I pretty much agree. It is something outside of our synthetic knowledge that is difficult to define, related to a part of our humanity which is outside the ego but not something we can cut ourselves open and see.

Some people explain it all with god. I do not. My experience seems to be that as long as you move away from being only ego driven and connect to something else whatever you perceive it to be then it works.

Spirit, soul, higher being, true self, god consciousness whatever. It is surrendering to something outside the ego and intellect and living based on that.

That's the thing with placebo's BBH, they only work if people believe they are real!!

howto,

While agree with you in principle, I have had a few real-life experiences when the boundary between my subjective state of mind and the realm of hard fact simply dissolved right in front of me. Here's one example that still gives me shivers every time I think about it.

When I was sober about three months I was finally driving again for the first time in a year and a half. For $600 I had bought me a Subaru station wagon with a barely legal muffler and was living in a state that didn't require insurance, which I couldn't afford anyway. That car got me to AA meetings and that was the whole point. It also had lots of stickers on it, and when I won a "One Day At A Time" bumper sticker in a raffle, it covered two big rust holes on the rear lid very nicely.

After a couple of weeks I got the bright idea that it would be fun to drive up to northern Vermont where I'd lived 20 years before and maybe visit some old friends. The real and devious motive, of course, was to sneak away from the people who had kindly let me in because they knew I was trying to stay sober, and get drunk where they wouldn't see me or hear about it.

By the time I pulled off the interstate in Littleton, NH, I had it all figured out. I mean, you can't pull the wool over the eyes of an ex monk and one-time ace of a barstool theologian, can you? The brilliant and tightly reasoned conclusion I'd arrived at was that the higher power and all that God stuff was just a fairy tale, or a placebo if you will, to get newcomers over the hump. After some unknown number of days, a kindly oldtimer would surely take me aside and let me in on this secret that I was sure they were keeping from me-- for my own good, of course. Thought they could fool a savvy old ex Trappist monk, did they? I congratulated myself for having a spiritual edge on these amateurs.

So with my new-found insight it made perfect sense that if I had stopped drinking in January, I could stop again in April or any other time I wanted to. Therefore, I would buy a jug of vodka, check into a motel, get plastered and go back to AA the next day if I didn't like the results.

Yet for some strange reason, my heart was pounding, my breath was shallow & short, my tongue tasted like sandpaper and my palms were sweating so badly that the steering wheel was wet. I stopped in the tiny village of Colebrook for gas, and as I was paying the kid and getting ready to ask him where the nearest liquor store was, the mechanic stepped out of the garage, walked over and said, "I like your bumper sticker, pal."

"Which one?" I asked.

"The one that says 'one day at a time,'" he said. "We need a speaker tonight at the Coos County Jail, and you've just been elected. It starts at 7:30 and please be on time, or the guards won't let you in."

"Oh shit," I whispered to self under my breath. I had completely forgotten it was there.

But I nodded numbly, and with no further conversation he walked back into the shop. My hand was shaking so badly that I could barely get the key back in the ignition. I looked up at the open sky and said, "You got me."

Instead of drinking that night, I went to the meeting and told the story as I've written it above. That was 21 years ago and I still occasionally have those little epiphanies, those moments of inspired insight when I'm convinced I've found the permanent cure for alcoholism. But they don't last, thank-- well, er, ah-- God.

Reply #3

clap clap clap clap clap! Standing ovation! Agree 1000000%

To quote Lenny Kravitz "if you want it, you got it, you just have to believe" again...LEAP OF FAITH. Don't have to know why, how, when, what....just believe!

Nemo,

Great story. I believe in God and miracles.

Sometimes things defy all logic and rational thought. My saintly mother will tell you stories of her witness all day long. Those inexplicable events that occur like you describe - there is a mystical guiding force that exists beyond my comprehension.

I practice reverence to the God of my choosing because I have no better answer. I follow tradition passed down by others who name their God as one in the same to mine for the same reason I am following the 12 steps - the map is practical and virtuous. IMO.

We have not evolved to understand the mystery of the "Spirit" and therefor seek to manifest this other "will" as best we can through self examination, contemplation, service, and right action.

I guess I just believe the 12 steps are more a plan of action along with the willingness to accept the possibility of a psychic shift.

The self-will as most people describe it seems to be a problem when it is "I can force myself to stop drinking despite my obsession" rather than by some other power of acceptance through surrender and "letting go". The process by which we find the capacity to let go and the resulting epiphany is the power in the 12 steps. IMO.

I should add... I am not there yet, but I feel I do know the shift that needs to happen for me. By taking right action, I hope to cause/enable it.

howto,

I hear ya. Maybe this "God stuff" makes more sense to those who approach AA as agnostics, atheists or from a religious denomination that frowns on drunkenness. But for someone like me who came from an Irish-American Catholic background, it was confusing at best and a cruel joke at worst even to hint that there was something immoral or ungodly about drinking.

Among us, just about any religious ceremony or other gathering was followed by a reception with a well-stocked bar. In fact, it was a stigma not to drink, because it meant the teetotaler was probably afraid that the liquor would loosen up his tongue and he'd reveal some damaging secret about himself. There was something deeply disturbing and intrinsically untrustworthy about anyone who didn't drink, and that was equally true for everyone from the bricklayer to the bishop.

Among us of Irish descent, drinking, even to excess, was a just man's God-given reward for fighting the good fight. As I've already told here many times, before I got down to any serious drinking in my late twenties, I was a sober Catholic monk for five and a half years and had more theology and scripture study under my belt by the time I was 25 than most Christians get in a lifetime.

Obviously none of that prevented me from becoming a full-blown alcoholic, and a pretty devout one at that. Many times in my 30's and 40's I raised my glass to the setting sun and prayed from the bottom of my heart, "Thank you, God. Thank you and thank you again for Scotch whiskey, because I don't know how I'd get through this valley of bullshit and tears without it."

So right away in early sobriety it was painfully clear that that sort of piety wasn't going to get me very far, and I'm convinced that if it hadn't been for "God as we [individually] understood Him," I would surely have been one of those who turned his face to the wall and died.

I do get on my knees every night and every morning and I pray to God for all the things I need to keep me sober including the wisdom to know "the way" to live. Thy will not mine.

I believe with all my heart that by "God's grace" I will remain sober.

My father was a Franciscan monk early in life, similar to you, only he died an alcoholic after failing to escape his own denial. I grew up in a very strict Catholic household. Theology is interesting to me. Maybe that's why I feel the need to debate it all.

It's all very tricky. ;)