Fearlessness Required

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * * * * * * * * * * 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fear and Expectations

Fear - primarily fear that we will lose something we have, or will fail to get something we desire - is "the chief activator" of all our defects of character. Yet, there is nothing objective that we need fear. It is entirely an inner, subjective phenomenon. That is, we are the manufacturers of our own anxieties, oftentimes needless worries that are fueled by the expectations we have about how we, the world, and the people that surround us will perform.

"We expect what we have known," a learned psychiatrist once told me. "And, then, we turn around and fear what we expect." In this way we forge a seemingly hostile world from the potential beauty that surrounds us.

Steps Four through Step Nine are designed to let us look objectively at what has shaped us, at the resentments, fears and sex experiences that have warped our perceptions of the world and its denizens, at the expectations we have formed about how life will necessarily unfold based upon our past experiences, and at how acute self-consciousness and unwarranted fears have crippled us. Armed with insights into what we have thought and done in response to our perceived resentments, fears and sex conduct we are enabled to walk through life on a new basis, correcting our wrongs as they arise when we inevitably fall short of our ideals.

The 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous (at page 75) highlights the experiential change we witness in our attitudes and in our being as our existential fears subside upon completion of the Fifth Step, and as we move forward in our task of clearing away the past's wreckage and drawing nearer to the God of our own understanding:

" . . . (W)e are delighted. We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. We begin to feel the nearness of our Creator. We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. (Emphasis added.)

No longer, I might add, need we be ruled by the fearful expectations we have built up over time based upon our past lives, particularly our lives in active addiction. Rather, we become inspired by the possibilities inherent in our new lives.

"The great fact," after completing the Steps, "is just this, and nothing less: That we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God's universe. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves."

- Alcoholics Anonymous, page 25.

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."

Humility, Suffering and Peace of Mind

"(W)e are building an arch through which we can walk a free man at last. Is our work solid so far? Are the stones properly in place? Have we skimped on the cement put into the foundation? Have we tried to make mortar without sand?"

"If we can answer to our satisfaction, we then look at Step Six. We have emphasized willingness as being indispensable. Are we now ready to let God remove from us all the things which we have admitted are objectionable? Can He now take them all - every one? If we still cling to something we will not let go, we ask God to help us to be willing."

"When ready, we say something like this: "My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellow. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen." We have now completed Step Seven."

[Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 75-76.]

In a mere three paragraphs, the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous thus takes the reader through Steps Six and Seven. In part the brevity of discussion on these steps may reflect the inexperience that the original nucleus of A.A. had in working these two steps on a protracted basis. In part the brevity may be due to the disability that the individual who has not completed Step Nine is still under. Until one goes through the amends process in Step Nine the resentments, regrets and remorse that fill the mind of the newly sober alcoholic addict until amends are made tend to obscure all else.

Conversely, in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions Steps Six and Seven are two of the most in-depth and nuanced essays that Bill W. wrote. In them, Bill squarely looks at the instincts, desires and fears which feed the ego-self and thus forestalls one's ability to effect a conscious contact with God.

"Since most of us are born with an abundance of natural desires," Bill observes (at page 65), "it isn't strange that we often let these far exceed their intended purpose. When they drive us blindly, or we wilfully demand that they supply us with more satisfactions or pleasures than are possible or due to 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 question thus becomes: Are we ready to have God remove our blind desires and obsessive ambitions, be they for sex, security, social prestige or what have you? Just to the extent that we continue to feel we must "wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world by managing well" ('Big Book,' pg. 61), it is clear that we do not, with the result that we inevitably continue to suffer from these instincts run wild.

Indeed in the Step Seven essay Bill acknowledges that the ego-shredding process of freeing the mind from overblown fears and desires can generate an astounding level of suffering as we wean ourselves from the way that we were taught to deal with the world.  "For us," he observes, "this process of gaining a new perspective is unbelievably painful."

