“What is it you don’t understand?” I don’t know how many times I heard those words growing up. Truth be told, I heard those words often as an adult. This was especially true, when I was drinking. Something in this addled head of mine heard the words, but often they would get mixed up in my thoughts. My best guess is that I always thought I had a better idea on how to do something. I always thought that way.
I can’t tell you how much trouble I had, when I stopped drinking and came to this program. I would hear what people were saying around the tables and would find myself resisting what was said. I “knew” I had a better way. When I would read the BB, I found it confusing, because I had a better way. I probably thought I could write a better book. If only people would listen to me. But I never expressed what I was thinking. I would just sit and smile knowingly.
“Don’t analyze, utililize.” Those words were pushed at me by the old timers. “Analysis leads to paralysis.” I heard that, but brushed it aside…until that day I became paralyzed by the fact I was not drinking, but my life seemed to be getting worse. That’s the day I began to pick up the tools of AA and applying them to my life. Lo and behold, my life began to get better.
What was it I didn’t understand? Over time I began to understand that understanding, or the idea of understanding, is counter to the spiritual life. It is one thing to understand the words and actions we take in this program, but another thing to understand the “why” and “how”. I’ve come to understand one thing and probably one thing only: this program works. I’m still sober and alive because it does.
The one element lacking in my life has been replaced by something else. There’s a big difference in “believing” in “something” and having “faith” in that “something”. Once I had a faith in a higher power, I no longer needed to understand what was going on. I can’t tell you how long I resisted reading the chapter “We Agnostics”. That’s because I thought I knew all about that stuff. Yet my sponsor kept insisting that I do. Finally I did and everything began to turn around. The BB began to become clear and what was being said around the rooms of AA began to make sense to me. My intellectualizing began to fade (somewhat) and I began to accept what was being offered to me. I no longer needed to understand.
This was all a process. It didn’t happen overnight. It hasn’t happened over years. It’s still in process. But, each day I get up and start again, the process goes forward. For me it seems a clumsy process, I stumble and make many mistakes, but I know I’m still progressing. I haven’t taken a drink. I’m still sober. And though I don’t understand, I am grateful to God and all of those who have helped me along the way.