A Probable Suffering Newcomer Viewpoint

My own experience: I didn’t come into A.A. looking for a religion. I already had one—the Christian religion. I didn’t come into A.A. thinking I was joining a church. I already belonged to one—a community church in Marin County, California. I didn’t come into A.A. to get born-again of the spirit of God. I had already accepted Jesus as my Lord and believed that God raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9). I didn’t come into A.A. to “find God.” God was not lost, but I sure thought I was. I came into A.A. because I was thoroughly licked—just as many do, whether suffering from alcohol or other drug addictions. I think that an understanding of alcoholism was the farthest thing from my mind or my mission. I had had a week’s blackout. I had undergone nine months of incredible depression and excessive drinking. I was inundated with all kinds of legal problems—professional, domestic, business, and criminal. Confusion, fear, anxiety, bewilderment, and loneliness dominated my every thought. I simply came into A.A. at the suggestion of my former wife and figured it was the last house on the block. The words “God,” “religious,” “higher power,” “spirituality,” and church were not part of the picture what-so-ever. I did see the word “God” in the Twelve Steps hanging on the wall and decided I was on the right track. I was surrounded at every meeting by people who greeted me, welcomed me, gave me their phone numbers, and offered help. What were my objectives? To learn what an alcoholic is? No! To learn who God is? No. To adopt a new religion? No. To achieve a new social status? No.

I simply had one objective at the beginning — to feel better than I did. Quickly I got the point that alcohol and sleeping pills might possibly be at the heart of my troubles, and that quitting these was part of the game. My understanding of the miseries of alcoholism was hastened when I had three grand mal seizures in the first week, was taken to ICU in an ambulance, and wound up in a 28 day treatment program — but only after I had met and grabbed a sponsor who insisted that I was to attend an A.A. meeting every day. That’s something I did before I had the seizures. And that’s something I did for many years after I left the treatment center. Turning to God later became a necessity to whip the fear, the depression, the anxiety, and the seemingly insuperable problems. I did so with my sponsor and his sponsor, battling my religious inclinations at every opportunity. That was 21 years ago. I am fully enthusiastic about A.A. I am fully recovered, and I have been healed of alcoholism — this despite the fact that modern A.A. literature says you can’t be cured. And to make a long story short, I wasn’t cured by quitting drinking. I wasn’t cured by going to meetings. I wasn’t cured by studying the Big Book and taking the Twelve Steps. I wasn’t cured by finding some absurd “higher power,” or by attaining “spirituality,” or by relying on a light bulb or a tree or a group or “something” or “somebody.” No. I was cured by Almighty God; and so were the early A.A. pioneers between 1935 and 1938.

The earliest message in pioneer A.A. and the optional message today: Early AAs had to be told about and renounce alcohol as their nemesis, their temptation, their poison. Most had to be hospitalized to avoid the seizures that I had naively walked through. Most had to be introduced to God at the earliest possible moment. Dr. Bob’s most significant question at the close of brief early hospitalization was: “Do you believe in God?” And there was only one satisfactory answer.

When Ebby Thacher witnessed to Bill Wilson and said “I’ve got religion,” Bill noticed what had happened. Ebby declared to Bill that God had done for him what he hadn’t been able to do for himself. Bill went to Calvary Rescue Mission, knelt at the altar, accepted Christ, wrote “I’ve got religion” and also that he was “born again.” At Towns Hospital, Bill reached out to Jesus Christ as the Great Physician, had a conversion experience, and never drank again. But he couldn’t get anybody sober.

At Akron, he met Bob who believed in God, was a Christian, was a Bible student, was a man of prayer, and who recognized the importance of Bill’s concept of “service.” Taking the Bible of his youthful activities in Christian Endeavor, Bob worked with Bill in the summer of 1935 and developed a simple program — abstinence, reliance on God, obedience to God’s will, growing in fellowship with God through Bible study, prayer, guidance, and helping others get straightened out. “Love and service” — the slogan of Christian Endeavor — was the essence of the program described by Bob.

Bob wrote: “Your Heavenly Father will never let you down.” And to all who believed it, their Heavenly Father healed them.

Fifty years later, I grasped the same message. I quit! I turned to God. I used the Twelve Steps to turn me to a life of obedience to God’s will. I returned to Bible study, prayer, and asking God for guidance. And I plunged into A.A. That meant doing everything AAs did — meetings, sponsoring, Big Book study, taking the Twelve Steps, participating in every kind of A.A. activity, serving as a leader and helper in groups, and trying to apply the Steps. To the more than 100 men I have sponsored, I tried to carry that message. Those who did these things — many only 21 years of age when I started sponsoring them — are enjoying the abundant life today that God provides to those who believe in Him, love Him and others, and serve.

It worked in 1935 and it works today. The Bible is filled with the promises and instructions that establish exactly how it works. Moreover, it can work in A.A. You don’t have to leave A.A. or consider it a religion or look at it as a church or get swallowed up in secularism and universalism to make our Creator the number one item in your life. Your Heavenly Father will never let you down!

Gloria Deo

Dick B.

Dickb@dickb.com

Copyright 2008 by Anonymous. All rights reserved