One Year

Stability wasn't in that time
but now it is complete.
Thank God this year is over
I pray, never to repeat

If I look too far ahead,
I surely will go mad
and demons could take over
and steal all that I have had.

The things in this time that I did wrong
had paradoxically,
led me to the clarity
I found in that insanity.

At first it took too long,
and then it got too tough
then stagnancy had a grip on me
but now here it is, in an unwelcomed rush.

Now what I haven't had is mine
in more than half my life.
Study, pray, attend, and give;
these things, they will suffice.

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!

Dying to self to be reborn

An expound of how Steps Three and Seven lead to direct contact with Christ, through the act of conversion, thereby relieving the sufferer of alcoholism, and illustrating how most in the modern fellowship do not recover from this seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.

It is "seemingly" hopeless, because those sufferers do not have sufficient power in their lives, let alone in their program. The significant reason for our spiritual malady is the shortcoming that is not understood within the rooms: fear.

In Step Three, we pray to be freed from the bondage of self. In Step Seven, we pray for the removal of what cuts us off from the Sunlight of the Spirit. We know that selfishness is the root of our problems, but fail to recognize that selfishness is in actuality the fear that leads to the sins which are called "character defects". Our alcoholism, a symptom, is a linear chain of events, starting from infancy, maturing into a fatal mental illness which ultimately will take the spiritual member to the very gates of hell, and where only the honest alcoholic who is willing to have a conversion experience may evade.

We begin with our shortcomings, which is the selfish phenomenon of fear, which then increases into the acting out byway of character defects, which are our sins: pride, greed, envy, lust, gluttony, anger, and sloth, and eventually manifests into active alcoholism. 

We can extrapolate, then, that bondage of self is actually anxiety that results from self-absorption: the fear of losing something that we have, or not getting what we need and/or want. When we genuinely pray to be healed, we are calling upon God to relieve us of our fear. If we are given the grace, God will lead us to his Son, who repeatedly promised in the Bible that he was to give us rest from worry.

In order to combat alcoholism and addiction, we must replace the circumstance that leads to the first drink. We must replace fear (selfishness) with faith (trust in God). We must die so that we may be reborn; this is the crux of not only the third and seventh steps, but of the program of recovery as a whole. For Christ is all, and abandonment through prayer is the only Way out.

To be saved is not to recite, but to believe; not to be willing, but to complete; not to speak, but to connect; and not to participate, but to sacrifice. It is then and only then, that we become as open to conviction as the dying can be. The twenty-first century program does not have recovery, because it does not have Christ. The ruined do not have the courage to face their deaths, and this is why so few are now reborn.

P.s.

How did I get to see you
the way you really are
not like in your photos,
immaculate, but boring.

In a foreign land,
where I should have never been
so messed up inside and out
so open and yet so empty.

It burns to see you in this web
of drama and puffed up plans
You're so cool but I can see your truth:
You don't hide it from my ache.

We were never meant to be this way
this facade of darkenness
In a pit of relentless shit
why can't we just make amends

Helping Christ save the world

I was asking my Catholic/Calvinist online community if we can earn graces for others, essentially, if we can save the souls of our peers, though our own righteousness (self-control and self-denial).

A poster said this, which I found to be profoundly poetic:

"We become holy through Christ. He challenged us to be so, just as the Father is Perfect. Nobody claims to have the righteousness of Christ. Free will is a key element in this mystery. We are told by Christ to take action - take up our Cross, keep our lamps trimmed, be perfect, do this in memory of me - these are actions which we in cooperation with Grace take. It is instrumental to our ultimate justification - and it is fair to recognize individual goodness or conformity with Christ. Paul says to imitate people who are such people 

So yes, we can say 'yes' to God and help him bring others to the family."

True Romance

If I still had a heart
I would have left it on that rock
That gentle waves would try to lick
And where the lights glowed magnificent.

But I gave that all to God,
Not too long ago
So I'm both grateful for that time to grow,
But still raw enough for it to show.

Therefore my soul is safe
My character is sound
And a memory is now good enough
To not reap what I did not sow.

Eight Months

He said we would stay young forever
I didn't know he actually wanted to die.
Genetic advancements would tide us over
Until we met at the Gates
And gave a high-five.

Those restaurants I don't dare re-visit
The streets I won't bare to walk
And that old abandoned building I trespassed on
Even though by then,
you had moved on.

I awoke sobbing,
the morning of that day.
In my dream I was a prophet
rejected by all,
and the queen was sick.
And I had to go on.

And I am sorry
I acted aloof
And was absorbed in only my own loneliness
and I am so sorry
You were hurting so badly
but now, you will just have to wait.