Slow down. Stop thinking. What an order. Like, the BB said, I could hardly go through with it. I couldn’t shut my brain off. Yet my sponsor and the old timers would hear me talk and they’d practically shout me down. I was so complicated and so much into all this intellectual stuff that I could hardly hear them or what they were saying. Analyzing and parsing just about every word or thought thrown at me. I was worried and I would worry, worry, worry. Agitation had hold of my whole being.
What they were really trying to tell me that I was too smart for this simple program. I was on a course to blow right by the solution. I scoffed at simple.
I was reading one of the old BB stories, probably from the first edition, in a compilation of stories that have been trimmed out from succeeding editions, called Experience, Strength, & Hope. (Available from World Services) The story is not really written by an author, but probably by Bill. It’s a story told from a mother’s viewpoint and then that of the son, who was the alcoholic. She saw a small article in a newspaper about men who had found a solution and she wrote to the address. The NY office got the letter and responded immediately and sent a mimeographed copy of the rough draft of the first two chapters of the BB, promising to send the rest of the rough draft of the book, which was still in the process of being written. And they did, after a period of time.
There are a couple of points about this transaction. First, she got the copies to her son and he read them. But not until he had gone to hospital and dried out. He wrote back that he didn’t want to read the words with an alcoholically confused mind. The he read the two chapters and got sober. He said, what he had been missing was the God idea. A Higher Power. Absolutely amazing. He lived way out West, away from all the up close and personal touch of those recovering in the East and MIdwest, and yet he recovered all alone and isolated from others. Just by reading the first part of the book.
The other point is that no matter where someone was, who reached out for help, AA was reached back, right from its inception. A reminder to me of that pledge that we are to reach out to anyone who needs our help.
But here was this guy, who didn’t have the group to tell him to stop thinking or intellectualizing and analyizing. He grasped the concept of the solution on the first reading. The upshot is that there are those of us, who are just too smart to get this program. I know that I was in danger of missing the point. But, then, I had an awful lot of help to reign me in. I had a sponsor and a whole lot of others, who would figuratively hit me up by the side of the head and would get my attention. I’ve seen an awful lot of this over my years in this program. I was told and observed a lot of professional people do just this. Doctors, nurses, priests, psychologists, nuns, brothers, and so on. But I’ve sponsored a lot of people just like that. It was like some have a mental blind spot, which prevents them from hearing or seeing the solution. Not being able to just simply accept what is being offered to them.
What was the difference between me and them? The answer is nothing. I know that I have been able to “get” this program and a lot of them didn’t. It’s not that. The truth is that it has taken a lot of decades to cleanse the intellectualization from my mentality. It’s still there and it’s still dangerous. Anytime I have dropped away from regular attendance at meetings and being exposed to the enviroment of a group; anytime I’ve slacked off from extending my hand and working with others, I can instantly revert back to the old way of thinking. Simple is just not good enough for the genius I believe still sits down in the dark recessess of this old frame.
Which reminds me that the statement that alcohol is cunning, baffling, and powerful is not in the bottle, but it’s within me. Within all of us. I don’t have to reach for a drink, because it’s already there. It always will be. But, thankfully, so is the solution. It too is always present, if, like the man out West, I will just reach out and make a conscious contact with It. If, like Dr. Silkworth said, I will practice a few simple rules.
Just thinking about simple.