Ray A.'s Blog, page 4

Character Defects: Dishonesty

Dishonesty is probably the single biggest obstacle to recovery. The Big Book suggests as much when it says that “Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.” Such people “are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living with demands rigorous honesty.”

Understood as a defect of character, dishonesty is an ingrained, habitual disposition to misrepresent the truth. This affects not only what we say and do, but also what we think and feel, and not only with respect to others, but also with respect to ourselves. Indeed, as Bill W. tells us, being dishonest with others almost always requires that we be dishonest with ourselves. We will always try to hide a bad motive underneath a good one, find a good reason to explain the wrong we do so that it doesn’t seem to be wrong.

In the form of self-deception, dishonesty is probably also the single biggest obstacle to making a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. We’re told that taking inventory is “a fact-finding and fact-facing process,” that “It is an effort to discover the truth” about ourselves. But, if we are self-deceived, we don’t want to find or face the facts; we don’t want to discover the truth. We want to mask, hide, conceal, distort and otherwise manage and manipulate reality. We will only see what we want to see.

Of course, we won’t admit that’s what we’re doing. Often we won’t even know that’s what we are doing. Such is the power of self-deception to render us totally opaque to ourselves. Hence the need to do our major inventories with a sponsor who can help us to spot the instances [expressions?] of dishonesty in the situations and relationships we examine. The sponsor will help us see through the deceptive ploys we utilize to hide the truth from ourselves: denial, rationalization, exaggeration, minimization, suppression, self-justification, and blame-shifting.

In the process of doing so, we will become increasingly good at recognizing the many manifestations of dishonesty in us. For dishonesty takes many forms, some quite blatant, others very subtle. Lying, cheating, and stealing are the most obvious. But even within these categories there are many shades of dishonesty, some harder to detect and admit to than others.

Take lying. There are lies of commission, as when we actually tell a falsehood, and lies of omission, as when we simply refrain from telling the truth. We may make a patently false statement, or we may deliberately provide inaccurate, partial, or misleading information; we may withhold the truth altogether, remain silent, be ambiguous, evasive, or vague, or we may fudge, waffle, or prevaricate; we may exaggerate, stretch, or play down the facts; we may say what a person wants to hear though we may not really believe it ourselves; we may make a promise we don’t intend to keep or, more often, just fail to keep our word; we may pretend to be something we are not or to know something we don’t; we may hypocritically claim to believe one thing while actually practicing another; we may abstain from looking deeper into an issue because we are not really interested in knowing the truth about it, or because what we find may contradict what we believe or force us to make choices we don’t want to make; and so on ad infinitum. The possibilities are endless. They are equally manifold for cheating and stealing, as well as for the many other forms dishonesty takes, such as unfaithfulness, disloyalty, and betrayal.

Becoming good at taking inventory of the dishonesty in us requires therefore that we become acquainted with its multiple expressions. For some of us, this may also involve expanding our vocabulary a bit: we cannot identify a form of dishonesty we cannot name.

It also requires that we become familiar with the various drivers of dishonesty in us. These are always other defects of character or emotion. Pride, jealousy, envy, greed, sloth, and lust, for instance, can drive us to lie, cheat, and steal, or to harm people in ways which we must then try to cover up and hide from ourselves as well as from others. The same with anger, fear, guilt, and shame, among other emotions.

Thus, if we are doing an inventory of anger, resentment, and fear, as in the Big Book sample, we need to look into the ways those emotions and dishonesty interact with each other. In that sample it is evident that the alcoholic’s problems stem from two blatant acts of dishonesty: cheating on his wife and stealing from his employer. His anger and resentment is a response to his being exposed for these acts; his fear a response to the consequent threats to his marriage, his home, and his job. At the same time, his anger enables him to shift blame and deny the real cause of his problems. It’s all their fault. His dishonesty causes him both to do wrong, and to hide the wrong from himself.

Whatever the wrong we may have committed, and whatever the defects of character or emotion driving them, dishonesty will almost always be present. Our job as we take inventory is to detect it and understand its function. As we see and admit it, dishonesty diminishes and honesty grows. But because of their motivating role, it follows that dishonesty will also diminish to the extent that these other defects do. We grow in honesty then by admitting, not only the specific manifestations of dishonesty in us, but the specific manifestations of the other defects that tend to generate it.

Posted 08/14/17 at http://PracticeThesePrinciplesTheBook... in "Character Defects," together with a variety of related quotes and other resources.

Practice These Principles: The Discipline of Confession

We read in the 12&12 that the practice of admitting one’s defects to another person is very ancient. And indeed it is. So is the practice of admitting one’s defects to God. The traditional name for these practices is, of course, confession.

AA doesn’t stress the use of the term “confession” for the same reason it doesn’t stress the use of the term “sin,” which it replaces with “defects.” Both have negative religious connotations. They can not only put off, but confuse the alcoholic as to what the nature and the purpose of the practice actually is in our program. Yet, AA doesn’t avoid either term; each appears 8 times in the Big Book and the 12&12.

Still, our goal is not to confess our sins but to admit our defects. In effect, while acknowledging it borrowed the concept from religion (via the Oxford Group), AA redefines confession for the alcoholic.
We want to admit “the exact nature of our wrongs.” That is, we want to admit not only our wrongful deeds (typically the goal in religious confession), but the wrongs in us which caused our doing them.

Having examined them thoroughly during our inventory, we want to admit to the distorted emotions which drove us to harm others and which are harming us as well, e.g., anger, resentment, fear, guilt, remorse, shame, regret, depression, self-pity. We want to acknowledge the defects of character in us which are fueling these emotions, e.g., dishonesty, envy, greed, impatience, ingratitude, injustice, intolerance, jealousy, lust, narrow-mindedness, pride.

Thus it follows that our admission of defects—of character and of emotion—is only as good as the self-examination on which it is based. If our inventory is mostly a summary of misdeeds, all we are going to admit to is what we did wrong. Our inventory will have been mostly an account of what we remember and our admission a recount of the same. We will not have examined the deeds for what they say about us and we will therefore have very little to say as to their exact nature. We will not have done the necessary groundwork for Steps 6 and 7, where we become ready to surrender our defects and ask God to remove them from us.

As presented in our two texts, confession—or the admission of defects—is a spiritual discipline. Spiritual because it most centrally concerns God. We admit our defects to God, not just to ourselves and another human being. Spiritual too because our disease is fundamentally spiritual and not only physical and mental. It requires a spiritual solution. Our admission, we are told, allows the grace of God to enter and “expel our destructive obsessions.” Yet many of us leave God out of our confession. We make our admission to another person without having any sense of its spiritual dimensions.

Confession is a discipline because it is designed to be practiced regularly and consistently over an extended period of time. It is not a random or an occasional act but a daily endeavor. The idea is to make the practice a habit and thereby become very good at it, just like through protracted practice we can excel at playing the violin or basketball.

Unlike these two other activities, however, confession encompasses all areas of life. In AA, it is a comprehensive practice, one of the spiritual principles we practice in all our affairs. The principle is operative in Steps 5, 9, and 10. It is also operational in our sharing at meetings.

In Step 5 it is the pivotal discipline. In Step 9, it works in conjunction with the discipline of restitution. We admit our wrongs to those we have harmed and make amends for them. In Step 10, a condensation of Steps 4 through 9, it is one of the main disciplines, together with self-examination, surrender, prayer, and restitution. We take inventory, admit our wrongs to ourselves and to God, ready ourselves to surrender the defects in question, pray for their removal, make the admission to those we have harmed, and make amends to them. If the situation is serious enough, we may have to take inventory with the help of another person (usually our sponsor) and make our admission to that person before we proceed.

How we order these disciplines and how much time we spend on them depends on the kind of Step-10 inventory we are doing, whether spot-check, end-of-day, or extended (covering a substantial period of time). In some spot checks we may go very quickly from inventory to admission to amendment, practicing the other disciplines perhaps in our nightly review. In that review Step 10 combines with Step 11, and we bring in the discipline of meditation as well as of prayer. An extended review is very much like a Step 4, and thus we may work more completely thorough all the disciplines making up the process.

Besides working in conjunction with these other disciplines, confession works together with a variety of virtues, the second major set of spiritual principles in the Steps. Most obviously, confession calls for humility and for honesty. When we confess we humble ourselves. We admit there’s something wrong with us; we tell the truth about ourselves and what we’ve done or left undone. We not only tell the truth, but we are totally frank with the person hearing our admission, and completely sincere with the person to whom we are making amends.

Disclosing ourselves to another and admitting our wrongs to those we have hurt may make us feel anxious, fearful, and embarrassed. Thus we may need to practice courage and therefore faith—faith that this is God’s will for us and that he will see us through. We may also need to practice discretion in what we disclose to whom, and prudence in whom we choose to hear our confession. And if we are going to practice confession as a discipline, we need perseverance. We need to continue to admit whenever and wherever we are wrong, regardless of the obstacles we may face.