It need not be that way however. "(W)hen we have taken a square look at some of these defects, have discussed them with another, and have become willing to have them removed," he notes, "our thinking about humility commences to have a wider meaning. By this time in all probability we have gained some measure of release from our more devastating handicaps. We enjoy moments in which there is something like real peace of mind. . . (T)his newfound peace is a priceless gift. Something new indeed has been added. Where humility had formerly stood for a forced feeding on humble pie, it now begins to mean the nourishing ingredient which can give us serenity."

"We saw we needn't always be bludgeoned and beaten into humility," Bill points out. "It could come quite as much from our voluntary reaching for it as it could from unremitting suffering."

"A great turning point," he observes, "came when we sought for humility as something we really wanted, rather than as something we must have. It marked the time when we could commence to see the full implications of Step Seven: "Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.""

Ego, Humility and Grace

"By this time in all probability we have gained some measure of release from our more devastating handicaps. We enjoy moments in which there is something like real peace of mind. . . .Where humility had formerly stood for a forced feeding on humble pie, it now begins to mean the nourishing ingredient which can give us serenity."

"This improved perception of humility starts another revolutionary change in our outlook. Our eyes begin to open to the immense values which have come straight out of painful ego-puncturing."

-- The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 74 --

In a very real sense, Step Seven is the completion of the second half of Step One: Having admitted we could not manage our own lives - let alone life itself - and having determined to turn our will and our lives "over to the care of God as we understood him," we now confirm our decision to leave the management of life at that level, rather than vainly resuming the practice of managing life ourselves. This is ego-deflation at depth, and "painful ego-puncturing" at that, as we have been trained all of our lives that we must manage everything - or else!

At first the practice of humility is frightening. "What will become of me if such-and-such happens?" we ask ourselves, only to see in time that things never happen in precisely the way we imagine them and that, in most instances, our fears never materialize. We experience great pain, however, because we - or rather our egoic inner dialogue - assume that they will.

This, process of fear, desire and suffering continues just so long as we identify with the ego and believe whatever it thinks. The moment we realize that we are not the ego - that we are not whatever thought pops into our heads - the suffering stops. Yet it resumes immediately once we lose that awareness. Thus, the practice of Step Seven is repeatedly turning our will and lives over to the care of our Higher Power, and not just in making a decision to do so. In time we will become evermore humble in the truest sense of the word, in that we will be increasingly free of our egoic "self," and each time we experience suffering it will become a sign that we once more need to center ourselves in order to "Let Go, and Let God."

"For us," we read in Step Seven, "this process of gaining a new perspective was unbelievably painful. . . . It was only at the end of a long road, marked by successive defeats and humiliations, and the final crushing of our self-sufficiency, that we began to feel humility as something more than a condition of groveling despair." (Emphasis added.) Fortunately, however, we eventually learn that the requisite degree of humility needed to overcome the ego may "come quite as much from our voluntary reaching for it as it could from unremitting suffering."

"A great turning point in our lives," we read, "came when we sought for humility as something we really wanted, rather than as something we must have. It marked the time when we could commence to see the full implication of Step Seven: "Humbly asked Him to remove our our shortcomings."" For, in the end, we can only find grace within God, and it is in practicing Step Seven that we are freed from the egoic self and obtain to that level of grace with its ensuing peace of mind.

[The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pages 72 and 74]

The Birth of a Spiritual Experience

Regarding the taking of Step Five, the author of the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous suggests that it is at this point in our recovery, when we share our moral inventory with another human being and the God of our own understanding, that we really begin to 'experience' the spiritual awakening which will relieve our alcoholism. At page 75 of the 'Big Book,' the author observes:

"We pocket our pride and go to it, illuminating every twist of character, every dark cranny of the past. Once we have taken this step withholding nothing, we are delighted. We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall away from us. We begin to feel the nearness of our Creator. We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. (Emphasis added.)

 For those who may have already experienced a certain grace in their recovery, as well as those who have just doggedly pursued their path of recovery by working the Steps, it is at Step Five, we are told, that our spiritual beliefs (and I would add faith) are turned into a palpable spiritual experience.

