The semantics of recovery

In the Fellowship, we talk about the obsession to drink being lifted, about being "recovered", and some days I wonder if being healed is the same as being recovered. I do feel that the Lord has healed me via the grace required to make changes in both attitude and behaviour, but I am not as certain about being recovered; especially when I am having troubles in my relationships or work. And then there is the assertion that there is no cure. So what is the difference between heal, recover, and cure?

From Dictionary Reference:

Heal - "To make healthy, whole or sound; to restore to health. To bring about a conclusion; to settle or reconcile. To be free from evil; cleanse; purify."

Recover - "To cover again, or renew. To make up for, or make good. To regain strength, composure, balance. To reclaim from a bad state, practice."

Cure - "A means of healing or restoring to health; remedy. Successful remedial treatment. A means or correcting or relieving anything that is troublesome or detrimental. To restore to health. To relieve or rid of something detrimental."

It seems to me that "heal" and "recover" are synonymous, and "cure" is the means to the result. (Note: "salvation" is also defined as means to an end, "act; source; deliverance" "to protect from harm, risk").

And yet, we are taught that there is no cure (Even though in the second account in Part I from the "Personal Stories" at the back of the Big Book, pioneer "number three" described himself as cured, and that he attended meetings only for fellowship, and giving back.) It would seem to me that if there is no cure, there is no recovery. Alcoholism is tri-fold: a bodily component where one cannot stop drinking, a mental component where one cannot stop thinking of drinking, and a spiritual component, where recovery is. God is the cure, the means to being healed. So essentially, to say there is no cure is to limit the answer, which is God. We are further told that "what we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition." Well, this is an experiential program, and I know from experience that statement is not true. There are many, many days the Lord protected me, when I did nothing to deserve it (failing to keep "spiritually fit").

Something I have been wrestling with is the question of what constitutes the real ailment? For myself, I have stopped relating to alcoholism as a "disease"; if anything, it is a spiritual affliction or oppression. I personally have outside issues, and that is my illness. Alcoholism was, in all likelihood, a method of maintaining that illness. I knew that in order to recover from my outside issue, I had to quit drinking: I had to quit masking what truly ailed me. This meant that I had to describe myself as an alcoholic. Well again, it is semantics, and sadly, this is where the sufferer gets tripped up (even though we refer to ourselves as defiant, we must label ourselves to receive help.) This though, is the paradox of the relief: we get better by taking direction; by, as one speaker eloquently put it, being obedient. Let us pause here to read that the definition of alcoholism is, "a seemingly hopeless condition of mind and body."

When I bottomed out, the shortcoming of the utter despair of loneliness that led to devastating heartache, through my insane actions, lowered me to the floor. But then I was granted the miracle of escape, for I was able to permit defeat and start over. When I accepted my failures, I began to do the work, and as a result I became recovered. I am no longer an alcoholic. I was an alcoholic, who has now been cured by God. It is "the gift of desperation", and only the honest person will be able to heal, because only the honest person will go against his or her natural instincts - to act and even believe that nothing is wrong - to admitting that in actuality, he or she is so downtrodden, death seems like a reasonable solution.

But God gives life through His Son, ("I am the resurrection and the life"), and thereby when we are so humbled by the beating of whatever drives us to such destructive intake of what in truth is a poison, we become willing to receive such help. This aid comes at first through places people and things: meetings, sponsorship/fellowship, and books, and then moves on, for me, into imitation, and then into a genuine reception of the cure: God.

Can I become an alcoholic again, yes I imagine so, because I have a predisposition to cut myself off from God. However, I refuse to live life "an arms length away from picking up that first drink". Through working with others, in other words, through living the program, I can bravely accept that I am healed (and to not accept our recovery is actually blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, which can be read about here), I can also bravely acknowledge a past which historically exists, I can accept that I do not have the luxury to let memories slide into an obsession when I recollect that past, which can come from an intentional "remember when", to having to revisit places, to right out of left-field. And I can bravely accept that I have recovered from a cure, which is not the meetings, or the sponsorship, or the literature, or the fellowship; it is through the desire that was gifted to us through grace to be healed that allows for the works that bear the fruit from that which we may then reap: from God who gives those things to lead us to the narrow path, and then who guide us to communion with him, where we may be saved (cured).

Coming up to one year, and having the ability to recognize that I have been saved, which I can see from the direct result of my thinking, acting, ethics, and relationships, I am no longer the desperate new-comer that I was six months ago, when I truly bottomed out. I now must question openly, and conclude openly, what I have come to understand. And I thank you all for reading. Amen!