Finally, an admission of wrongs is something we do all the time in the rooms. While discretion calls for a lot of prudent editing in such an open setting, we are always disclosing ourselves to our fellow alcoholics. To share is to unveil and to reveal, knowing that we are all fellow sufferers and that others will not judge but identify with us. When we share we share not only our faults, but the solutions which by the grace of God we have found in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Posted 05/04/17 in “Practice These” at http://practicetheseprinciplesthebook.... For full text, as well as quotes and additional resources, please click on link

"Watch Your Mouth": Cursing in Meetings

The sign is about 5” x 8.” It’s displayed prominently at the front edge of the table where the chairperson sits. “Watch Your Mouth,” it says. Some people seem totally oblivious to it. They curse right and left as if they were sitting at a bar watching a football game. We’re at an AA meeting. Supposedly we’ve come to share our experience, strength, and hope; to tell the story of what we were like, what happened, and what we are like now; of how we have changed and become new, sober men and women; to carry the message of our spiritual awakening.

Why then all the cursing? What is the message that carries? How does it fit in with our primary purpose? What does it contribute to our recovery and spiritual growth? How is it compatible with our admission of powerlessness, with being restored to sanity, with surrender, acceptance, serenity, and all the other principles we are called upon to practice?

Being at that meeting reminded me of my early days in AA. I first went to meetings in my old neighborhood. This was a bohemian section of a major city where cursing was a way of life. Everybody seemed to do it. It was part of the mystique, chic and fashionable. The same obtained in the rooms. Swearing in them was a form of art. Profanity, obscenity, four-letter words and expletives of all sorts punctuated every other sentence.

This neither surprised nor offended me. I didn’t have any moral or religious objections. I had come in as a libertine and an atheist. Moreover, I had had as filthy a mouth as they come. I had been a 60’s radical and f-bombs were among the most lethal weapons in my arsenal. A union organizer, my speeches at meetings and rallies were laced with every form of profanity. Cursing stirred people up. It mobilized them into action. They would demonstrate, march, go on strike.

But that was then, and this is now. So here I am at an AA meeting in the mid 80’s and it’s like a time warp. Everybody is still raising hell. The problem is that, with the alcohol out of my system, I now feel everything. Every raging f-word is like a blow to my nervous system. I feel riled up, agitated, ready to fight. But I don’t want to fight. I already did that. And I lost. That’s why I’m here. I found cursing was having the same effect on me as caffeine and sugar did, both of which I had consumed in abundance during the day, the wine then bringing me down at night. I had consciously given up the sugar-laden expressos when I stopped drinking. My body was telling me that cursing was just as bad for me, even if it was second-hand cursing.

After a few weeks, I gravitated toward meetings in a less contentious, more straight (more “bourgeois,” I would have said before) neighborhood. Unconsciously, I had started to change. I couldn’t go on doing sober what I had always done drunk.

When I did my first Step 4 inventory, cursing didn’t come up at all. What came up was a lot of anger. It took me many years to begin to see the connection between the two. I was a very angry man, and angry men curse. The review of secular opinion I did for this piece confirms what self-examination taught me. Cursing is a way of expressing emotion, and the main emotion it expresses is anger. The level of cursing varies with the level of anger. This can run the gamut from murderous rage to just plain frustration, like when we accidentally drop something and an obscenity automatically spills out of our mouth.

The general consensus is also that anger is the most power-driven emotion. Energy surges through the body as the emotion is aroused and we are primed to attack. And so because it is the verbal expression of anger, cursing has a lot to do with power. As a raging rabble-rouser, cursing and stirring up the crowds made me feel powerful. It made them feel powerful. Anger and cursing also made me feel powerful in another way: it enabled me to intimidate and thus to control my opponents.

It took me many inventories to connect my cursing with my anger, and both with my drive for power—and my drive for power with my main defect of character, which was pride. Apparently everybody had seen this all along. I had always come across as angry and arrogant. I wanted to play God, as the Big Book says, and when people didn’t play along I would explode in a barrage of power-driven arguments and expletives.

Secular psychologists give all kinds of reasons why people curse. Almost never do they attribute the problem to pride. If pride comes into the picture at all, it is as a virtue rather than a vice. In their view, cursing is actually something to be proud of. They cite research showing that people who curse are more intelligent and have a larger vocabulary than those who don’t. They also argue that cursing is “cathartic” and therefore healthy. Wouldn’t you rather be cursed at than punched, they rhetorically ask. Such is the power of self-deception, the 12&12 says in Step 10, “the perverse wish to hide a bad motive underneath a good one, which permeates human affairs from top to bottom.”

For “people who are driven by pride of self unconsciously blind themselves to their liabilities,” says the same book in Step 4, and thus “pride, leading to self-justification . . . is the basic breeder of most human difficulties, the chief block to true progress.” It is what stands in the way of exercising “restraint of tongue and pen” and curbing the habitual cursing that mars some people's sharing.

Looking through an AA lens, it’s not hard to see pride lurking behind the reasons most often given for cursing. Some men curse because, in their view, that’s what men do. It makes them feel virile. It’s a macho-sort of pride. Closely related to this is the desire to belong. They want to be one of the boys, part of the “in” crowd. Some people curse because they take pride in being irreverent and defying convention and breaking taboos. They want to shock. They also think it makes them look hip, or smart, or funny. They want to stand out. They want to be noticed. Yes, people routinely curse as a way of signaling how strongly they feel about something, but what that often signals is how right they think they are, and how wrong everybody else is. Sometimes curse words function as fillers, as a substitute for substance. We’re too proud to admit that we really have nothing to say. Finally, we curse because we curse. It’s become a habit, like saying “you know” every other sentence. We don’t even realize we’re doing it.

Our words reveal our character. Vulgarity, obscenity, and profanity betray the vulgar, the obscene, and the profane in us. The crass, the crude, and the coarse reflect who we are. A rude and disrespectful tongue shows us to be rude and disrespectful people. Other defects may be at work: cynicism and sarcasm, for instance, both rooted in resentment and pride.

The way we talk is one of those “affairs” or areas of our lives in which we want to practice the principles of recovery. Cleaning house is also cleaning up our language and getting rid of the filth in our mouths. If as the Big Book says resentment is the number one offender and we must be rid of habitual anger, then it would follow that we would want to be rid of cursing, inasmuch as anger and cursing are so often two sides of the same coin. Cursing both reflects and indulges anger, and, in indulging it, fosters it. And to the extent that pride is at the root of most of our problems and cursing is a manifestation of pride, to that extent also we want get rid of cursing, for the act reinforces and ingrains the defect. 

If we curse at meetings we probably curse outside. A sponsee recounts how the AAs he hangs out with are constantly cursing. Not just newcomers, mind you. Oldtimers with double-digit sobriety. Should he say something, he asks? But what could he possibly say that would change what years of going to meetings hasn’t changed? If the way they talk is out of control, that’s their business. It's a matter between them and their sponsor. If they don’t have a sponsor, well, that’s their business too.

What if we attend a meeting where cursing is so prevalent that it creates a problem for us? Well, there are a number of things we can do. The first is not to contribute to the problem by cursing ourselves. For some of us that might not be as easy as it sounds. The reason is that cursing is infectious. That is easily observable at meetings. One f-word often starts a chain reaction. People who don’t ordinarily curse but who are not yet free of the habit automatically follow suit. This encourages others to do the same.

Another way not to contribute to the problem is not to laugh when people curse as a way to be funny and ingratiate themselves with the audience. Laughing rewards the behavior; it confirms that cursing works and encourages the person to keep doing it. This is particularly important in the rooms, where laughter is part of our healing and recovery. We want to laugh and be lighthearted, and so we tend to play along.

By not cursing and not laughing, we are changing the things we can change, which is our own actions and reactions. Another thing we can change is what meetings we go to. If a meeting we attend is not helping our recovery, wisdom says we need to stop attending that meeting. That’s of course what I had to do, and it served me well.

However, that may not be our first option. If the meeting is very important to us (it is our home group, or we have many friends in it, or there are a couple of people in it whose sharing we find particularly helpful), we may try to change the situation. If there’s general agreement that the problem is sufficiently serious for the group to try to alleviate it, we could call for a business meeting.

That’s presumably what the group in our introductory story did. The sign on the table was an expression of the group conscience. Not everyone may agree with such a decision, but according to our traditions we all are called to respect it. Out of respect for the group conscience and in the interest of group unity, those who are given to curse in the meeting have a responsibility to make a serious effort to exercise self-restraint and moderate their language.

