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.

Step One Misperceptions and Confusion

There are many sayings - some trite but true, others not - that one hears around the tables in Alcoholics Anonymous (and many of its sister organizations). One of these sayings is that: "Step One is the only Step we do 100%." But is this what our literature says? Is this truly our collective experience? My reading of our literature, and my own experience, says it is not.

This particular saying seems to originate in the essay on Step Six in The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, where (at page 68) we read: "Only Step One, where we made the 100 percent admission we were powerless over alcohol, can be practiced with absolute perfection. The remaining eleven Steps state perfect ideals. They are goals toward which we look, and the measuring sticks by which we estimate our progress."

Note that in this passage it is only "the 100 percent admission we were powerless over alcohol" which can be "practiced with absolute perfection." The alcoholic addict practices this first part of the First Step with perfection each day when he or she does not drink and/or drug. This says nothing about the second (and more difficult) half of the First Step, where we admit that our lives have become unmanageable. The two halves of the First Step are separate, but intricately interrelated concepts. They are not interchangeable.

Yet, in his essay on Step One in The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, even Bill seems to treat the two parts as being the same, or at least he muddies the distinction between them. At page 23 of the Twelve and Twelve, discussing those "who were scarcely more than potential alcoholics," Bill asks: "Since Step One requires an admission that our lives have become unmanageable, how could such as these take this Step?"

His answer is that we "raise the bottom the rest of us hit to the point where it would hit them." And, if this does not work, he suggests that to these "doubters" we might say: "Perhaps you are not an alcoholic after all. Why don't you try some more controlled drinking, bearing in mind meanwhile what we have told you about alcoholism."

WTF???? He suggests that a person who is struggling with the idea that his life has become unmanagaeable should go out and try more drinking? This does not make sense. In my experience it has been beneficial to suggest such a tactic to a person who is unclear whether or not he or she is powerless over alcohol, after all that is the crux of the matter and a proposition that we must accept 100 percent. By contrast, I both struggle myself (and see many many others struggle) with the idea that life is, in fact, unmanageable . . . and will remain so. After all, if life became manageable, we would just manage it by ourselves, and what need would we have for the remaining eleven Steps?

Remember, in the How It Works reading, we hear the following, over and over: "Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after [stopping drinking], make clear three pertinent ideas: (a) That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. (b) That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.  (c) That God could and would if He were sought."

I have practiced the first half of Step One with 100 percent effectiveness for the past 21 years, but day upon day I struggle with the second half of Step One - i.e., ceding control and management of my life to a Power greater than myself. Thus, whenever I have a problem toaday, I can recognize that it is, in effect, a problem with the second half of Step One. I can still be driven blindly by my small, egoic self, although thankfully (a) this does not happen as frequently as it once did, and (b) I have the tools to correct - and clean up after - such self-centered thinking and behaviour.

Not picking up a drink (and in my case a mind-altering drug) is the only part of the program that I have so-far managed to practice with 100 percent success, and it is likely to remain that way. Remember, on this spiritual path we strive for perfection, all the while knowing that we will inevitably fall short. Meanwhile, with the Grace of God, one day at a time we stay sober.

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.