Guilty . . . With An Explanation???

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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