In the same spirit, if the group conscience is to take no action, then those who disagree with that decision are called to respect it, accept it, and turn the matter over. Evidently, we could not change the situation. At that point we may want to exercise the option to leave. We may need to conscientiously examine our motives, though. It would be wrong for us to leave because we didn’t get our way and have a resentment. It would be right to do so because we have honestly determined that the atmosphere created by the constant swearing is not conducive to our growth and recovery.

Whatever we do, we need to do in a spirit of love and tolerance. A review of Grapevine articles and letters on the subject of cursing at meetings dating back to the 1950’s shows that the problem has been around for a long time. It also shows that AAs can get pretty defensive about the issue. Hence the need to deal with it in the proper spirit. 

That spirit is shown by the writer of AA’s Daily Meditation for January 21: "I frequently ask God to help me watch over my thoughts and my words, that they may be the true and proper reflections of our program . . . Today I may very well have to deal with disagreeable attitudes or utterances—the typical stock-in-trade attitude of the still–suffering alcoholic. If this should happen, I will take a moment to center myself in God, so that I will be able to respond from a perspective of composure, strength and sensibility."

The cursing alcoholic is a sick and suffering alcoholic—like us. Our job is to focus on ourselves and clean up our own language. By doing that we become part of the solution. In the long run—and it’s always a long run— that’s the best way we can help.

Posted 02/01/17 at http://PracticeThesePrinciplesTheBook... in "Reflections." For details of post, please click on link.

Best AA Books

The books listed here are all “official” AA books, that is, they are approved by AA’s General Service Conference. They are published by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (AAWS).

The Book That Started It All: The Original Working Manuscript of Alcoholics Anonymous
Hardcover, September 1, 2010, 248 pages.

For those of us who love the Big Book and are intimately familiar with it, the Original Manuscript is a treasure-trove of information and insight. The best way to read it is in tandem with our Big Book, annotating our copy for the changes made or rejected in the Original. Doing this will change the way we look at the book that saved our lives, giving us an inside view of the process through which it became, not a book of religion or self-help, but something different and unique: a manual of practical spirituality that works in real life. See “A Tale of Two Cities: Akron, NY, and ‘The Book That Started It All,’ in Ray’s Book Reviews.

Alcoholics Anonymous, 75th Anniversary Edition, by AAWS, Hardcover, April 10, 2014, 400 pages (Available only at aa.org)

This is a facsimile of the first printing of the first edition of the Big Book, published in [April] 1939. As with the original, the pages are unusually thick. The idea was to make the book look “big” and therefore worth the price ($3.50)—hence the name by which it became popularly known. The book is fragile and needs to be treated as a collector’s item and handled with care, otherwise it will fall apart. A close comparison with the current 4th Edition will reveal many interesting differences, the biggest involving the Personal Stories Section. Reading these stories, we get an idea of what early AA was like and how much it has changed.

Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition
Hardcover, October 2001, 576 pages

For the recovering alcoholic, the Big Book is not optional reading. It is the quintessential “must read.” The reason is simple: that’s where the program of recovery is laid out. Many of us have learned the hard way that trying to work the program without the book that explains the program is a recipe for failure. Its first 164 pages need to be studied and thoroughly mastered if we are to work the AA program and not somebody else’s program. Regular attendance at Big Book study meetings can help. So can listening to Big Book Study tapes (e.g., “Joe & Charlie”) and using a reference tool like 164and more.com. See “Big Book Q&A.”

Experience, Strength and Hope
Hardcover, April 2003, 435 pages

Experience, Strength and Hope is a collection of the personal stories left out of the first three editions of the Big Book. It is divided in three parts. Part One presents 23 stories from the 1st Edition left out of the 2nd; Part Two seven stories from the 2nd left out of the 3rd; and Part Three 26 stories from the 3rd left out of the current, 4th Edition, which reflects the dawn of the 21st century. The changes reflect the changing composition of the fellowship. By making available these stories, ES&H enables us to get an idea of the scope of that change. It is a necessary companion to the serious study of the BB. See “Big Book Q&A.”

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
Hardcover, June 1953, 192 pages

Twelve Steps and 12 Traditions is the second basic text of AA’s recovery program. It complements and expands on the Big Book, written when Bill and Dr. Bob had only around 4 years sober. The 12&12 reflects an additional 12 years of experience. This led not only to the development of the 12 Traditions, but to the re-examination of each of the 12 Steps of the program. The Big Book had focused primarily on physical sobriety. Further experience showed that wasn’t enough. The 12&12 focuses on continuing growth. It deepens our understanding of each Step, shows how their principles can be practiced in all our affairs, and extends [the goal of recovery beyond physical to emotional sobriety.]

As Bill Sees It
Hardcover, 1967, 345 pages

As Bill Sees It is a collection of brief excerpts taken mostly from the Big Book, the 12&12, Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, Bill’s letters, and articles he published in the Grapevine. Excerpts are organized by topic: Acceptance, Guilt, Humility, Surrender, Tolerance, and so on. The book is a tool for individual meditation and group discussion. We can zero in on a particular issue we are having trouble with (e.g., fear or anger) or a particular principle we want to reflect on (e.g., gratitude or willingness). We can also date the pages starting with January 1 on page 1 and use it as a book of daily meditations. At meetings, a volunteer usually chooses a reading and that becomes the topic for discussion.

Daily Reflections
Paperback, 1990, 384 pages

Daily Reflections is AA’s “official” book of meditation, “A book of reflections by A.A. members for A.A. members,” as its subtitle indicates. Each dated page starts with a quote from the Big Book, the 12&12, As Bill Sees It, A.A. Comes of Age, Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, and other approved works. This is followed by a reflection by an AA member. Generally, each month's quotes and reflections revolve around the Step and Tradition which coincide numerically with that month (e.g., April is Step and Tradition 4). The book can also be used for concentrated reflection on a given topic (e.g., prayer), using the table of contents. It is also used for topic meetings, with the discussion based on the day's reading.

Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age
Hardcover, 1957, 333 pages

Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age is chronologically the third major work published by the Fellowship (following the Big Book and the 12&12). Its first history book, it revolves around the 20th Anniversary Convention in St. Louis, where AA “came of age” and was handed over to its members by Bill W. The book is divided in three parts. The first part consists of an overview of AA history given by Bill at the Convention. The second part includes three talks given by Bill on the three Legacies of AA: Recovery, Unity, and Service. And the third part is made up of addresses by friends of AA in medicine, religion, and elsewhere. A chart of historic dates makes for a handy reference tool.

Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers
Hardcover, 1980, 373 pages

Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers is a biography of the co-founder of AA, together with personal recollections of the early days of AA in the Midwest. We AAs typically know more about Bill W. and the New York side of AA than we do about Dr. Bob and its Akron side. This much needed biography helps to correct that imbalance. It shows the genesis and evolution of AA in the Midwest and the central role Dr. Bob and the “Oldtimers” played in the development of the fellowship and the program. The personal, informal, and anecdotal nature of the narrative is in keeping with the personality and the character of the old doctor. A descriptive table of contents and ample illustrations add to the book’s value.

Pass It On
Hardcover, 1984, 429 pages

Pass It On is an apt title for this, the official biography of Bill W. For, from the beginning of his sobriety, Bill was driven by the goal of passing on what had been freely given him—passed on, in fact, by a drunk from his and Dr. Bob’s native state of Vermont. For the AA member, this is the most reliable of Bill’s biographies, carefully documented and written from a decidedly AA perspective. It gives us the full story of the man and of the fellowship he helped to found, complete with footnotes and sources, and using plain and unpretentious language in the AA tradition. Other helpful features include a detailed table of contents, a list of significant dates, and many memorable photos.

The Language of the Heart
Hardcover, 1988, 410 pages

The Language of the Heart is a collection of Bill W.’s Grapevine writings. Covering the period from 1944 to the late 1960’s, they show Bill’s reflections on AA history as it was happening and his deepening understanding of the Steps, the Traditions, and their underlying principles. The book is divided into three time periods, with each further divided into topical segments. Part One (1944-1950) is concerned primarily with the traditions. Part Two (1950-1958) centers on the Fellowship’s growing maturity. Part Three (1958-1970) focuses on the practice of AA principles in all our affairs and the goal of emotional sobriety. Memorial articles and pieces about the Grapevine complete this very unique work.

Posted 12/23/16 in “Best Recovery Books” at http://practicetheseprinciplesthebook...