Why is this so? I would suggest that before taking Step Five, our minds are awash with the fears, resentments and remorse that characterize the content of the ego, or "self." Afterwards, freed of this mental baggage, we can (as is foretold, above) "be alone at perfect peace and ease." "Peace" and "ease" being the characteristics of the higher, God-consciousness of our authentic "Self," rather than the smaller "self" of merely ego-centric consciousness. It is at this point where "the ideas, emotions and attitudes" which were heretofore the guiding forces of our lives may be "cast to one side" and replaced with "new conceptions and motives." (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 27.)

Before Step Five, my resentments, fears, and the remorse I experienced when thinking of past peccadilloes, were wholly my own affair. My greatest hope was that nobody would find out about them, much less confront me with them. After having shared these closely held anguishing thoughts and memories with my sponsor, I gained a certain perspective on my all-too-human condition, and was thus able to move forward to make the amends necessary to solidify my newfound sense of peace and ease.

This is not to say that all resentments, remorse and fear were at once removed, but I became more readily able to see them for what they really are, the thought-stuff of the ego that separates me from everyone and everything. Knowing this, it has become far easier to dismiss such thoughts (and the ensuing emotions they produce) as the merely mental tricks of my smaller self. And, in some instances, the only times when I ever think of certain past actions that once haunted me, it is to help another person struggling with the same levels of shame, remorse, anger and fear that these old thoughts once produced in me.

Step Five was thus, without my knowing it at the time, the beginning of spiritual experience, the beginning of my living - however falteringly and slow - a life of the spirit, rather than a life of mere spiritual belief. And by working the 12 Steps on a daily basis I am enabled to grow within, yet never outgrow, this experience.

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.

Fear, Desire, and Instincts Run Wild

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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."

Fear and Fearlessness

"Fearlessness is the first requirement of spirituality. Cowards can never be moral."

-- Mahatma Gandhi --

Over and over in the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous the subject of fear crops up. Indeed, the original A.A. members represented in the 'Big Book' do not ask, suggest or demand that we be fearless in working the 12 Steps, they beg us "to be fearless and thorough from the very start."

Why this emphasis on fear and fearlessness? I suggest that it is because there are two visceral reactions to life that shape and sustain the ego - fear and its conjoined counterpart, desire. Indeed, we read that the alcoholic addict is "(d)riven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking and self-pity."

[Alcoholics Anonymous, page 62.]

In describing how to make a moral inventory, we read that: "We (review) our fears thoroughly. We put them on paper even though we had no resentment in connection with them. We asked ourselves why we had them. Wasn't it because self-reliance failed us?"

[Alcoholics Anonymous, page 68.]

Looking at my own fears, it is clear that some - like fear of snakes, large barking dogs, and immense heights - are just instinctual. Recognizing that fear in such instances is just part of an instinctive "fight, flee or freeze" reaction, it is easy enough to overcome such fears, or at least to act in the face of them. Why do I have such fears? Because humans have always had such visceral reactions to imminent danger. They are hard-wired survival mechanisms.

But what about those other fears on my list - seemingly non-instinctive and secondarily-instinctive angsts such as a fear of the opposite sex, fear of speaking in public, fear of financial insecurity, fear about what others think of me, fear of the abstract concept of my own mortality? Such anxieties are not inherent, but rather are produced by the fear-based thought processes of the human ego.

Such self-centered (i.e., ego-centric) fears are symptomatic of the restless and egoic thinking of the addictive mind, and it is thus necessary to address such fears from a different mode of thought and consciousness than mere self-consciousness. Reliance on the "self" or "ego"  (i.e., "self-reliance") indeed fails me with respect to such fears. (It was Einstein who famously said: "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.)

What is always required when dealing with these purely egoic fears is a recurrence to the God-consciousness wherein the voice of the ego disappears.

It is, I believe, in this sense that Gandhi says the first requirement of spirituality is fearlessness. So long as the ego is active the spirit is absent. And absent the courage - i.e., the purity of heart - that is inherent in the higher state of God-consciousness, it is impossible to act sanely in the face of such fears, and experience shows that instead I react to such anxieties.

Remember: "(T)he main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind." And the only solution lies in the deeper recesses and higher consciousness of the soul. Therein is a Power greater than one's "self" that will, when found, restore one to sanity and allow one to do or say that which was unthinkable before.

