Last night I read a story from the Fourth Edition. The woman telling the story told how, when she was in college, she had her first real drunk. She said that she got sick and was in a stall in the dorm bathroom and on her knees throwing up. She said, as she was being sick, she said she felt happy, because she knew she was going to drink again and she was going to learn how to drink and not get sick. She was going to learn to enjoy her drinking because drinking made her happy.
Years later, she was sitting on her couch at home, hating this sick feeling inside of herself and hating drinking, and yet she got up and filled her glass and continued drinking. She couldn’t stop. When she finally got to AA, she said that at the first meeting and saw the people and heard their stories she thought about that night in the ladies room and the thought she had and realized that at the time she had lied to herself. Alcohol did not make her happy and it darned near killed her.
Once again the truth of the words of the Dr’s. Opinion are borne out; we cannot distinguish between the true and the false. Those of us, who, like this woman, have experienced know exactly what she was talking about. We’ve all experienced this great lie we told ourselves. But, once having taken a bite out of the apple, we were condemned to go all the way.
The BB also tells us that the delusion that we can drink like normal men convinces us to keep on with the experiment of the first drink and that we will pursue this to the gates of insanity and death.
Yesterday, I was talking to a man, who wanted to talk about Dr. Jung and his contribution to a growing spiritual movement, based on his writings and teachings. We talked about how, when Jung was practicing, he had to disguise his beliefs, because of the anti-spiritual bias of his colleagues in his chosen profession. It was not until he was retired and near death that he could outright tell Bill W. his thoughts about God and spirituality. What he told Bill was that he really believed that what the alcoholic’s problem was that the alcoholic, though he didn’t know it, was really seeking God. A lack of God was what the alcoholic was suffering from. He believed that the alcoholic could not recover until he discovered this truth.
That truth was evident, when in the BB we read the story of Rowland H., who had gone to him seeking a solution to his alcoholism. After many months of treatment, which seemed successful, Rowland drank again and returned baffled as to why he had drank again. It’s there that Bill tells us that self knowledge alone will not save us. Dr. Jung then tells Rowland that the only way he can ever stop drinking would be to undergo a spiritual experience, which will bring about a complete change in personality. Rowland went on to find a way to achieve a spritual experience through the Oxford Movement and the seeds of AA were planted. Rowland would go on to pass this message to Ebby T., who in turn would take this message to Bill W.
I’m reminded of the Irishman, Matt Talbot. Alone, on his own, this man, long before AA, found this same answer in Dublin. He had a spiritual experience and became God centered and never drank again. Like the good Dr. had told Rowland, now and again men have experienced this phenomenon and were changed by an experience like this.
How fortunate we are that we have this program and the twelve steps which will lead us to the same experience. It has been tried and proven over and over through the years. It has worked for Bill and all who followed and it has worked for me, as I know it has for you all. How grateful I am I cannot tell you. I hope that how I live and what I do can bear this out on a daily basis.
Just thinking.