The Incredible Tapestry Workshop
Weaving AA’s 36 Spiritual Principles Into Our Daily Lives
August 19, 2006
The Next Frontier – Emotional Sobriety
Good Morning. My name is Arnold R., and I am an alcoholic. My sobriety date is June 20, 1982. I am a General Service Trustee on the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I also have the privilege this year of serving as the Chairman of the Board of the A.A. Grapevine, Inc. which publishes two magazines in both English and Spanish, commonly known, as our “Meeting in Print” or the International Journal of Alcoholics Anonymous.
“Service, gladly rendered, obligations squarely met, troubles well accepted or solved with God’s help, the knowledge that at home or in the world outside we are partners in a common effort, the well-understood fact that in God’s sight all human beings are important, the proof that love freely given surely brings a full return, the certainty that we are no longer isolated and alone in self-constructed prisons, the surety that we need no longer be square pegs in round holes but can fit and belong in God’s scheme of things --- these are the permanent and legitimate satisfactions of right living for which no amount of pomp and circumstance, no heap of material possessions, could possibly be substitutes. True ambition is not what we thought it was. True ambition is the deep desire to live usefully and walk humbly under the grace of God.”
This is reprinted from Step Twelve on pages 124-125 of THE TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS.
The threads of this tapestry are based upon Bill Wilson’s comments published under the same title in the A.A. Grapevine article of January 1958. Bill writes,
“I think that many oldsters who have put our AA "booze cure" to severe but successful tests still find they often lack emotional sobriety. Perhaps they will be the spearhead for the next major development in AA--the development of much more real maturity and balance (which is to say, humility) in our relations with ourselves, with our fellows, and with God.
Those adolescent urges that so many of us have for top approval, perfect security, and perfect romance--urges quite appropriate to age seventeen--prove to be an impossible way of life when we are at age forty-seven or fifty-seven.”
While reading this article in preparation for this presentation, it appeared to me that Bill was describing a certain dissatisfaction with his own life. It also became evident to me that this dissatisfaction had plagued him for sometime. I wondered when and how he had come to this realization about himself. I discovered the answer to my question in the book ‘Pass IT ON’, pages 241, 242, and 243.
It seems that on a cold and rainy night late in 1940, deep in the winter of Bill’s discontent, he was visited by a Jesuit priest from St. Louis. That priest, Father Ed Dowling was able to share with Bill the similarities between the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Exercises of St. Ignatius. It was during this meeting, that the communication between Bill and Father Dowling regarding spiritual discipline would develop into a deep friendship that would last two decades.
That night, Bill “ told of his hopes and plans, and spoke also about his anger, despair, and mounting frustrations. Father Dowling listened and quoted Matthew: ‘Blessed are they who do hunger and thirst.’ God’s chosen, he pointed out, were always distinguished by their yearnings, their restlessness, their thirst.
“In pain, Bill asked if there was never to be any satisfaction. The priest almost snapped back: “ Never. Never any.” He continued in a gentler tone describing as ‘divine dissatisfaction’ that which would keep Bill going, always reaching out for unattainable goals, for only by so reaching would he attain what---hidden from him—were God’s goals. This acceptance that his dissatisfaction, that his very ‘thirst’ could be divine was one of Father Dowling’s great gifts to Bill and through him to Alcoholics Anonymous and then to us sitting in this room and those yet to come.
Another item embedded in this story of this meeting with Father Dowling and Bill, is that this is the night that the author of the Fifth Step actually took the Step himself. Bill, like many of us, during the Fifth Step experience stumbled across a few character defects or flaws that required his attention and a life-long commitment as outlined in the Sixth Step.
In my efforts to achieve the willingness of spirit suggested by Step Six, I have had to make a distinction between defects and traits. A trait, to my way of thinking, is something caused by a defect – a result, a symptom, a side effect. One defect may cause a great number of traits.
To illustrate this point, let’s take the case of a physical defect. Suppose someone is born with one leg shorter than the other. That is the defect. As a result, the person will possibly limp, avoid running sports and quite naturally be careful on stairs. These are traits.