Note:
Goodreads readers may be interested in “Best AA and Related Recovery Books,” posted by Ray under “Lists” on this Goodreads page, which includes 15 books recommended by him. You may also be interested in Ray’s reviews of the following books, posted here and in the PTP website:

The Book That Started It All: The Original Working Manuscript of Alcoholics Anonymous, by Anonymous
Twenty-four Hours a Day, by Anonymous
The Recovery Bible, by Anonymous
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life, by Charles Duhigg
The Emotional Life of Your Brain, by Richard J. Davidson, with Sharon Begley
Being Good: Christian Virtues for Everyday Life, Michael W. Austin and R. Douglas Geivett, editors
Addiction and Virtue: Beyond the Models of Disease and Choice, by Kent Dunnington

Best Recovery Books

Someone once said at a meeting that reading books was not his “style,” by which he meant that he preferred general discussion meetings where people just “talked.” Big Book or 12&12 discussion meetings were not his “thing.” That sentiment is probably widespread. As another person pointed out, however, it presents a problem. And this is the fact that, while going to meetings can make us feel better, it does not necessarily help us recover.

For that we need to work the program. And the program is written down. It is laid out, explained, elucidated, elaborated and expounded upon in books. If we don’t read those books, we are getting the program secondhand. We may not even be getting the program at all. Or we may be getting only bits and pieces of it, enough to keep us dry for a while.

It seems that, for many of us, AA is only a fellowship. It is the rooms. But AA is more than that. It is both a fellowship and a program. The fellowship provides the spiritual environment to help us work the program and pass our experience on to others. Yet it is possible to have the fellowship and not have the program. It is possible to subscribe to the “Don’t drink and go to meetings” mantra for the long term, making that, in effect, an “easier, softer way.”

AAs are like most people, and most people don’t read. If that is our case, then reading may be one of those “lengths” to which we have to be willing to go if we are to recover. Assuming that recovery means more than abstinence to us. Then, too, there are some of us who are more than willing. We are driven. We desperately need to continue to grow, and we are prepared to do whatever it takes. We will read whatever books we have to read, as many times as we have to.

Whichever type of person we may identify with, our point of departure is still the same: the Big Book and the 12&12. These two are the essential, the indispensable books. They constitute the foundation. But as necessary as they are, they will only help us lay out the foundation. We will need to read on if we are to build on it.

AA itself provides us with a series of readings which can help us do that. And so we start our list of best recovery books with those “official” AA texts we have found the most helpful. This will be followed by other lists, including books related to but not official AA works, books from other 12-Step fellowships, books related to recovery but not approved by any fellowship, books on the emotions and emotional sobriety, and books on the basic principles underlying the Steps, the spiritual disciplines and virtues.

After we have read extensively in any field, such as recovery, we begin to find a small number of works which are worth repeated reading and maybe even intensive study. That’s the kind of concentrated effort which will help us grow the most. That in any case has been our experience in the course of researching and writing Practice These Principles. We share that experience here.

Posted 12/23/16 in “Best Recovery Books” at http://practicetheseprinciplesthebook...

Note:
Goodreads readers may be interested in “Best AA and Related Recovery Books,” posted by Ray under “Lists” on this Goodreads page, which includes 15 books recommended by him. You may also be interested in Ray’s reviews of the following books, posted here and in the PTP website:

The Book That Started It All: The Original Working Manuscript of Alcoholics Anonymous, by Anonymous
Twenty-four Hours a Day, by Anonymous
The Recovery Bible, by Anonymous
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life, by Charles Duhigg
The Emotional Life of Your Brain, by Richard J. Davidson, with Sharon Begley
Being Good: Christian Virtues for Everyday Life, Michael W. Austin and R. Douglas Geivett, editors
Addiction and Virtue: Beyond the Models of Disease and Choice, by Kent Dunnington

Thank You

Our thanks to the 546 people who participated in the Practice These Principles Book Giveaway, who added the book to their "To Read" list, and who started to follow us on Goodreads. Books were shipped to the winners January 10, 2017. Happy reading to all.

The Virtue of Kindness

Kindness first comes up in the Big Book in its discussion of Step 3 and the problem of self-will. We read there that “Most people try to live by self-propulsion.” Each person is compared to “an actor who wants to run the whole show,” and “is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way,” convinced that, if they all did as he wished, the show would be great and everybody would be happy. “In trying to make these arrangements, our actor may be quite virtuous,” we’re told. “He may be kind, considerate, patient, generous; even modest and self-sacrificing.”

But is he really being virtuous? Does the fact that he acts kindly in a given instance make him a kind person? Not at all. Even the cruelest person can act kindly at times—especially if it serves his purpose. In acting kindly, our actor only appears to be virtuous. He’s motivated by a desire to have people follow his script and dance to his tune. In Aristotelian terms, he’s acting “according to virtue” rather than “out of virtue.” He’s acting “as if,” not in order to become “as is,” but in order to get people to do what he wants.

Not surprisingly, people see through his ploy. They resist him. The show doesn’t go very well. The harder he tries, the more he fails. He becomes “angry, indignant, and self-pitying,” which emotions confirm he was “acting” (in the fraudulent sense of the word) all along and not really being virtuous. It was all a façade. Hence the Big Book’s conclusion by way of a rhetorical question: “Is he really not a self-seeker even when trying to be kind?”

“Our actor is self-centered,” says the Big Book, and self-centeredness is antithetical to virtue. Indeed, all the virtues are geared to wean us away from self-centeredness, away from seeing everything primarily in terms of our own self-interest and, consequently, acting at the expense of everyone else.

Everybody thinks of kindness as a good quality. Yet, as a virtue, kindness is not easy to grasp. On the one hand, the term can be generalized to the point of making it nothing more than being “nice.” On the other hand, the term can be conflated with other virtues. The reason for this is that kindness doesn’t stand alone but works with a number of overlapping and related virtues.

Step 4 of the Big Book groups kindness with three of these virtues: tolerance, patience, and pity (compassion). Together, these four virtues are offered as an antidote to anger and resentment. As they become ingrained in our character, they enable us to see those who wrong us in radically different terms: as being spiritual ill. “Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. When a person offended we said to ourselves, ‘This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done . . . We cannot be helpful to all people, but at least God will show us how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each and every one” (all italics ours).

Because they are what we might characterize as benevolent ways of looking at the sick and suffering, such virtues as tolerance, patience, kindness, and pity counter the perceptions shaped by anger and resentment, which are characterized by ill will.

Kindness is the least specific and broadest of the four virtues and can encompass aspects of patience, tolerance, and compassion, as well as of such virtues as gentleness, generosity, sympathy, understanding, considerateness, and courtesy.

As gentleness, for instance, kindness is a perception of vulnerability or need, and a consequent desire not only not to hurt, but to help, and to help specifically by the manner of one’s approach: mild, soft, tender. This is what makes kindness antithetical to anger. It also distinguishes kindness from patience and tolerance, which connote refraining from doing wrong more than actively working to do right. Kindness wants to help, to reassure and to comfort, and this makes it a virtue of the heart. In this kindness is like compassion, but its field of vision is wider than that of compassion, which is concerned more specifically with actual suffering rather than more broadly with need.

As a virtue, kindness is acquired through repeated practice over the course of our recovery. Thus kindness becomes the subject of Step 10 in the 12&12, where it is grouped together with three other virtues as laying out the path to good relations with all: “Courtesy, kindness, justice, and love are the keynotes by which we may come into harmony with practically anybody.” Similarly, Step 11 of the Big Book suggests that our practice of kindness be one of the issues we examine in our nightly review of our day: “Were we kind and loving toward all?” The same Step suggests that we start the new day by “asking each morning in meditation that our Creator show us the way of patience, tolerance, kindliness, and love.”

And Step 12 reminds us that “Helping others is the foundation stone of your recovery. A kindly act once in a while isn't enough. You have to act the Good Samaritan every day, if need be.” To be kind is to be of service to those in need. And the need is to be found everywhere: in our homes, in our neighborhood, at work, at church, and in all our relationships and affairs. This makes the virtue of kindness central to working the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, whose overarching purpose for our lives is summarized in two words: “love and service.”

Posted 11/02/16 in “Practice These” at http://PracticeThesePrinciplesTheBook... .

And When We Were Wrong

I was listening to a Big Book Study tape recently when an exchange between the speaker and a woman in the audience caught my attention. The woman explained that she and her ex-husband were both in the program but attended separate meetings. Unfortunately, what they said in those meetings was not staying in those meetings.

Breaking tradition, some people were going back and forth between meetings and divulging what the two of them had shared. The gossip had spread outside the rooms as well. They would tell the ex what she said and then tell her what he’d said in response. As a result, she had developed a resentment. She didn’t know how to handle the situation and asked for help.

Seizing on her admission that she had coped a resentment, the speaker suggested she might want to do a 10th Step inventory. She didn’t seem to have any problem with that. However, she still wanted to know what she should do. Should she stop going to those meetings and go to different ones? The speaker told her that if she took inventory she would find out the harm that she had caused and then she would have to make amends. “But I didn’t do anything wrong,” she replied. “Yes, you did,” he countered.

