Spotlight
Spotlight
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| 1/21/2010 |
The Spirituality of Despair
At its core, Alcoholics Anonymous, the fellowship that launched the modern-day recovery movement, has always been based on the lifesaving communication between one alcoholic and another. In late 1930s America, the era into which Alcoholics Anonymous was born, the idea of one alcoholic talking therapeutically with another, resulting in the betterment of both, was big news, changing the plane of alcoholism treatment forever. Traditionally a vertical relationship – with the communication going up and down between doctor and patient, A.A. brought a horizontal approach to alcoholism treatment that revolutionized the way people thought about alcoholics. This transmission of hope, passing from one person to another, opened the way for a new kind of spirituality, the spirituality of despair, wherein fellow sufferers found that by reaching out to each other, they could accomplish what neither had been able to do alone: stay sober.
Often described in early AA literature as a “chain reaction,” the active ingredient, the agent of change in this reaction was the particular identification between alcoholics, the recognition that another had gone through similar trials and had found a way to stay away from a drink.
From an historical perspective, this chain reaction got its start when Bill Wilson, AA’s eventual co-founder, received a visit from an old friend, a former drinking buddy, who had found a way to get sober with the help of the Oxford Groups, an evangelical movement which flourished in the 1920s and early 1930s and was led by one-time Lutheran minister Dr. Frank Buchman. This friend, a man named Ebby Thatcher, arrived one day on Bill’s doorstep, with a message of hope he wished to impart to Bill, who was currently hungover and floundering in the throes of his own alcoholism. Yet, in Bill’s own words, for some reason he was ready to hear what Ebby had to say:
“Ebby told me his story, carefully detailing his drinking experiences of recent years. Thus he drew me still closer to him. I knew beyond doubt that he had lived in that strange and hopeless world where I still was. This fact established his identification with me. At length our channel of communication was wide open and I was ready for his message.
“And what was his message? All A.A.s know what it was: honesty with oneself, leading to a fearless moral inventory of character defects; a revelation of these defects to another human being, the first humble and faltering steps away from isolation and guilt; willingness to face up to those we had harmed, making all possible restitution. A thorough house-cleaning inside and out was indicated, and then we were ready to devote ourselves in service to others, using the understanding and language of the heart, and seeking no gain or reward. Then there was that vital attitude of dependence on God, or a ‘higher power.’
“None of Ebby's ideas were really new. I'd heard them all before. But coming over his powerful transmission line they were not at all what in other circumstances I would have regarded as conventional cliches for good church behavior. They appeared to me as living truths which might liberate me as they had liberated him. He could reach me at depth.”
This link, this connection at depth, while based on religious principles, has always been considered spiritual in nature, and, while much of its early membership was drawn from the ranks of America’s predominantly white, middle-class, church-going population of the time, the program these alcoholics developed was clear in its separation between religion and spirituality.
Codified in its literature from the start, AA has always been careful not to present itself in religious terms and, while highlighting the healing benefits of an individual alcoholic’s relationship with God, AA’s pioneers went to great lengths to keep the doors of AA as wide open as possible by not defining just what God they were talking about. With early membership claiming a number of agnostics and atheists, it was important to the early members to be inclusive rather than exclusive and they understood that religion was an element that could easily divide – and thus conquer – the fledgling fellowship.
One of the fundamental building blocks of the AA program, upon which the recovery of millions of alcoholics has been built, is the set of principles and actions known as the Twelve Steps. These steps, based on the trial-and-error experience of AA’s early members, outline just how an alcoholic can gain and maintain sobriety, and the concept of God is central among them.
Practiced as a way of life, the Twelve Steps include elements found in the spiritual teachings of many faiths. However, in the formulation of these steps, after considerable discussion within the small but growing group of autonomous alcoholics who were recovering in the 1930s, provisions were made to advance the separation between spirituality and religion, and God was referred to in the steps simply as a “Power greater than ourselves,” and later, “God, as we understand Him,” opening the door to individual rather than group determination of a “Higher Power.”
Further, as AA began to consider its relations with the outside world and to develop a working public relations policy, the AA Preamble was developed, stating, in part, “AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution, does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes.” This Preamble is today read at the beginning of almost every meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous worldwide and serves as a constant reminder that AA is neither religious, political, nor controversial in any way.
As noted by a sober priest in the late 1970s in AA’s monthly magazine, The AA Grapevine, “One of the great liberating and reassuring elements of the whole Twelve Steps experience is the realization that I am making this journey of recovery hand in hand with the God of my understanding. I need not explain nor justify this relationship to anyone. In AA, each member’s belief has always been private, individual, sacred. The founding fathers of the program were at great pains to make this abundantly clear… If, then, there is the slightest insinuation in the Twelve Steps that this God of our understanding can be discovered, loved, and served only within the confines of a particular church or denomination, such an insinuation completely escapes me.”
AA has had many friends in the world of religion, as it has in the worlds of medicine, psychiatry and business. Among them was Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, pastor of New York City’s Riverside Church, a man whose face graced the cover of Time magazine in October of 1930. In the book Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, Dr. Fosdick said of AA, “The meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous are the only place, so far as I know, where Roman Catholics, Jews, all kinds of Protestants, and even agnostics get together harmoniously… They do not talk theology. Many of them would say that they know nothing about it. What they do know is that in their utter helplessness they were introduced to a Power, greater than themselves, in contact with whom they found a strong resource which made possible a victory that seemed incredible. I have listened to many learned arguments about God, but for honest-to-goodness experiential evidence of God, His power personally appropriated and His reality indubitably assured, give me a good meeting of AA!”
The spiritual chain reaction that grew from Ebby and Bill, to Dr. Bob Smith (to whom Bill carried the message and who, along with Bill, is considered AA’s co-founder), has stretched to countless alcoholics in cultures as diverse as imaginable. AA today has an estimated 2,000,000 members, consisting of more than 106,000 groups located in more than 180 countries. AA’s literature has been translated into languages such as Afrikaans, Arabic, Hindi, Nepali, Persian, Swahili, and Vietnamese, among many others, and its twelve-step method has been adapted widely by fellowships of people recovering from various addictions, compulsive behaviors, and mental health problems. Today the recovery movement includes such established organizations as Narcotics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Debtors Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, and the Al-Anon Family Groups (for the family and friends of alcoholics), along with such newcomers as Anorexics and Bulimics Anonymous, Clutterers Anonymous, and Sex Addicts Anonymous.
Turning addiction and despair into salvation and hope is a hallmark of the modern-day recovery movement. At its core is identification between one sufferer and another, a horizontal spiritual link in the long chain of recovery stretching literally around the world.
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