I was thinking about what it is that keeps us in this program and sober. I have a theory about this, but I could be wrong, as I often have been before. But to me it’s something to think about. What it is is unreserved commitment.
I was looking back into the BB yesterday, after a conversation with a couple of men in the program. They were talking about the words “recovered” as opposed to “recovering”. There is a difference.
If I am recovered, as the men and women said they were in the Forward in the 1st Edition of the BB, does that mean I’m cured?
The answer to me is no. It’s like a person who has recovered from a near fatal gunshot wound. They’ve recovered, but they’re still not bulletproof.
I think, reading Fred’s story in More About Alcoholism, he says it best. He said once he had accepted this program and made up his mind to commit himself to it, he had this “curious” feeling that his alcohol problem was solved, which he said it was. To that he added that the spiritual way of life he had been introduced to was a far better way of life than he had before and that he wouldn’t go back to that life, even if he could. His worst days in this way of life were better than his best days in the old life. Not only that, but he also learned that he could solve all his problems by the application of spiritual principles.
That pretty much sums up what happened to me, when I came into this program. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not powerless over alcohol. I am. I know that if I forget to renew this commitment by practicing what I have learned in this program, or that I rebel, because of my character defects, I can find myself drinking again. The seed of that next drink is still down within me. Recovered, but still not bulletproof.
Recovering on the other hand means something else. It’s almost like the recovering person is not sure. I could be wrong about this, as I said, but I’ve often wondered why so many people still think about a drink. The BB tells me that, after the 9th Step that sanity has returned. I have stopped fighting everyone and everything, including alcohol. That I have been placed in a position of neutrality. That I will recoil from the thought of a drink, as I would a hot stove. Indeed that has happened. And it has nothing to do with me.
I know there may be only a subtle difference between those two concepts, but it made me think. The difference may be something like “yes” and “maybe”. It could be that the way some of us were introduced to this program. I came in directly from the barroom, after a very bad bottom. Others have the opportunity of instruction from the facilities which have sprung up since my coming into this program. I was introduced, like Fred, with a take it or leave it offer to get sober.
In the end, I really don’t know. Just speculating. All I know really is that I’m glad it happened the way it did for me. I think I know what those original old timers felt and what they were thinking, when they said they had recovered.
Anyway, just thinking about this today