And that’s when things got complicated. The speaker argued that, by holding on to her anger and letting it turn into a resentment, she had done wrong. She was resentful against people for not acting the way she wanted them to act. She was playing God. She was “lying” to her friends by not telling them that they had hurt her and that she had a resentment against them. She had to admit her resentment to them and make amends for it.

Now, what are we to make of this? Was the woman right to say she hadn’t done anything wrong? Was the speaker right to say that she had and that she owed amends? Does having a resentment by and of itself call for making amends? Can one be wrong but not do wrong?

Listening to the tape, it’s not clear exactly what the woman meant when she said she hadn’t done anything wrong. But there are two possibilities. One is that she didn’t see anything wrong with her having gotten a resentment. If this is the case, she was mistaken. Under the circumstances she describes, he anger was natural and justified. Her resentment was not. It was an unhealthy emotion she indulged by holding on to her anger. The other possibility is that she meant she hadn’t hurt anyone. She hadn’t acted on her resentment and tried to retaliate. If this indeed the case, then she was right. She was wrong, but she didn’t do wrong.

Step 10 says that we “Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.” Not seen in their proper context, the words “wrong” and “admitted” can appear ambiguous. Wrong about what? Admitted to whom? For the speaker in the above exchange, “wrong” seems to have meant a “shortcoming” or a defect, namely resentment. To him, this defect automatically translated into wrongdoing. The resentment was harmful not only to the subject or holder of the resentment, but to its objects. “Admitted” seems to have meant not only to herself, but to them. Hence the suggestion she had to make amends.

But such an understanding conflates wrong with wrongdoing, an emotional state or condition (resentment) with an action (hurting). It also fails to appreciate that “admitted” can refer to either or both, and that the admission can be to oneself, to God, to another human being, and/or to the person we have wronged, if indeed we have.

Obviously, Step 10 is a continuation of the work we have done in Steps 4 through 9. Having worked through those Steps the first time around “as we cleaned up the past,” we continue to repeat the process now with regards to our present lives as we continue to recover. The Big Book makes this amply clear. Its simple explanation leaves no room for ambiguity.

“Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear,” the book tells us (BB 84). We continue to take inventory of our defects of character (e.g., selfishness and dishonesty) and of emotion (e.g. resentment and fear), as we did in Step 4. “When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them.” That’s a continuation of what we did in Step 7, which presumes we become entirely ready to have him take them away, as we did in Step 6. “We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone.” That’s a continuation of Step 5, where we first admitted both our wrongs (defects) and wrongdoings (hurtful actions), and of Step 9, which presumes we become willing to make amends, as we did in Step 8.

Notice: “and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone” (my italics). We can be wrong without having wronged anyone. Having a resentment will generally cause us to harm others, but there’s no iron rule that says that will necessarily be the case. It is entirely possible that the aggrieved woman had a resentment against those who were gossiping about her and her ex but did not act on that resentment and “didn’t do anything wrong” in the sense that she did nothing to hurt them. In that case, she didn’t have to admit any wrongdoing to them and owed them no amends. To say that she was “lying” by not revealing her resentment to them is a stretch, to say the least.

Notice too: Even if we have harmed no one, we still take personal inventory “when these crop up (my italics).” Why? Because even if they don’t hurt anyone else, defects always hurt us. And that hurt will eventually lead us to hurt somebody else. That is the case with resentment, which if left unresolved will eventually cause the anger to flare up again and cause us to hurt people, sometimes people who had nothing to do with the situation that originally aroused our anger.

If the woman was right and she did not hurt anyone and making amends was not the answer to her problem, then what was it? The 12&12 tells us: “In all these situations we need self-restraint, honest analysis of what is involved, a willingness to admit when the fault is ours, and an equal willingness to forgive when the fault is elsewhere” (p.91).

Apparently, the woman exercised self-restraint in not retaliating against those she resented. Still, an honest analysis of her situation would lead her to conclude that she was at fault for holding the resentment. The solution would then be clear. She needed to admit her resentment to herself, to God, and to another human being (perhaps her sponsor), and then she needed to let go of the resentment and forgive those who wronged her. If she found that she lacked the willingness to do so, then she would have to work Steps 6 and 7.

Whether she should drop the old meetings and start attending new ones would become clearer as she went through this process. Forgiving will help her to change. It will not necessarily change the situation or the other parties involved. She may forgive but decide not to expose herself to the same set of circumstances again. Free of resentment, however, she will be better placed to make a sober

For a long time I had a resentment against my father and my mother for having abandoned me when I was an infant. The resentment against my father grew when, having gone to live with him as a teenager, he locked me out of his house and left me homeless. Such resentment caused a lot of harm to myself and to many other people. Once I got sober, I let go of the resentment and made amends to those people. But I didn’t have to make amends to my parents. I never did anything wrong to them. I never hurt them. What I had to do was to forgive them. And I did.

Posted 08/30/16 in “Reflections” at http://PracticeThesePrinciplesTheBook... . where you will also find other posts no longer showing on this Goodreads blog.

Practice These Principles: The Virtue of Willingness

Willingness is one of the “essentials of recovery,” according to the Big Book. It is one of the “indispensable principles” of the 12-Step program, together with honesty and open-mindedness. The centrality of these three to our sobriety is aptly conveyed by the acronym we have coined out of them: HOW.

That honesty and open-mindedness should be given such prominence should not surprise us. After all, these are well recognized virtues. That is far from being the case with willingness. Indeed, by putting it on a par with those two other virtues, AA gives willingness a significance it lacks outside our program. It raises it to the status of a virtue in its own right, and a pivotal one at that.

Why is this? Why is willingness so crucial to recovery? The reason is simple. Willingness is the natural corrective to one of our worst character defects as alcoholics. This is our inveterate willfulness. Dictionaries describe a willful person as one who is obstinately bent on having his way, who is deliberate, headstrong, and persistent in a self-determined course of action. That accurately describes us. Willfulness is all about self-will, and so are we. Thus the Big Book’s description of the alcoholic as an extreme example of “self-will run riot.”

Willingness by contrast is a disposition away from self and toward others. It suggests an inclination to acquiesce, comply, or cooperate with the proposals or requirements of another. To be willing is to be ready to do something voluntarily, without being forced. Whereas willfulness is synonymous with contrariness, stubbornness, and intransigence, willingness suggests flexibility, agreeableness, and acceptance. To be willful is to resist, defy, and rebel; to be willing to yield, concede, and consent. Willingness is open to the good; willfulness is closed to it.

In AA, willingness is in the service of recovery. If we are not willing to concede that our way has not worked very well for us and that perhaps AA does have a better way, we don’t have the slightest chance of getting and staying sober. We will continue to do what we’ve been doing all along. The required willingness first comes when we hit bottom. “Then, and only then, do we become as open-minded to conviction and as willing to listen as the dying can be.”

Step 1 is where we make the initial adjustment from willfulness to willingness. The pain and the suffering we experience when everything falls apart has the effect of bending our will a little: “Each of us has had his own near-fatal encounter with the juggernaut of self-will, and has suffered enough under its weight to be willing to look for something better.” Ever so slightly, we begin to turn from self. Having been humbled, our ego deflated, we become receptive to the AA message. We become willing to listen, to learn, to ask for help, to accept direction. As our rebellion subsides, we become willing to admit what our pride would never let us acknowledge: that we are alcoholic and that our life has become unmanageable.

As this suggests, therefore, willingness is not a principle exclusive to Steps 6 and 8, as on first impression we might tend to believe. It is of the essence to Step 1 and just as indispensable to all the other Steps. Simply put, we won’t work any Step unless we are willing to. In this sense, willingness is a basic, foundational virtue. As with every other virtue, however, our goal is to grow in it. We do that as we work the Steps and in each one practice willingness in the way that is specific to that Step.

Willingness in Step 2 is an issue of faith at its most elementary level: are we “willing to believe.” For “We found that as soon as we were able to lay prejudice aside and express even a willingness to believe in a Power greater that ourselves, we commenced to get results.” Here too, as in Step 1, the force of circumstance may facilitate the initial willingness, as the story of “Our Southern Friend” (Fitz M.) in “We Agnostics” relates.

Step 3 calls for a greater level of willingness, for it involves a greater level of faith. This is where we become willing to let go of the reins, to get off the driver’s seat and entrust our will and our lives to the care of God. “Practicing Step Three is like the opening of a door which to all appearances is still closed and locked. All we need is a key, and the decision to swing the door open. There is only one key, and it is called willingness. Once unlocked by willingness, the door opens almost of itself, and looking through it, we shall see a pathway beside which is an inscription. It reads: ‘This is the way to a faith that works.'”

The very same key opens the door to the practice of the remaining Steps, for they are all built on the foundations of the decision to surrender that we make in Step 3.

