THE SOLUTION
We now know that the problem is the mental obsession with alcohol. We also know the our physical allergy will never go away. We admitted to ourselves we were powerless over alcohol. So how do we fix it?
STEP 2 – Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Those who have recovered have all found a common solution. That solution is a vital spiritual experience. The fellowship of AA is great. In fact, it is awesome. But the fellowship of AA is not sufficient to keep us sober. In other words, if just going to meetings is your program of recovery, you will not stay sober.
BB Pg xxviii: Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks—drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.
On the other hand—and strange as this may seem to those who do not understand—once a psychic change has occurred, the very same person who seemed doomed, who had so many problems he despaired of ever solving them, suddenly finds himself easily able to control his desire for alcohol, the only effort necessary being that required to follow a few simple rules.
Psychic Change is the Vital Spiritual Experience and a new spiritual attitude
Few Simple Rules are the 12 Steps of AA
BB Pg xxvix: Men have cried out to me in sincere and despairing appeal: “Doctor, I cannot go on like this! I have everything to live for! I must stop, but I cannot! You must help me!’’
Faced with this problem, if a doctor is honest with himself, he must sometimes feel his own inadequacy. Although he gives all that is in him, it often is not enough. One feels that something more than human power is needed to produce the essential psychic change. Though the aggregate of recoveries resulting from psychiatric effort is considerable, we physicians must admit we have made little impression upon the problem as a whole. Many types do not respond to the ordinary psychological approach.
BB Pg 25: But we saw that it really worked in others, and we had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been living it. When, therefore, we were approached by those in whom the problem had been solved, there was nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet. We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed.
The simple kit of spiritual tools is the Big Book
Fourth Dimension is living in Steps 10, 11 & 12, Spirit of the Sunlight
BB Pg 25 -The great fact is just this, and nothing less: That we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences* which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God’s universe.
BB Pg 26 & 27 – ROWLAND HAZARD & DR. JUNG
The doctor said: “You have the mind of a chronic alcoholic. I have never seen one single case recover, where that state of mind existed to the extent that it does in you.’’ Our friend felt as though the gates of hell had closed on him with a clang.
He said to the doctor, “Is there no exception?’’
“Yes,’’ replied the doctor, “there is. Exceptions to cases such as yours have been occurring since early times. Here and there, once in a while, alcoholics have had what are called vital spiritual experiences. To me these occurrences are phenomena. They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them. In fact, I have been trying to produce some such emotional rearrangement within you. With many individuals the methods which I employed are successful, but I have never been successful with an alcoholic of your description.”*
Upon hearing this, our friend was somewhat relieved, for he reflected that, after all, he was a good church member. This hope, however, was destroyed by the doctor’s telling him that while his religious convictions were very good, in his case they did not spell the necessary vital spiritual experience.
BB Pg 567: The terms “spiritual experience” and “spiritual awakening” are used many times in this book which, upon careful reading, shows that the personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism has manifested itself among us in many different forms.
Yet it is true that our first printing gave many readers the impression that these personality changes, or religious experiences, must be in the nature of sudden and spectacular upheavals. Happily for everyone, this conclusion is erroneous.
Spiritual Experience: Faster
Spiritual Awakening: Slower
Both “experience” and “awakening” mean change.
BB Pg 50: Here are thousands of men and women, worldly indeed. They flatly declare that since they have come to believe in a Power greater than themselves, to take a certain attitude toward that Power, and to do certain simple things, there has been a revolutionary change in their way of living and thinking. In the face of collapse and despair, in the face of the total failure of their human resources, they found that a new power, peace, happiness, and sense of direction flowed into them. This happened soon after they wholeheartedly met a few simple requirements. Once confused and baffled by the seeming futility of existence, they show the underlying reasons why they were making heavy going of life. Leaving aside the drink question, they tell why living was so unsatisfactory. They show how the change came over them. When many hundreds of people are able to say that the consciousness of the Presence of God is today the most important fact of their lives, they present a powerful reason why one should have faith.
The 10th Step Promises (BB Pg 84-85) say “the problem has been removed…as long as you are in fit spiritual condition.” This is a spiritual program and not a religious one. But it’s okay if you are religious. We believe in a power greater than ourselves. If needed, take a piece of paper and write down what you want your God to be.
Remember – Only a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. For the real alcoholic, self-will does not work. We can’t do it by ourselves.
WHAT THE SOLUTION IS NOT:
Read all of BB Pg 17
“The feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element in the powerful cement which binds us. But that in itself would never have held us together as we are now joined.”
The fellowship of A.A. is great. In fact, it’s awesome! But just going to meetings is insufficient by itself. It must coincide with action – Practicing the 12 Steps in all our affairs.
Survival on the fellowship is untreated alcoholism. The AA fellowship is NOT the Big Book solution.
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