometimes exercising courage goes against our most basic instincts, and (c) courage often calls for us to do or say (or not do or say) something that flies in the face of the life lessons we have learned.

The Japanese have a saying which seems to have universal application: "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down." Oftentimes it is much easier to go along with the crowd, or do what "other people" would do in the same circumstances, but for the alcoholic anonymous trying to live his or her life on a different spiritual plane, such actions may prove fatal.

How many alcoholics have started their last binge because they did not want to stand out as the only person not having a drink at a wedding or a cocktail party? Being "convinced" we are alcoholic addicts requires that we give up the "ideas. emotions and attitudes that were the guiding forces" of our lives, and to adopt wholly new "conceptions and motives" for living our lives.

[Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 27.]

One of the more powerful stories in the back of the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous is that of a Vietnam vet and pilot facing a prison term for flying a commercial airliner while under the influence. In the story "Grounded," he writes:

"From somewhere back in high school I remembered a poem that says something like, 'Cowards die a thousand deaths, a brave man only once,' and I wanted to do what had to be done. I was terrified of walking into prison but told my children that I could not come out the back door until I walked through the front. I remembered that courage was not the absence of fear; it was the ability to continue in spite of it."

[Emphasis added.]

 "Courage" - from "cour," the Old French word for 'heart' - means that we have to shift our thinking and identification from our ordinary level of self-consciousness (or "ego" consciousness) to a deeper and higher level of our consciousness and being, and then to base our actions (or refrain from taking action) upon what that higher, God-consciousness dictates.

This, of course, may be the most difficult mental task, especially under unusual and unexpected, emotionally-charged situations. It is a test of both the decision we have made in Step Three to "turn our will and our lives over" to the care of a God we do not and cannot fully understand, and of our entire willingness in Step Six to have our character defects removed. For most of us, we continue to "fall back" upon our old ideas and actions in many of such instances.

In such cases, it is perhaps helpful to re-examine what our Serenity Prayer means, and what it is we are asking for, or seeking, in the most challenging situations we face in our lives.

To me, God, or the deeper level of God-consciousness we are all capable of attaining, is the "serenity" we ask for. The "wisdom" I seek is a recognition that there are at least two distinct levels of human consciousness: the "ego" or "Self," and the higher "Self" or "soul" of a man or woman. And the "courage" I need is to let go of the thoughts and thinking patterns of ego-consciousness in order that the thoughts of God-consciousness may emerge from where they have been obscured.

(Remember that " deep down within every man, woman and child is the fundamental idea of God," although "(i)t maybe obscured by calamity, pomp and worship of other things, but in some forth or other it is there.")

[Alcoholics Anonymous, page 55.]

To face prison, our pilot had to let go of his fears and face the circumstances that caused his fears. That is the very essence of courage. But it does not come easily. "All our instincts" may cry out against what we know we need to do or say in a frightening situation; yet, even in such circumstances it remains a truism that conforming our will to God's will (doing or saying, or not doing or not saying, what is indicated by our higher consciousness) is the better way, and will ultimately result in a better set of circumstances for us, and for everyone else.

"God is either everything or else He is nothing," we read at page 53 of the 'Big Book.' "God either is, or He isn't. What (is) our choice to be?"

Taking the view that God is, in fact, everything, there is then nothing we cannot face, despite all our instinctive drives to avoid our life circumstances. And that is the 'heart' of the 'courage' we are granted through the practical application of the Serenity Prayer. It is what brings us back to the serenity of God.

Yet we are challenged - throughout our recovery - to practice attaining to this higher God-consciousness by disciplining our smaller "selves" through the interwoven practices of "self-examination meditation and prayer." Without such discipline and practice, we may not be able to summon the "courage" to face, and face down, the things we will surely have to.

[Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 98.]