Thus the Big Book tells us that “Taking inventory in Step 4 requires “great willingness even to begin.” And yet, “Without a willing and persistent effort to do this, there can be little sobriety or contentment for us.” But “Once we have a complete willingness to take inventory and exert ourselves to do the job thoroughly, a wonderful light falls upon this foggy scene” and the pride and the fear that stood in our way begin to dissipate. Putting pen to paper “will be the first tangible evidence of our complete willingness to move forward.” With regards sex we read that “Whatever our ideal turns out to be, we must be willing to grow toward it.” Having completed our inventory, “We admitted our wrongs honestly and were willing to set these matters straight.” We “have listed the people we have hurt by our conduct, and are willing to straighten out the past if we can.”

Similarly, we are warned in Step 5 that we are not likely to stay sober unless we admit our defects to another human being, for “It seems plain that the grace of God will not enter to expel our destructive obsessions until we are willing to try this.” Experience shows that “Only be discussing ourselves, holding back nothing, only by being willing to take advice and accept direction could we set foot on the road to straight thinking, solid honesty, and genuine humility.“ It is clear that “Until we actually sit down and talk aloud about what we have so long hidden, our willingness to clean house is still largely theoretical.”

As regards Step 6, the Big Book begins by noting that “We have emphasized willingness as being indispensable.” Nowhere is that more true than in this Step. For to be “entirely ready” is in effect to be completely and utterly willing to have God remove our defects of character. That is obviously a very high ideal. It is the highest we will find in any of the Steps, for as the 12&12 says, it suggests that “we ought to become entirely willing to aim toward perfection.” The ideal is prefigured in Step 3, the goal being to become the person God made us to be. “[A]ny person capable of enough willingness and honesty to try repeatedly Step Six on all his faults—without any reservations whatever—has indeed come a long way spiritually, and is therefore entitled to be called a man who is sincerely trying to grow in the image and likeness of his own Creator.” This is something that “we are supposed to be willing to work toward ourselves,” by working the Steps. Yet none of us is capable of such willingness, and thus the Big Book suggests that “If we still cling to something we will not let go, we ask God to help us be willing.”

How can we possibly aim that high? “How can we possibly summon the resolution and the willingness to get rid of such overwhelming compulsions and desires?” asks the 12&12. By combining willingness with humility. “[W]hen we have taken a square look at some of these defects, have discussed them with another, and have become willing to have them removed, our thinking about humility commences to have a wider meaning. Step 7 “is really saying to us that we ought now to be willing to try humility in seeking the removal of our other shortcomings just as we did when we admitted that we were powerless over alcohol, and came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” Hence the humility that marks the 7th Step prayer: “I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad.” Why do we pray for the removal of our character defects? Because they stand in the way of our usefulness to God and our fellows. Hence there is no prideful, self-seeking perfectionism in the ideal underlining Steps 6 and 7. The goal is to do God’s “bidding.”

Ultimately, willingness is about doing God’s will rather than our own. In Step 8 that means that “We became willing to make amends” to all the people we had harmed, having made our list and become willing to forgive any harms they may have done to us. In Step 9 it means that we have “a complete willingness to make amends as fast and as far as may be possible, and that we are “willing to reveal the very worst” if necessary.” We continue this process in Step 10, where “An honest regret for harms done, a genuine gratitude for blessings received, and a willingness to try for better things tomorrow will be the permanent assets we seek.” In Step 11 prayer and meditation become the primary tools through which we continue to grow in the willingness to know and to do God’s will for us. In Step 12 we become willing to carry the message of recovery to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

As a virtue, then, willingness involves a process of moving away from self-will toward God’s will for us. This process unfolds as we work the Steps and practice the principles they embody. That is why willingness is so central to the “how” of recovery. As we grow in this virtue we become increasingly willing participants in the process of “Attitude Adjustment” which a spiritual awakening makes possible in us.

Our ultimate goal, Bill W. writes, is “a full willingness, in all times and places, to find and to do the will of God.” He sees such willingness as the highest expression of humility, which is in turn “the foundation principle of each of A.A.’s Twelve Steps.”

Posted 07/31/16 in “Practice These” at http://PracticeThesePrinciplesTheBook... . For full post, including related quotes and other resources, please click on link, where you will also find other posts no longer showing on this Goodreads blog.

Back to Vice & Sin: A Review of Addiction and Virtue: Beyond the Models of Disease and Choice, by Kent Dunnington

Before the advent of AA, what we now call alcoholics were just plain old drunks, bums, or, less disparagingly, inebriates. What we now call alcoholism was a bad habit or vice, namely, the vice of intemperance (hence the Temperance Movement). Seen philosophically and psychologically, it was the product of a weak will. Theologically it was the product of sin. Neither view did much for the alcoholic.

AA changed all of that. It popularized the terms "alcoholic" and "alcoholism" and gained widespread acceptance for the idea that alcoholism was a disease and the alcoholic a sick person. The idea that the alcoholic suffered from a disease helped AA to account for the involuntary nature of his problem: the alcoholic had lost control over his drinking. He was “powerless” over alcohol.

Its concept of a disease was unique. Reflecting the experience of AAs with medicine, psychology, and religion, it came to be understood as a “threefold” disease: physical, mental, and spiritual. Because experience seemed to show that the spiritual was the root of the disease, its treatment called for working a series of steps leading to a “spiritual awakening” which would free the alcoholic from the obsession to drink and enable him or her to grow and live on an entirely different basis.

As is well known, the 12-Step program that emerged from this has been very successful. It has helped millions of us alcoholics to stop drinking and rebuild our shattered lives. Adapted for use by other groups, the same Steps have helped millions of other people suffering from what later came to be called “addictions,” an umbrella term which now covers an increasingly wider spectrum of “disease.”

While the idea of addiction as disease caught on with the culture, the idea of a threefold disease never fared well outside of AA and the 12-Step recovery movement. Instead, the concept was deconstructed and reduced to the single fold of physiology. Addiction became a medical disease narrowly construed, i.e., construed “scientifically” as biologically determined. It came down to a matter of genes and brain chemistry. Moving to the other extreme, some "professionals" and other "experts" (in what by now had turned into a recovery industry) eventually started to challenge that view, arguing that addiction was not involuntary like a disease, but a voluntary choice. The alcoholic simply chose to drink.

As its subtitle suggests, Addiction and Virtue (A&V) is an attempt to go beyond these two now dominant and opposing views: the disease and the choice concepts of addiction. Addiction, contends the author, is neither a disease nor a choice. It is a habit. According to him, the category of habit (as found in Aristotle and Aquinas) offers an alternative to the disease and the choice models, both of which he claims are plagued with flaws and contradictions.

Dunnington convincingly argues that the disease concept understood in exclusively medical—in reductive and deterministic—terms is untenable. If addiction is only a medical disease, addicts should not be able to recover non-medically, that is, independently of medicine. But they do, by the millions. Hence the concept is patently false. We might also add what is a side but not an unimportant point, and this is the fact that few addicts recover solely through medical treatment. Most medically-based treatments work in tandem with one version or another of the 12-Step program or therapies inspired by it.

The fact that addicts can recover in a non-medical context is what led many in the “addiction studies” field to challenge the involuntary disease paradigm and argue that addiction is a matter of choice. On this view, what vitiates the addict’s will and makes him succumb to the object of addiction is not a disease but a character or moral weakness. But if the addict can simply will his own recovery if he so chooses, Dunnington points out, then he’s not an addict. The choice concept solves the addiction problem by denying the category of addiction. Drinking and drugging is just one more failure of will, no different from any other. Though couched in the contemporary language of choice, this view takes us back to the days before AA and erases whatever progress we have managed to make since.

As Dunnington sees it, the category of habit offers an alternative to the disease-choice dichotomy because of its ability to account for both the involuntary and the voluntary aspects of addiction. This is because, on the one hand, a habit is formed in the process of repeated voluntary action over time. On the other hand, once it is formed, the actions that follow from the habit are largely unconscious and involuntary. We just do, more or less automatically, what we have become used to doing. Thus habit facilitates action. In a moral context, the action can lead to the formation of a good habit (a virtue), or a bad one (a vice). For Dunnington “Addictions are like virtues and vices in this respect, [in that] virtues and vices are habits that empower persons to pursue consistently, successfully and with ease various kinds of goods . . . habits through the practice of which human beings aim at the good life, the life of happiness” (96). Vices differ from virtues in that the latter actually do lead to the good life while the former don’t.

In Dunnington's view, then, addiction is a bad habit or vice. But it isn’t the vice of intemperance, as was generally thought in the past. The alcoholic is not just pursuing the sensory pleasures associated with drinking. He or she is not pursuing a life of hedonism. Instead the alcoholic is pursuing certain moral goods, “like the ability to communicate, being at ease with oneself, being unafraid and being part of a community" (94). This echoes what we say in the rooms: drinking makes us feel like we belong; it makes us feel comfortable in our own skin; it makes us feel confident. For a while anyway, it makes us feel that we are OK and life is good.

