In the “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous, we read “We are not cured of
alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of
our spiritual condition. Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God’s will
into all our activities.” The book suggests a constant meditation on what God wants us
to be doing, all through the day.
Brain science supports what the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous knew by
intuition. Alcoholism is not bad character. It is not stupidity. It is a brain disease. Every
night when we go to sleep, our brains reset themselves to our natural state. We are
addicts. Alcoholism is simply addiction to alcohol.
I just went to the international AA convention in Vancouver, BC. While there, I
got my 36 year AA medallion. I’m happy to carry that medallion everywhere I go. The
more important truth is on a twelve step app on my iPhone. Today it says “You have
been sober for 13,173 days.” All recovery is one day at a time. Nothing I do today can
make me sober tomorrow. I can learn the Big Book. I can go to meetings. I can have a
sponsor and be a sponsor. I can turn my will and my life over to the care of God. Then I
go to sleep.
In my sleep, my brain resets itself to its natural state: alcoholic and addict. I am
an alcoholic and an addict for the same reason that I am white. I am white because my
ancestors were white. I did not choose my race. Why am I an alcoholic and a drug
addict? I inherited this genetic disease from my ancestors. Drinking and drugging are
forever natural. Page 30 of the Big Book says “Over any considerable period we get
worse, never better.”
This isn’t just true when we’re drinking, it’s true when we are not drinking. Our
disease progresses whether we are drinking or not.
An old AA joke says “While we were inside these rooms, our disease was out in
the parking lot doing pushups.”
What I do to stay sober is this:
I take the first three steps of AA in the first one minute of my day. It goes like
this:
- “Step One: Good morning, John. You’re an alcoholic. Pay attention!”
- “Step Two: There’s a God. It isn’t me.”
- “Step Three: I need a fresh decision, today, to turn my will and my life over to the
care of God.”
Why do I need a fresh decision today, every day? In my sleep my brain has reset
itself to alcoholic and addict. So I need a fresh decision every morning to grab my own
brain back for sobriety. I need a fresh decision every morning to turn my will and my
life over to the care of God.
How? How do I actually do this?
I think of my life as unfolding as a series of scenes; just like a movie or a TV show.
The camera sees scene one, scene two, and so on. In each block of time during the day,
I address the same third step question:
“What does God want me to do about this? Answer the question. Do this. Then
the scene changes but the question remains the same. What does God want me to do
about this, and then this, and then the next thing.
The answer is going to be “Do the right thing, John!” So my day consists of doing
the next right thing now, and then, and then, and then. If I keep on doing what God
wants, all day long, at the end of the day I have turned my will and my life over to the
care of God.
It’s not difficult. I don’t need to know the big picture. I just need to know a series
of small pictures and do the right thing, right now.
The maintenance of our spiritual condition can be simple. Take the first three
steps of AA in the first few moments of our day. Then focus on doing the right thing
right now all through the day. That adds up to a spiritual life that gives us protection
from relapse and leads us to become happy, joyous, and free.
John MacDougall is a Spiritual Care Consultant at The Retreat. John will lead a
weekend retreat at The Retreat in Wayzata MN on September 5-7, based on his book
“Being Sober and Becoming Happy”.
