Guess What? AA Works

Daily Gratitude List 2.24.23

I’m grateful for Friday morning and having the newspaper delivered. I’m grateful for the sun streaming in. I’m grateful for people with insights and inspiration. I’m grateful for what unfolds. I’m grateful for people who make me laugh. I’m grateful to be sober today.

Also, in the “Huh, I guess that actually works” department, I came across this article the other day:

Pretty F***ing Effective

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The article refers to a study done in 2020, which concluded that AA and other 12-Step based programs or “interventions” usually outperformed traditional approaches likes group therapy or CBT or what have you. I summarized some of the main findings here (part of a presentation I’m working on….), but folks who went to AA stayed sober longer, if they were still drinking the intensity lessened, they had fewer visits to healthcare providers and cost way, way less than alcoholics and addicts not in AA.

As we ramp up to launch the website, the idea becomes clearer and clearer:

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Studying the Big Book Works

Doing the Twelve Steps Works

AA Works

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I wrote the other day,

I think the Big Book is beautifully written—not because the phrasing is always great or the word choice is dazzling—but because it tells an unbelievably powerful and authentic story about an alcoholic like me. It showed me that if I followed the steps this other alcoholic had taken, well, I could expect a similar result.

“By the Book”: Daily Gratitude List 2.21.23

That’s the whole idea. I finally, finally got sober when I ingested Bill’s story, saw all of the ways his story was mine, let him strum my pain with his fingers.¹ When I realized Bill's story was true (well, mostly true like any really good story), it was a thing that had actually happened, not just words written on a page eighty years ago, well, that meant that I could do it, too. Maybe I started seeing the Big Book like a cookbook--with a little help, maybe I could make some of those dishes at home?

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She de-mystified French cuisine and culture and the language around French cooking and made it accessible to millions of people who were dying to do it, but just thought it was too hard, too complicated, required knowing words in another language and using ingredients that were previously unknown. Julia Child didn't invent Coq Au Vin, but she showed people in Keokuk how they could make it in their own kitchen.

“What’s Cooking”: Daily Gratitude List 1.10.23

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That’s exactly what that meant. It meant that I had to stop treating the Big Book as just something I read. It was time to roll up my sleeves and get into the kitchen. I had to understand Bill’s philosophy, I had to use the same analytical methods he and his alcoholic friends developed to identify my character defects, discover the ways my old blueprint was flawed and understand what needed to change. I had to work to develop faith. I had to work to turn off the voice in my head that said this was nonsense. I had to work to believe that there was a way back and that I could find it—and stay on it—if I did things right this time. If I was fearless and thorough from the very start.

I don’t want to paint a grim picture. Yes, it’s hard leaving an old life that was pretty assiduously and insanely crafted over the course of decades. It’s hard taking a leap into the unknown, particularly when you’ve made that leap a few times before, and well, you know it’s kind of a long way down.²

why?

This has been the most exhilarating time of my life, also the most terrifying, the fullest, the most connected, the most alone, the most inspired and the least alcoholic. It’s quite a list. There are lots of dodgy metaphors that could be trotted out here, but when you’ve been blocked from the life you were meant to lead and the force that was going to guide you, for a long time, like 40 years in my case. Well, it’s like a fucking dam busting—-lots of stuff pours out and by “lots of stuff,” I mean “lots of stuff.”

But the point is this—the thing that broke the logjam was building a program taken from the pages of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Meetings are really, really important and valuable and the magic and connection you find there can get you through a lot of stuff. But going to meetings is not the whole enchilada. I went to meetings pretty religiously for about ten years and couldn’t stay sober. That nonsensical cycle didn’t end until I read the Book and put it to work in my life.

We’re not looking to re-write anything or organize our own sub-cult; we think the Big Book and AA are amazing and saved our lives and we want to show as many people as we can, how we did it. We want to introduce as many people as we can to the Big Book and the life-saving concepts printed therein. We want to de-mystify AA and show how bright and sunny and life-changing this all can be.

That’s the point. This is a pretty groovy way to live but it takes some doing. Totally worth it, but it will involve some changes. There are lots of days in the beginning when this all seems impossible and heavy. Well, there are actually plenty of days in the middle like that, too. But the point is that you can get past those. Everyone has to find their own path out, it is the journey back to yourself, after all, and that can make it kind of solitary and lonely at times. What made the difference for me was a Sponsor who knew the Book and its power and taught me how to put those old words to work in my new life. And you know the deal: Once it’s saved your life, you do have the obligation to pass it along.

It’s your turn to hold the flashlight for the next alcoholic.

1. That doesn’t sound at all the way I meant it. It’s a song reference, right?

2. I would be remiss if I didn’t point you to: The One Thousand Deaths of Wile E. Coyote