But if addiction is not the vice of intemperance, then what kind of a vice is it? To answer this question Dunnington reaches beyond the philosophical notion of habit to the theological notion of sin. Addiction, he says, is not the same as sin, but it cannot be understood apart from sin. For, insists Dunnington, the good life that the addict seeks can only be found in a right relationship with God. Addiction is a misguided quest for that relationship, a form of counterfeit worship. It is the sin of idolatry.

Now, if Dunnington is right and addiction is a vice rooted in sin, if it is an expression of idol worship, wherein lies the solution? How does this understanding help the alcoholic to stop drinking or the drug addict to stop using? Dunnington doesn’t tell us. His is not a self-help book, he says. It is not meant to provide a list of steps or recovery principles. It is intended instead to help Christians “who rightly sense the spiritual significance of addiction . . . to articulate this significance in theologically substantive terms” (9).

And here we come up against an all-to-familiar problem. A&V is another book about addiction which is of no practical use to the addict. Dunnington is writing for a different audience, namely the church. “If addiction is false worship," Dunnington asks, "how should the church, which hopes to practice true worship of the true God, respond to addiction?” (169). Dunnington recognizes that such a question cannot be answered without taking into account the success of AA and the 12-Step movement. Indeed, throughout A&V he makes extensive use of the Big Book, the 12&12, and testimony from recovering addicts to support his own view of addiction. Hence one would expect him to find much of positive value in the 12-Step experience for the church to draw on.

That is unfortunately not the case. Though acknowledging the church’s abysmal failure to help addicts, Dunnington sees AA and the 12 Steps—despite their undeniable success—as presenting more risks than opportunities for the church. Regrettably, much of the analysis that results from this outlook reveals a lack of understanding of how AA works and how 12-Step programs in general do help the addict to recover.

This lack of understanding is in many ways baffling. Most baffling for a book that argues against the materialist, reductionist account of addiction as a purely physiological disease is its failure to even so much as mention AA’s alternative concept of alcoholism as a threefold disease. The book argues for a spiritual understanding of addiction and yet it ignores AA’s understanding that a spiritual malady is at the root of the physical and the mental illness in the alcoholic. It proposes a spiritual solution yet gives not the slightest consideration to AA’s solution of a spiritual awakening or experience. It advocates a distinctly Christian solution yet completely overlooks the distinctly Christian understandings underpinning the Big Book and the 12&12, including one of the most fundamental tenets of AA recovery: that "we are sober only by the grace of God" (12&12, 92). What, one may ask, is more distinctly Christian than the concept of grace?

A&V’s inability to seriously engage AA is evident from the start. One of the book’s main arguments against the disease concept is that it “obscures the extent to which persons may be expected to take responsibility for their addictions” (10). Yet no one takes more responsibility for her addiction than the person in a 12-Step program who assiduously works Steps 4 through 12. As another fellowship rightly notes “Amending our behavior and the way we treat ourselves and others is the whole purpose of working the steps. We’re no longer just “sorry”; we’re responsible.” (Footnote 1) Indeed, responsibility is enshrined in one of AA’s most important declarations: "I am responsible. When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of AA always to be there. And for that: I am responsible."

Saying that the disease concept obscures a person’s responsibility for his addiction is a little like saying that the concept of original sin or of salvation by grace obscures the sinner’s responsibility for his sin. The concept of disease, seen in spiritual terms as AA does, as fundamentally a “soul-sickness” (12&12, 49), is not at all incompatible with the concept of sin. Indeed, sin is often seen in orthodox Christian terms as being in the nature of an illness, a spiritual malady that exhibits physical, mental, and emotional symptoms, just as AA says of alcoholism.

Unable to appreciate the AA concept of a threefold disease, A&V is unable to grasp the AA concept of powerlessness. Thus we read that according to AA the “admission of powerlessness over alcohol is supposed to be the ‘first step’ toward regaining, in some sense, a power over alcohol.” By making this admission, “they [alcoholics] find access to a power sufficient to reinvigorate the once-impotent will” and make “the inroad to regaining power over the same behavior” (32).

Nowhere does the Big Book or the 12&12 claim that we regain power over alcohol in any sense whatsoever. Our admission of powerlessness is the start of a humble surrender of an illusory power over alcohol which, in the process of subsequent Steps, allows the grace of God to enter the alcoholic and remove the obsession to drink from us (12&12, 64). We are not given any power, strength, or control over it, nor is our will in any way "reinvigorated."

This conception of powerlessness is the basis of the AA claim that “once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic,” a claim Dunnington downgrades to a “slogan.” Far from being a slogan, that statement is central to the AA understanding of what an alcoholic is. There are of course many understandings of what an alcoholic is, but in AA, an alcoholic is by definition a person who has no control over alcohol and therefore cannot drink normally or safely like other people. Once the disease progresses to the point where I become alcoholic, I do not stop being alcoholic, that is, I do not regain control. What that means in concrete and practical terms is simple: I cannot drink again, ever. If I do, I revert to drinking alcoholically; I will not be able to take it or leave it as other people do.

It is in this sense that AA refers to “alcoholism as “no mere habit,” a statement Dunnington also appears to misinterpret. For him the passage is trying to make a distinction between “’merely’ problem-drinkers and those who are ‘full-blooded’ alcoholics” (68). From this he draws the conclusion that the text is conflating a habit with just a mere disposition or tendency. But the passage is not talking about problem drinkers at all. It is talking about drinkers in the early stages of alcoholism and those in the later stages. By sharing their stories, these low-bottom “last-gaspers” could show the others that they had already lost control over alcohol, sparing them “the last ten or fifteen years of literal hell the rest of us had gone through” (12&12, 23). The “mere” refers to the fact that alcoholism is the kind of habit that, as it progresses, leads to physical, mental, and spiritual breakdown. The AA idea of a “progressive disease” encompasses the concept of habit, a concept addressed elsewhere in our two texts. But those of us who regularly see people die of alcoholism and drug addiction would definitely concur that addiction is “no mere habit” but “indeed the beginning of a fatal progression,” which is clearly the point the text is trying to drive home.

AA doesn’t deny that habit enters into alcoholism any more than it denies that sin enters into it. It just doesn’t reduce it to either. Its concept of a threefold disease allows for both. Dunnington doesn’t seem to recognize this. Thus he claims that “Most addicted persons learn from their recovery programs and from a flood of addiction recovery literature to be averse to the language of sin” (126). That's not exactly how we see it. We avoid the language of sin in the rooms because of the stigma associated with it. We learn to avoid it because of our personal experience with religion. The attitudes of condemnation and shame it tends to foster is one of the reasons why alcoholics didn’t feel welcome and couldn't find any help in the church. Though these attitudes have softened—thanks in large part to AA—they have not disappeared.

Our negative experience with religion is one of the reasons why the Big Book emphasizes that ours is a spiritual and not a religious program. The number of people making such a distinction has grown exponentially since the start of AA and the 12-Step movement, and not just among those in recovery. But for Dunnington, as for other religious people, those who identify themselves as “spiritual but not religious” are just uttering a “platitude”(171). Such a dismissive attitude hardly makes religion appealing.

Ironically, Dunnington’s own comments unwittingly give evidence of the distinction he denies. This is illustrated by the assertions he makes about what addicts in 12-Step programs “must” do. “First, the addicted person seeking recovery must acknowledge a power greater than himself on which he is dependent” (he cites Step 3 as evidence). And “Second, [he] must adopt as his most fundamental identity that of “alcoholic or addict.” Thus “every time that a person wishes to speak in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous or some similar twelve-step recovery program, he or she must begin with the introduction, “I’m Joe, I’m an alcoholic,” or “I’m Sue, I’m an addict” (179-180, my emphasis in all three citations).

Of course, these “requirements,” as he calls them, are not requirements at all. “The only requirement for membership,” reads the AA Preamble, “is a desire to stop drinking.” The fact is that “must” is not the language of recovery. It is the language of religion with its commands, exhortations, and injunctions. We have a name for that. We call it “musty” language. Had AA tried to use it on alcoholics, it would have never gotten off the ground. Indeed that language, and the pressure and coercion that went with it, is one of the reasons why alcoholics split from the Oxford Group, which remained too much under the influence of religion even as it tried to distance itself from it. Following the split, AA consciously tried to fashion a different, less religious and more spiritual idiom, a "language of the heart," as we call it.