While taking inventory, I discovered a considerable list of traits – rage, arrogance, hate, as well as some of the milder ones such as envy despair, fear, and greed. It has never been unbearably hard for me to become willing to have God remove these things. Most of them are uncomfortable, and usually I’m only pleased at the idea of getting rid of them. But time after time I have found that this willingness is interfered with by the trait itself. How can I be willing to have fear removed when I am caught in the grip of fear?
Gradually, I have come to recognize the defect from which these traits emerge, like jets from a fountain. This defect I know by the name, “unresolved discontent.” This is somewhat similar to what Father Dowling described for Bill. Just in the measure that I allow my Higher Power to deal with this discontent, -- resolve it, explain it, remove it – do I find relief from the multitude of symptoms.
Discontent can take many forms and it is no wonder it took me so long to determine it was all the same thing. When my prime character defect is having its way with me, it seems that I can do nothing to stop it. If I am in the warm South, I want to be in the cool North. If I am working I long for escape from the daily grind; if I am idle I crave the security and status of a job. If I am the center of attention, I am uneasy and want to be alone; if I am alone I want people to pay more attention to me.
Discontent in itself, is not a bad thing. It was because I was discontented with myself as a drunk that I accepted A.A. and found sobriety. Discontent with appearance can lead a man to shave, put on a clean shirt and thus effect a decided improvement – or a woman to fix her hair, repair her make-up and try again. The discontent I am speaking of is the gnawing, insatiable kind, resistant, so far as I know to any cure except that which comes from a Higher Power. When I have at last diagnosed this discontent as my prime defect, and become willing to have God remove it, I seem to begin to get some help.
These are the ideas that strike centrally at the defect itself: I must learn not to want more than my share. In the Lord’s Prayer, I ask for daily bread. When I demand more than this I inflame my defect. When I accept daily bread thankfully and ask no more, the defect subsides.
I must learn to accept the world as it is. The universe has been set up so that it is impossible for anyone to be in two places at the same time. Therefore, I must break myself of the habit of always wishing I were somewhere else, and settle down to the full enjoyment of where I am presently. Some of the evil in the world I can change, while some I cannot. But I certainly cannot reduce the amount of evil in the world by adding my anger and resentment to what is currently present. What evil I can’t change I must understand and forgive.
This misery and discontentment is only a hard stretch on the road to a magnificent fulfillment of a life in sobriety traveling the Road of Happy Destiny. It feels like a transformation and I have from time to time had a fear of this transformation.
I am reminded of a story from The Essene Book of Days, which describes this fear. The passage reads this way,
Sometimes I feel that my life is a series of trapeze swings. I’m either hanging onto a trapeze bar swinging along for few moments in my life, or hurtling across space in between trapeze bars. Most of the time, I spend my life hanging on for dear life to my trapeze-bar-of-the moment. It carries me along at a certain steady rate of swing and I have the feeling that I’m in control of my life.
I know most of the right questions and even some of the right answers. But, once in awhile, as I’m merrily or not so merrily swinging along, I look out ahead of me into the distance and what do I see? I see another trapeze bar swinging toward me. It’s empty, and I know, in that place in me that knows, that this new trapeze bar has my name on it. It is my next step, my growth, my aliveness coming to get me. In my heart of hearts, I know that for me to grow, I must release my grip on this present, well-known bar and move on to the new one. Each time it happens to me, I hope (no, I pray) that I won’t have to grab the new one. But in my knowing place I know that I must totally release my grasp on my old bar and for some moment in time, I must hurtle across space before I can grab onto the new bar. Each time I am filled with terror. It doesn’t matter that in all my previous hurtles across the void of knowing I have always made it.