Fear, Desire and Defects of Character

In doing our Fourth Step, we are instructed to review our fears "thoroughly," to write them down on paper, even where there is no resentment connected with them. Then we are asked "why" we had such fears, and questioned as to whether or not it is because our "self-reliance" had totally failed us. This realization is helpful in seeing the root cause of the fears (that are elsewhere discussed as being the "chief activator" of our defects of character), but it says very little about the process by which these fears themselves arise.

To understand how and why fear arises within us, one needs to turn to The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, where the "flip-side" of fear - instinctive desire - is discussed. "Every normal person," we read at Step Six, "wants . . . to eat, to reproduce, to be somebody in the society of his fellows. And he wishes to be reasonably safe and secure as he tries to attain these thing." We all have, and will continue to have instinctive desires, it is how we deal with them that determines how and to what extenet fear will continue to rule our lives and dictate our behaviours.

"Since most of us are born with an abundance of natural desires," the reading continues, "it isn't strange that we often let these far exceed their intended purpose. When they drive us blindly, or we willfully demand that they supply us more satisfactions or pleasures than are possible or due to 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, our sins."

Our instinctive drives are very basic. We have a need for air, water, food, clothing and warmth. On top of these we have an instinctive drive for sex, and as social creatures, a place in the human community. For most of us, barring natural or man-made disaster, securing these basic human needs and aspirations is straight forward and far from an impossible feat. Yet, are we satisfied once these needs are met? For most people, it would seem on the face of it, we would have to say "no," based on the behaviour that we see surrounding us. And perhaps, as a class, alcoholic addicts (once clean and sober) are amongst those least satisfied with the lot that falls to them.

Remember, as it says in the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous, that we are "driven people." Are we satisfied with three square meals a day, a roof to sleep under, and a companion and friends with which to share our lives? What about the promotion we now so richly deserve? What about that new car? What about new clothes? What about what other people might think of us? What about the people we want or "need" to impress?

Clearly, as is pointed out, "it is nowhere on the record that God has completely removed from any human being all his natural drives. Why and to what extent, then, do we continue to let our instinctive desires drive us blindly? Why do we allow our desires to create within us the room in which we allow our character defects to operate? Why with our needs for the day met do we obsessively work to ensure that tomorrow's desires - for food, clothes, sex, companionship etc. - will be met in surplus?

One answer may be, as many noted spiritual authorities attest, that there is within us a typically unrecognized desire for transcendence, for something much greater than the here and now. The alcoholic addict's "craving for alcohol (is) on a low level." Carl Jung observed, "the thirst of our being for wholeness, in medieval terms: union with God." And, similarly, I would suggest that our thirst for money, for prestige, power and sex, etc. is a similar misplaced thirst for the transcendent. Out of this thirst, or desire, arises the fear (rightly founded) that this thirst will not be quenched, as, in reality it cannot be. Then, because of this irrational fear, we act out, seeking to grasp more than we could possibly consume, all in a quest for a happiness which ever eludes us.

The solution to this dilemma is, as always, that the God of our understanding can restore us to sanity, if we seek our satisfaction there. This is not common sense. We are not taught this by society. Rather, it is uncommon sense. We need to seek a higher, acceptive consciousness that will allow us to fully accept and enjoy the here and now, instead of remaining mired in the egoic consciousness of "self" which is forever unsatisfied. To access this higher consciousness, and to attain, maintain and improve our conscious contact with a God which relieves our suffering (not only from alcohol or drugs, but also from fear, desire and our character defects) is the purpose of the Twelve Steps.

Worry and Fear vs. Serenity and Acceptance

"(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.]

The opposite of acceptance is, of course, defiance - and we are told that defiance is "an outstanding trait of the alcoholic" - but the product of acceptance is serenity. It's opposite is calamity and fear, and the effect of egoic, calamitous thinking is to obscure the Ground of our Being and thus prevent us from establishing a conscious contact with the God of our understanding. But how do we practice this seemingly radical acceptance of every person, place, thing or situation in our life?

