Easter time –the great awakening for Christians –seems like a good time to reflect on the phrase “spiritual awakening” of the 12^th step.  Christians believe that Easter is the answer to the questions:  Is this life all that there is?  Is death the end of life?  For Christians, the resurrection of Jesus is the statement that there is a fullness of life waiting for us beyond death.

Sobriety makes everything different, but it takes more than just the passage of sober days to bring about change. The idea behind my book, “Being Sober and Becoming Happy” is that first we take the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous to get our drinking to stop. Then, if we keep taking those same Twelve Steps, in sobriety, and apply them to everything we do, we end up happy. I’ve had enough time to try this theory out, and to measure the results.

Recently in my home group, thanks to a brother’s presentation on the 7th step, I had the awareness of how the Divine comes alive for us as we work through the steps. We come into the community and land on the first step spiritually bankrupt and, for all intents and purposes, functioning atheists. As we climb to the second step, we at least acknowledge our wrongdoing to this Divine Power. On the third step we decide to turn ourselves over to a Higher Power, but only to a caring God, a God who is there for us.

My disease does a great impression of my voice. It’s spot on. It perfectly recreates the long, nasally vowels of my Chicago upbringing, the enthusiastic delivery, the volume, and the cadence.

This masquerade, this dubious transgression of my mind, leads to fear mongering. For me, recovery is no longer about slapping my hand away from the drink or the baggie.

When I was drinking I was always angry about something. I just got off the phone with the new car dealer. I dropped off my new car to have a plastic sealer applied to it, because there wasn’t time to do it on Saturday when I bought it. The service manager called to say there was a tiny dent in the bottom of the door, which needed a paint touching up. He said I must have hit something with the door. I don’t think I did. I think the dent must have been there when I got the car and I just didn’t see it when I looked it over. 

When addiction is present in the home, and the subsequent instability and inconsistency in relationships that accompanies it, the reactions that different children have is varied, yet predictable. Claudia Black, Ph.D. and national expert on the Family Disease of Addiction, identifies one of these childhood roles as “The Adjuster.” 

I recently had the opportunity to present on Step Six in my home group and I was blessed with a way of presenting Defects of Character that were true to both our tradition and to my personal spirituality at this time.

Beginning in fifth grade, I wanted a girlfriend. I wanted a girlfriend because I liked girls and was attracted to them. I wanted one the same way that I would want a car or a stereo, because I expected a girl to make me happy. Through my teenage years, my idea of an ideal girl was a combination of cheerleader, nurse, and cocktail waitress.

Children in homes where addiction is present tend to adopt relatively predictable family of origin roles or scripts. These roles allow children to draw positive attention, and sometimes are designed to avoid any attention at all. Each role seems to be focused on a universal primary relationship goal: an attempt to not feel pain. Our kids often play their roles with such fluidity that they go unnoticed. They do their best to help the chemically dependent home they are living in feel safe and structured.

The Responsible Child is the adolescent who acts like an adult. They try to produce predictability, tame tensions, and organize the outcomes. On the extreme end, these kids are planning and preparing meals. They may be cleaning the household, or making sure the doors are locked at night. If there are younger siblings, they may be checking backpacks for homework folders and ensuring that assignments are completed.