Each time I am afraid that I will miss, that I will be crushed on unseen rocks in the bottomless chasm between the bars. But, I do it anyway. Perhaps this is the essence of what mystics call the faith experience. No guarantee, no net, no insurance policy, but you do it anyway because somehow, to keep hanging on to that old bar is no longer on the list of alternatives. And so for an eternity that can last a microsecond or a thousand lifetimes, I soar across the dark void of “the past is gone, the future is not yet here.” It is called Transition. I have come to believe that it’s the only place that real change occurs. I mean real change, not the pseudo-change that only lasts until the next time my old buttons get pushed, I have noticed that, in our culture, this transition zone is looked upon as a “no-thing,” a “no-place” between places. Sure, the old trapeze bar was real, and that new one coming towards me, I hope that’s real too. But the void in between? That’s just scary, confusing, disorienting “no-where” that must be gotten through as fast and as unconsciously as possible. What a waste!
I have a sneaking suspicion that the transition zone is the only real thing and the bars are illusions we dream up to avoid the void, where the real change, the real growth occurs for us. Whether or not my hunch is true, it remains that the transition zones in our lives are incredibly rich places. They should be honored, even savored. Yes, with all the pain and fear and feelings of being out-of-control that can (but not necessarily) accompany transitions, they are still the most alive, most growth-filled, passionate expansive moments of our lives. And so, transformation of fear may have nothing to do with making fear go away, but rather with giving ourselves permission to “hang out” in the transition zone between trapeze bars. Transforming our need to grab that new bar, any bar, is allowing ourselves to dwell in the only place where change really happens. It can be terrifying. It can also be enlightening, in the true sense of the word: Hurtling through the void, we just may learn how to fly.”
And Fly we must:
Bill continues in his essay on Emotional Sobriety- the Next Frontier with these thoughts. “Since AA began, I've taken immense wallops in all these areas because of my failure to grow up, emotionally and spiritually. My God, how painful it is to keep demanding the impossible, and how very painful to discover finally, that all along we have had the cart before the horse! Then comes the final agony of seeing how awfully wrong we have been, but still finding ourselves unable to get off the emotional merry-go-round.
How to translate a right mental conviction into a right emotional result, and so into easy, happy and good living--well, that's not only the neurotic's problem, it's the problem of life itself for all of us who have got to the point of real willingness to hew to right principles in all our affairs.
Even then, as we hew away, peace and joy may still elude us. That's the place so many of us AA oldsters have come to. And it's a hell of a spot, literally. How shall our unconscious--from which so many of our fears, compulsions and phony aspirations still stream--be brought into line with what we actually believe, know and want! How to convince our dumb, raging and hidden "Mr. Hyde" becomes our main task.”
The Main Task of convincing Mr. Hyde becomes easier when I am reminded of the contents of another A.A. Grapevine story. This one is taken from the April 1982 issue, which was published just two months before I was my journey into sobriety, began. The title of this story and its contents speak volumes about my journey into the realm of the Spirit and I will close this talk by reading it in its entirely.
A Slob's Guide to Spiritual Growth |
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IT'S A SQUIRMY word--"spiritual." It makes me uncomfortable. It reminds me of the time I spent as a child sitting in a church and trying to look holy. "Spiritual" is confused in my mind with a kind of hymn and has connotations of mediums, levitation, and ghosts.
Worse, "spiritual" implies pretensions of sainthood, a hypocritical posturing, and pretended preoccupation with wonderful thoughts--when I and everybody else know that ninety percent of my day is spent trying to keep the wolf from the door and the horse before the cart.
My spiritual inventory doesn't help much, either. This very day, as I lay in bed staring piously at the ceiling, I took the Third and Eleventh Steps firmly, fondly, and resolutely. I thought warmly of all the great tasks I would accomplish today with the aid of my trusty Third and Eleventh. Then I got out of bed.
In midwinter, with the window open and the heat turned down, getting out of a warm bed apparently is, for me, an act of will of the highest spiritual order. This monumental achievement seems to exhaust my store of spiritual strength for the day.
By ten o'clock, I have a number of creative suggestions to offer my Higher Power on how my life and will might be gainfully employed. I have a serene acceptance of God's will for me as long as it happens to conform to mine.