A starting place for acceptance, and thus serenity, is in the practice of Step Three. "In all times of emotional disturbance or indecision," we read in The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, "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 Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 41.]

Why does this simple prayer seem to work so effectively? First and foremost, it seems to work because the fear, worry and anxiety - all emotions that are symptomatic of our being lost once again "in the bondage of self" - are, practically speaking, useless in addressing whatever 'problem' we are facing. It is a spiritual truism, as Einstein once famously remarked, that we cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that got us there in the first place.

Consider the following objective schematic of our thinking process:

"Serenity" is the fruit of a conscious contact with a Power greater than "self," greater than our conditioned way of egoic thinking which is rooted in fear and desire. In stopping, pausing and asking for quiet, we release ourselves from the bondage of self and attain to the higher state of consciousness and being (some call it God-consciousness) that always lies just beneath the ego. God thus grants us "the serenity to accept the things (we) cannot change." If, as the diagram shows, we have a problem in our life, and we cannot do something about it, then we should not worry about it.

Next we ask for the "courage to change the things (we) can." The word "courage" comes from the French and Latin "cour" meaning "heart." "Heart" is of course a metaphor for the higher consciousness that is obscured but attainable by all people. Thus, the first and most important thing that we can change, is the level of our thinking, raising it from the egoic plane of "self" to the holisitc plane of Higher Being. If we have a problem, and we can do something about it, raising our consciousness to this holistic state of consciousness and being is the first thing we need to do. Having done so, as the diagram illustrates, why worry?

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

Lastly we ask "to know the difference." This means not only knowing the difference between what we can and cannot change, but more importantly knowing that there are at least two different levels of consciousness with which we can utilize in addressing any 'problem' - the egoic consciousness of our smaller "self" based in unfathomable fear and unquenchable desire, and the higher consciousness of "Self" in which a conscious contact with God, Wholeness, Pure Being and the Unity of the universe is available. In the latter, problems do not exist, because we can clearly see that the worry, fear and anxiety of the ego (as the diagram illustrates) do nothing but rob us of the serenity we need to live a truly spiritual life. In the latter, life suddenly becomes non-problematic, no matter what it is we seem to face, even death.

Acceptance of this duality, through the spiritual practice we have put in so that we can effect a conscious contact with the God of our own understanding, is thus, the fruit of a spiritual life and the essence of true emotional sobriety.

The Perils of 'White-Knuckling' Sobriety

The danger with "white-knuckling it" in recovery - whether this consists of perpetually putting off working the 12 Steps (typically resulting from 4th Step fear), or in becoming complacent, slacking off meetings and ceasing to do the daily work that is necessary to maintain healthy sobriety - is that very, very quickly and subtly one is back running the show, managing one's life, and stepping all over the toes of people who insist on running theirs. Within days, one may be drunk, or worse. At best, one may find oneself all alone and facing the dreaded "Four Horsemen" of "Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration and Despair" without the luxury of being able to take a drink, or to lighten the load by sharing one's fears and frustrations with someone who can understand you in the depth of your being. Remember, "the problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind, rather than in his body." [Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 23.]

"Now and then," we read in the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous, "a serious drinker, being dry at the moment says, "I don't miss it at all. Feel better. Work better. Having a better time." As ex-problem drinkers, we smile at such a sally. We know our friend is like a boy whistling in the dark to keep up his spirits. He fools himself. Inwardly he would give anything to take half a dozen drinks and get away with them. He will presently try the old game again, for he isn't happy about his sobriety. He cannot picture life without alcohol. Some day he will be unable to manage life either with alcohol or without it. He will be at the jumping-off place. He will wish for the end."

[Alcoholics Anonymous, pp. 152-153.]

The usual result of "white-knuckling" sobriety is thus, usually, relapse with all the suffering that causes. Hopefully, but far from certainly, that may mean a lesson learned and the "white- knuckling" alcoholic addict will return to the fellowship of A.A. (or a sister organization) and begin working the 12 Steps anew, this time being "fearless and thorough from the very start." Unfortunately, that is the best scenario.