Step 3 doesn’t tell us what to do. If tells us what other alcoholics did that helped them stop drinking. The “decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God” comes gradually as part of a process of spiritual awakening where we come to trust God and surrender entirely to him. It is not a decision that can be imposed. It comes after we admit our powerlessness over alcohol in Step 1 and come to believe that God can restore us to sanity in Step 2. That admission of powerlessness is what leads us to identify ourselves as alcoholics. It too is an act of surrender and humble acceptance of a condition from which only God can deliver us. As I identify myself as an alcoholic, I am also identifying myself with other alcoholics. My admission is not an obligation. It is a recognition of spiritual fellowship. Dunnington shows a similar religious and erroneous understanding of the Steps when he suggests that after Step 1, “the other eleven steps can be understood as exhortations" (165). No they can’t. They are accounts of spiritual experience that works, spiritual principles practiced by alcoholics to stay sober and grow in recovery.

AA’s reference to “God as we understood Him” in Steps 3 and 11 is criticized along the same lines. Anybody who knows the history of AA knows that this phrase was part of a necessary compromise between those who wanted to make AA an explicitly Christian program and those who wanted to rescind with religion altogether and make it a secular psychology program. Were it not for that compromise, there would have been no AA. Nevertheless, the insertion of that phrase in those two Steps in no way changes the understanding of God which is found throughout the Big Book and the 12&12, an understanding that we have already noted is anchored in the distinctly Christian concept of grace. Nor is it accurate to state, as Dunnington does, that “Reference to ‘God’ was permitted to remain, provided that it was always accompanied by the caveat, ‘as we understand him’” (128). God is mentioned without qualification in Steps 5 and 6 and some 289 times in the pages of our two primary texts.

These and other misunderstandings and mischaracterizations unfortunately detract from what is an otherwise carefully reasoned book. Dunnington’s is simply not a sympathetic view of AA. He gives it as little credit as he can. Hence his final take on the program. “I am convinced,” he writes, “that the twelve-step movement has been successful largely because of the way in which its format and method demand transformative friendships” (184-185). Format and method: a curious conclusion for a book written from a philosophical and a theological standpoint. In any case, that—not anything of substance—is what the church should emulate.

The sponsor-sponsee relationship is given as a prime example of how format and method can be used by the church to foster friendship and attract addicts to it. The problem is that Dunnington conceives of such a relationship as an Aristotelian “master/apprentice” relationship (188). Thus he cites the 12&12 as purportedly calling newcomers to recovery “novices” and invents a “sponsor/novice” and a “master” and “apprentice” relationship (188) that not only does not exist in AA at all, but is contrary to its very spirit.

Dunnington’s take reflects the kind of leaders-and-the-led type of relationships that predominate in church. AA is a fellowship of equals, not a hierarchical organization. We have no experts or teachers, no students or disciples. Nor do we place ourselves “under the authority” of “elders” or in “relationships of accountability” (189). No matter how many years sober she may be or how much experience she has acquired, a sponsor is just one drink away from a drunk, just like a newcomer. She simply tries to pass on, humbly and gratefully, what has been so freely given to her.

What the 12&12 is talking about when it uses the word “novice” (60) is doing Step 5 with another person, that is, admitting the exact nature of our wrongs not only to God and to ourselves, but “to another human being”—who need not be one’s sponsor. The danger of “[g]oing it alone in spiritual matters” (60) was another negative lesson learned from the more religious Oxford Group, some of whose members believed God gave them direct “guidance” and so they had no need to check with others what that guidance was. This of course led to all sorts of presumptuous attitudes and behaviors.

Dunnington’s conclusion that “recovery is primarily an exercise of friendship” does not reflect a “twelve-step insight” (187) as he believes. Recovery involves both a program and a fellowship. The program is found in the Big Book and the 12&12 and, together with the 12 Traditions, forms the basis of the fellowship. The fellowship is spiritual because it is based on a common spiritual problem—being alcoholic—and on a common solution—a spiritual awakening, which results from the practice of the Steps. Without the Steps and the Traditions as laid out in our two basic texts, meetings can and do drift into secular group therapy—or, as in the case of some church groups which try to copy the “format” and the “method” of AA, into religion.

One final question remains. What does any of this—alcoholism, addiction, recovery—have to do with virtue? According to Dunnington, in its approach to addiction “The church must be bold to implement relational structures that are explicitly designed for training in virtue” (189)—training in the Aristotelian sense already noted. There are many problems with this. We will mention two. One of them is that much of “the church” has no use whatsoever for the concept of virtue. (Footnote 2) The other is that Dunnington himself has but a limited use for it. For him, the only real virtues are those that are “infused” by the Holy Spirit. These require no effort on our part and reflect “the life of grace.” The other virtues are not really virtues at all but “glittering vices” as Augustine derisively called them. They require us to work for them and reflect “the life of sin.”

Thus grace and moral effort are set against each other. This runs directly counter to the AA understanding of recovery. It runs counter to the whole idea of working the Steps and practicing the principles of the program, principles which, though not always identified as such, include the virtues—whether “infused” or “acquired.” The concept of “a faith that works” (taken from the Book of James), that is, that combines grace and action, is central to the AA program of recovery. Hence the twin conclusion to the Promises of the Big Book, namely that a) “We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves,” and that b) “They will always materialize if we work for them" (84). Paul gives voice to this dual process when he tells us to "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you his purpose to accomplish."

We practice the virtues found in the Big Book and the 12&12 (among which are the three theological and the four cardinal virtues along with such other virtues as acceptance, compassion, forgiveness, generosity, gratitude, honesty, humility, kindness, patience, peace, perseverance, and tolerance) so that as we acquire them they can change us, so that as they turn into habits they become second nature to us and enable us to perform the actions characteristic of them consistently and with ease, whether under favorable or unfavorable circumstances. We know from on our two texts that we practice those virtues by the grace of God and in the service of God, not to “save” or build ourselves up. Practicing them is no sin. They are part of God’s will for us.

As our review suggests, much of A&V is based on a faulty understanding of AA and the 12-Steps. The book is nevertheless very much worth reading. Its flaws notwithstanding, it makes an important contribution to the understanding of addiction. This reviewer has read it three times and will continue to reflect on it. Its discussion of habit is instructive and of relevance to recovery. (Footnote 3) Unfortunately, Dunnington’s view of vice and virtue makes habituation applicable only to the process of addiction and not to the process of recovery. (Footnote 4) This is due mainly to certain theological commitments (God as he understands him) which effectively deny human agency and, as we have noted, pit grace against moral effort. This accounts for his almost total emphasis on the problem, another way in which his approach differs from that of AA, which focuses on the solution. After all, there is not much that can be said about the solution from a practical standpoint if God does it all and we do nothing but be passively infused.

This brings to mind the distinction C.S. Lewis made between looking “at” and looking “along.” (Footnote 5) In A&V, Dunnington seems to be looking “at” addiction from the outside, using the tools of his trade (philosophy and theology) to work out an “abstract and theoretical” (11) account of it. This is useful and necessary. But it is not the same as looking “along,” from the inside, as the addict experiences not only his addiction but his recovery. Of course such an internal, experiential look is not always possible to the specialist. But its value needs to be duly appreciated if one is to recognize the limitations of the specialist’s perspective and look at addiction as much as possible through the eyes of the addict and not exclusively through one’s own.

One is reminded also of a related insight of C.S. Lewis: “The application of Christian principles, say, to trade unionism or education, must come from Christian trade unionists and Christian schoolmasters: just as Christian literature comes from Christian novelists and dramatists—not from the bench of bishops getting together and trying to write plays and novels on their spare time.” (Footnote 6) So with the application of Christian principles to recovery from alcoholism and other addictions. It can best come from Christians in recovery—not from church leaders and thinkers. This does not obviate the need to follow AA's example and welcome the contributions of religion, together with those of medicine, psychology, and other disciplines. For it is probably the case that we can best approximate reality and hence deal with it most effectively when we look at it from both perspectives: "at" as well as "along." In recovery, both perspectives are directed to the goal of right living. To which the words of the Big Book: “The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it.” (83)

Footnotes

1. Narcotics Anonymous, Just for Today: Daily Meditations for Recovering Addicts, p. 196
2. See "Practice What You Preach": A Review of Being Good: Christian Virtues for
Everyday Life at http://practicetheseprinciplesthebook...
3. See "Practice & Habit" and "Of Mice and Men": A Review of The Power of Habit:
Why We Do What We do in Life, at http://practicetheseprinciplesthebook...
4. For how the virtues relate to the 12 Steps and their role in recovery, see the book Practice These Principles, Chapter A. These Principles, and chapter B. In All Our Affairs: Emotional Sobriety. See also entries under The Virtues in "Practice These," at http://practicetheseprinciplesthebook...
5. The Business of Heaven: Daily Readings from C.S. Lewis, August 1 – August 5
6. Mere Christianity, Bk III, Ch. 3