SO, AA was right all the time, patiently sitting back watching me foam at the mouth while I railed on and on about their inconsistencies and what-nots.
What were they right about all the time, that I couldn't/wouldn't see? Everything they said about quitting alcohol, about finding and maintaining quality sobriety. AA's 12 steps are a masterclass in short hand, but provide a solid and strong base upon which to live as a human should live. How could it be concluded otherwise, when you think closely, critically and logically about those steps? For example, step 1 says "we admitted that we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable." It's not surprising that this is the very first step towards solving the drinking problem, or any problem. You understand, you see, that there is a problem that you must attend to. You practice self-honesty, and you start to get better immediately. As for me, I think a lot about how my life had become un-manageable. What does that mean, un-manageable? For me, something disgusting and humiliating: I had lost my personal agency, I had abdicated, no, failed my responsibility to care for myself. Which means others had control over my life, but not in a good way. I was their slave, both objectively and metaphysically, but enough of that. Step 1 merely requires self-honesty, and self-honesty requires courage, and courage enables forward progress, to steps 2 and 3. You believe that you can get help from outside of you, from others, or from God, and that you alone can not do it. Already some really good values are being promoted here: honesty, humility, and faith. I used to wonder why the successful AA people I talked to constantly emphasized these values as fundamental to staying sober, but that wasn't the right question. These values are fundamental because the only thing that will save an alcoholic or other drug addict is a legitimate spiritual experience, and that demands a radical personality shift away from dishonesty, pride and disbelief. How hard it is to sell selflessness to a selfish person! How stridently do we kick and scream when we are dragged into rehab! How proud we are, we who are inherently noble and good, but act disgracefully all the time! We blot out the spark of the divine within us so we can not see the truth, for the truth condemns us, that in our lust for more drugs and more pleasure we did all of this by clear, conscious choice: the choice to commit the sin in the first place, to do it knowing what the truth is. Rationalizations are like ideologies: cheap, plastic substitutions for the truth, a symptom of unforgiveable mental laziness. Mea culpa. I know what "I'm truly sorry" means, it means I am ashamed to stand in your presence after I did everything I could to undermine you, who achieved far more than I did, who tried to help me and the others who came to you asking for help. I even came to the meetings in order to express my self hatred, poisoning my mind further, of absolutely no help to anyone. But, you made me see, eventually. I had exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and to all of you out there working this program the best you can and succeeding, I am sorry.