There are a certain number of "white-knucklers" who find themselves "at the jumping-off place" and do, in fact, jump. They may do so either after drinking some more or, shockingly, even in sobriety. Of the "Four Horsemen" Bill describes, "Despair" can be the most deadly. Ask any old-timer whether they have known anyone with long-term sobriety who, having failed to take the 12 Steps or haing drifted away from the fellowship and work of A.A., has taken their life, and chances are he or she will probably be able to tell you the story of some deceased friend.

There is, of course, a whole further class of "white-knucklers" who learn to stoically absorb the suffering of recovery without relief. Opinionated, angry, disputatious, gruff and unhappy, it is not hard to pick them out, if they still go to meetings at all. Twenty or thirty years later they are still going on about their drinking days and their character defects seem to be getting worse not better. Taking a mental rather than moral inventory, they have decided that they are not all that bad after all, particularly since they no longer drink. Thus, year after year they do not change as, after all, their life has become quite manageable - thank you very much - since they quit drinking.

Let's face it. None of us is, or will be perfect. But if we do not do the work that is suggested, or if having gone once through the Steps we fail to do the daily work that is required for the maintenance of our spiritual condition, we will inevitably fall into one of these groups. None is safe, all are deadly. Only the amount of suffering and pain absorbed and inflicted varies from case to case.

How to avoid these perils? "Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of the past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit. . . May God bless you and keep you - until then."

[Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 164.]

Step Four: 'The Tao of Fear'

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

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

[Alcoholics Anonymous, pp. 64-68.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Alcoholics Anonymous, page 55.]

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

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

Ego, Fear and the Smaller "Self"

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

[Alcoholics Anonymous, page 75.]

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

It is to be free of this duplicity - the double-mindedness of the "self" and our higher, God-consciousness - that we take Steps Five through Step Nine; sharing, perhaps for the first time ever, what we did when under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol, and more significantly, what we did when stone cold sober. For it is in sharing these matters, examining our role in them, forgiving others and making amends to them where possible for the harm we have done, that we become able to live in our true nature, rather than in the fear-based false identity of the ego, or smaller "self."

Of course, this is not the first reference to the alcoholic as actor. The more recognizable description of the alcoholic as actor follows immediately after the "How It Works" reading that many groups use to open their meetings. Noting that "most people try to live by self-propulsion," we read:

"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 his arrangements would only 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, he may be mean, egotistical, selfish and dishonest. But, as with most humans, he is more likely to have varied traits."

"What usually happens? The show doesn't come off very well. He begins to think life doesn't treat him right. 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 him. 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 really 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 world if he only manages well?"

[Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 61. Emphasis added.]

 This delusion - that happiness and satisfaction may be attained by successful self-management - is the crux of the second part of Step One, and it lies on the cusp of Step Two and Step Three. Life, even the life of the individual, is inherently unmanageable. The individual is a part of a much greater whole, although this is not readily apparent to the egoic consciousness of the individual. Thus, in the throes of self-consciousness, we mistakenly feel compelled by fear to try and manage life's circumstances so that it comes out in a way we can accept and tolerate.

The trouble is, that such efforts very, very seldom work out to our satisfaction. Life itself, has far larger rhythms than the individual stuck in narrow self-consciousness can either see or admit. Knowing that we are extremely prone to jump in and manage life, despite its inherent unmanageability - which, of course, is the height of grandiose insanity - we can, if we so choose, decide to turn our will and our lives over to the care of a Power greater than our ordinary fear-ridden, egoic selves. In doing so, we begin to experience a working faith and the peace that comes from the acceptance of a Power greater than ourselves which is already a present and organizing fact in our lives and the life of the cosmos itself.

Such faith is not ordinarily available to the unaided self, because our egoic self-consciousness is merely a fabrication of unresolvable fears and unquenchable desires. We must therefore work to let go of our smaller "selves" and the fears that are rampant in them. For, as Mahatma Gandhi once remarked: "Fearlessness is the first requirement of spirituality. Cowards can never be moral." We are thus not asked, but begged, to "be fearless and thorough from the very start" in trying to live life according to the Twelve Steps and the spiritual principles behind them.