By 2:00 PM, I have decided to mix a little of my will for me with His, since knowledge of His will is a little slow in coming and there are problems in need of immediate attention--like meeting the payroll, hardly a matter of celestial concern.
This line of self-examination leads to certain humbling realizations that are unwanted but nevertheless gnawing little realities--potholes in the path of smooth spiritual development. For example:
- I won't believe tomorrow what I am saying today. Many of my hard-won convictions are just expedient reactions to the situation at hand.
- I have never seen any profound wisdom in "Everything works out eventually." Of course it does. If my car is stolen tomorrow, I can meditate on how smart I was to put off cleaning out the ashtray.
- There are far more things I try to find the courage to change than there are things I seek the serenity to accept. Going through the day in placid acceptance of everything that happens just ain't my style.
- I sometimes get tired of all this self-improvement and would like to just sit back and relax and enjoy life.
- I really enjoy solitude occasionally, as opposed to constant contact with my fellow man. There are times when I prefer curling up with a good book with lots of sex and violence to putting the Big Book under my arm and sallying forth to carry the message.
Those are not proud admissions, just the truth. I lead an odd and noisy life; little happens slowly or quietly. When I read my Big Book and "Twelve and Twelve," and I assess my spiritual growth, I am filled with enormous feelings of inadequacy. Honesty, compassion, acceptance, understanding, faith, love, caring--I don't even think about those most of the time. My progress toward spiritual strength is a zigzag trail filled with hip-shooting reactions.
Sometimes, I have thought of creating a Slob's Guide to Spiritual Growth, for those of us who can't walk around with our hands folded and a slight, mysterious smile on our faces. It might go something like this:
- It is better to watch the game in your undershirt with a can of cola in your hand than a can of beer.
- When you holler at somebody, you always feel lousy afterward--like a hangover.
- Life is a steady drizzle of small things--carry an umbrella.
- Tomorrow is another day.
- Never give up.
- Concentrate on what you're doing--it beats thinking.
- If you let the other fellow alone and don't get so upset about how he's living his life, you can watch more TV.
- It is more fun to be happy than angry.
- Don't take anything too seriously, including all of the above.
- This, too, shall pass.
That's a start. All that wisdom leads me to suspect that the path of spiritual progress is perhaps not so steep and dark as I had imagined. At least, I can try to understand it without getting all smug and lofty.
For starters, I know that I am a walking miracle. Literally overnight, I went from years of twenty-four-hour crash drinking to total sobriety, after everything had failed except total surrender to the AA program. That is a fact I can stand on.
From that foundation, I am able to see certain glimmers of progress. For example, I can realize that I have not done anything dishonorable in at least a week. Maybe more.
Also, I have learned that using utter candor in approaching whatever progress I have made lets me feel a lot more comfortable with that progress, however slim and unspectacular it may be--it's all mine and I'm proud of getting even that far.
I have known all along, after all, that my underlying problem was not drinking but living, and only through a change of attitudes, through unquestioning acceptance of the AA program--a program of spiritual growth--could I hope to live life as forcefully, aggressively, and enthusiastically as I have. Something must have happened.
And as I peel away the layers of day-to-day expediency, I realize that my zigzag, erratic, and inconsistent course was in the general direction of progress all the time.
That's good.
What right do I have to expect perfection and efficiency in my spiritual growth when the rest of my life is so full of ups and downs, ins and outs, and backs and forths? Throughout this whole adventure, the only consistency I have maintained is an absolute and total faith in AA, come what may.
Happiness happens when results exceed expectations. Maybe this is working after all. Deep down, there is also a warm, small ball of faith, always there, never dimmed, unexplainable, asking nothing, but giving much. To define it or try to bounce it would distort or destroy it. It just is, that's all.
As St. Augustine said, "God is closer to me than I am to Him." I don't know exactly what that means, but it sure is true.
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to serve in this manner. It has been my challenge to speak sharing my experience, strength, and hope. It has been your challenge to listen. I trust I finished before you did.