I’m grateful for fireworks on Independence Day. I’m grateful to see the sun glinting off the water. I’m grateful for facts and figures. I’m grateful for what I can see now. I’m grateful for coffee on the balcony and peace in my heart. I’m grateful to be sober today.
Hope your Independence Day was everything you wanted it to be. It was hot, humid, stormy and rainy here in New York City. But it turned into a lovely evening and one of the many benefits of where I live is the ability to see a lot of fireworks on Independence Day.
Yesterday’s post, “The Importance of Swagger,” generated some discussion and I like that very much. The de-centralized, no one really in charge approach of Alcoholics Anonymous is a critical part of why it’s been so effective over the last 80 years, helping millions of people recover from addiction and alcoholism. At the same time, the lack of a central authority can lead to a game of AA-telephone—where concepts that aren’t in the Big Book somehow get fused to the Program and then touted as essential elements of recovery.
Ummm, the word “Surrender” is not actually in the Big Book. And it was on purpose:
If you are interested in getting sober and went to Google to find some advice—well, this is the stuff at the top of the heap. Also, whoever runs Big Book Sponsorship.Org should check out page 101 of the Big Book—because that quoted part simply doesn’t exist. According to the Anonymous Press Concordance to the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, the word “Surrender” occurs not a single time. Even folks who should know better:
I think this is important because we are instructed that the primary purpose of every AA group is to “carry its message to the still sick and suffering.” I think when we tell newcomers that the Program is about surrender, we are not conveying a very attractive or accurate summary of what the Program is actually about and how it works. The First Step certainly involves admitting that we are “powerless over alcohol,” and that this inability to control our drinking has rendered our lives unmanageable. Part of AA’s answer, expressed in the next two Steps requires: (a) Developing faith that there is a Higher Power; (b) Coming to believe said Higher Power is capable of restoring sanity; (c) Making a decision to turn our will and life over to the care of that Higher Power.
This is not Lee at the Appomattox Courthouse. Turning one’s will and life over is not about assuming a passive attitude and awaiting further sober instruction. It is agreeing to change the central question of ourselves from “What’s in it for me?” to “How can I be of maximum service.” It’s changing our focus, acknowledging that there is a greater power than ourselves out there and deciding that’s the team we want to play for.
There is no notion of “surrender” in “How it Works.” It’s all action.
“If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any lengths to get it—then you are ready to take certain steps.”
“We beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start.”
We are told that we must choose the harder path, not the easier, softer way.
Here’s how Bill looked at it:
We had a new employer. Being all powerful [she] provided what we needed, if we kept close and performed [her] work well…More and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life. As we felt new power flow in, we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully.
Big Book at p. 63
Bill does use the word “surrender” in his 1953 letter about “emotional sobriety.” He identifies the central conflict for alcoholics:
I kept asking myself "Why can´t the twelve steps work to release depression?" By the hour, I stared at the St. Francis Prayer ... "it´s better to comfort than to be comforted." Here was the formula, all right, but why didn´t it work?
Suddenly, I realized what the matter was. My basic flaw had always been dependence, almost absolute dependence, on people or circumstances to supply me with prestige, security, and the like. Failing to get these things according to my perfectionist dreams and specifications, I had fought for them. And when defeat came, so did my depression.
There wasn´t a chance of making the outgoing love of St. Francis a workable and joyous way of life until these fatal and almost absolute dependencies were cut away.
Because I had over the years undergone a little spiritual development, the absolute quality of these frightful dependencies had never before been so starkly revealed. Reinforced by what grace I could secure in prayer, I found I had to exert every ounce of will and action to cut off these faulty emotional dependencies upon people, upon AA, indeed upon any act of circumstance whatsoever.
Note the use of action words; Bill’s wants to become the active voice. He wants to “comfort rather than be comforted.” This part requires active steps, not simply passive acceptance. Bill prayed for grace and then went to work:
I had to exert every ounce of will and action to cut off these faulty emotional dependencies upon people, upon AA (!)…
The ultimate aim of recovery is recovering oneself. And that includes recovering one’s power. The terrible admission at the core of AA membership is simply that we lack power over alcohol, we can’t control our drinking, not that we are powerless in all aspects of our lives. AA membership is not contingent upon surrender, or complete obedience to a set of rules and the dictates of people who have been coming to the same meeting for a long time. I don’t think AA works by crushing our will so as to stamp out any prospect of relapse.
The point is to recover our power and use it for good.
Have you not seen any superhero movies ever?
Here’s a ridiculous way I look at it. Suppose my Higher Power is a basketball coach, like Pat Summitt of Tennessee.1 Weirdly, the team she is putting together is in need of a 60-year-old, “two”-guard. She’s even ok with the arthritic ankles and a defensive commitment that is drawn from the grand strategy of Spanish bullfighting. I’m not in charge of setting the strategy or deciding who plays. I’m not sure I know the whole game plan or how much time I’m going to get. She and her assistant Higher Powers are going to figure out what they want us to do in their own little huddle and then they’ll come tell us what the plan is coming out of the timeout.
Hopefully, that involves me getting to take a shot. But it’s a team game, baby, that’s how you win. The Program of Alcoholics Anonymous doesn’t work on surrender, it works on attraction. If you want what we have…
AA has given me the tools to re-imagine my life, to re-orient it and discover, maybe recover, what was actually supposed to have been guiding me all along. When I lock onto that guiding frequency, when I decide to turn my life and will over to the care of my Higher Power, this isn’t what happens:
This is:
Put me in, coach.
I believe I would have lasted about four minutes in her program. As the saying goes, “Don’t mess with the best, because the best don’t mess.” Coach Summitt did not mess.