Back to the Basics
A Fellowship of Survivors
Much of Season 6 has leaned into heady content - and for good reason. Many of us in recovery need ideas that ignite our imagination, challenge us to reach for greater possibilities, or take us to places we never thought possible, even in our grandest moments. Yet, as we are called upward and outward, we must not forget the foundation: staying sober one day at a time. Without that, all the expansive growth is meaningless. Recovery requires us to hold both mindsets - the soaring vision and the daily practice - firmly together.
“We have come to believe Higher Power would like us to keep our heads in the clouds … but that our feet ought to be firmly planted on earth.”
~ Alcoholics Anonymous, Page 130
What follows are some deeply grounding reflections from one of the Progressive Recovery community’s most skilled practitioners in this balanced, heady-yet-centered way of living and thinking. In Jeff W.’s words - originally shared with a new friend marking thirty days in recovery - you’ll encounter both the deeply practical side of our program and the uplift of his expansive perspective. Ultimately, he brings us back to earth with a simple reminder: “Today has to be worth it. It’s all we have to work with.”
Thoughts from Jeff W. to a friend celebrating 30 days in sobriety:
Note that the Big Book of AA and the steps were written by enthusiastic visionaries early in sobriety who had stumbled onto a formula that appeared to be working, so they shared it as “good news.” The good news consisted of the awful conclusion that real alcoholism doesn’t go away, even while not drinking. In fact, their observation was that it gets worse and the only solution they had to offer in regard to imbibing was abstinence, but which they conclude is best handled one day at a time.
So today is still the day. This is the time I got sober. Nothing else about the disease of alcoholism has changed. I may believe that I have a unique orientation to it, because I’ve only seen it through my eyes. But to anyone else’s eyes it is a form of insanity (lack of sanity) which is a significant threat because I can’t perceive it when I believe I am using intoxicants “successfully.”
This message is strong in a few places in the Big Book. Elsewhere it is forgotten. There’s nothing wrong with the other stuff, except to the degree that it might cloud the “revelation” that alcoholism is a condition of insanity that is activated by the first consumption of alcohol. It was there right from the start and it’s always right below the surface in an alcoholic’s sober perception of reality. Staying sober is therefore a much bigger deal to each individual alcoholic than it appears to outsiders. Which explains why AA is a fellowship of survivors. It’s a big deal and it’s also nothing.
Many alcoholics forget this idea because it seems too simple and obvious. There must be more to it! I’m a complicated soul! My life is mine to live as I see fit! Alcohol is an inert substance—how can it have power over me? The desire to “control and enjoy” intoxication can no more be eradicated than any other fleeting thought. Emphasis on “belief” as a defense is a borrowed idea in the context of alcoholism, perhaps also too much rooted in rationalism (as if it were a physical cause-and-effect premise.). “Controlled thinking” is not the whole story of how human brains work
Discussions of Higher Powers are interesting but arguments that it is an essential part of a “conversion” to recovery from alcoholism are also tricky. Must one “keep a faith” to avoid relapse and the consequences of alcoholic insanity that rapidly follow? Those questions may only be distractions from the reasonable allowance that AA offers more than one path to follow to sobriety and they’re not necessarily exclusive unless one insists on imposing a rational discipline on an irrational problem.
If alcohol is a “subtle foe—cunning, baffling, powerful” why wouldn’t we set up defenses on the WHOLE perimeter? Atheists can certainly pray. Religious people can meditate on the absurdity of existence. Anyone can listen to the sound of one hand clapping in meetings over and over, arriving nowhere, but sharing some sober moments together.
Sobriety is an entire alternate universe for the alcoholic, worthy of exploration like a fresh continent. There is only one rule if we want to stay, and no one keeps us here against our will. We don’t have to like it here, but it helps to accept that we burned the ships on the beach for our own good.
Back in an active alcoholic reality we are virtually slaves who can’t escape because we’ll be fooled into thinking it’s our choice, trading in a useful pair of eyeglasses for another broken pair, the ones that insist we are not insane as the first premise of the insane condition.
Today has to be worth it. It’s all we have to work with. Glad you are in it, here, sober too.
