I’m not an alcoholic.
But… I’m a real fan of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.
The forward to The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (a.k.a. the 12×12) acknowledges that the contents of that book (and AA wisdom more generally) “might arouse interest and find application outside of A.A. itself.” Non-alcoholics who practice the 12 steps report that “they have been able to meet other difficulties of life.” The steps can be “a way to happy and effective living”, regardless of whether one is an alcoholic or not.
drinkers and ‘real alcoholics’
As I look through the AA Big Book and the 12×12 I’m fascinated by a particular distinction made between the “moderate drinker”, the “hard drinker” and the “real alcoholic”. It’s worth quoting directly from the Big Book:
Moderate drinkers have little trouble in giving up liquor entirely if they have good reason for it. They can take it or leave it alone.
Then we have a certain type of hard drinker. He may have the habit badly enough to gradually impair him physically and mentally. It may cause him to die a few years before his time. If a sufficiently strong reason—ill health, falling in love, change of environment, or the warning of a doctor—becomes operative, this man can also stop or moderate, although he may find it difficult and troublesome and may even need medical attention.
But what about the real alcoholic? He may start off as a moderate drinker; he may or may not become a continuous hard drinker; but at some stage of his drinking career he begins to lose all control of his liquor consumption, once he starts to drink.
AA Big Book, 20-21
Note the role of reason in restricting the moderate and hard drinker. Merely “good” reason can regulate the moderate drinker, while it takes “sufficiently strong reason” to stop the hard drinker. Both of them can be stopped with reason. Not so with the real alcoholic. The real alcoholic is immune to all reasons to not drink. Sooner or later, regardless of intermittent and temporary experiences of imagined control, it becomes clear even to them that they cannot stop once they start.
What does this have to do with the interest that people like me, who (as far as they know) are not alcoholics, but who find the Steps and the wisdom of AA useful for living? More specifically still, what does it have to do with a Christian focus on kingdom living?
The connection lies in properly understanding the relationship between addiction and sin.
addiction and sin
There are differences between the two. AA suggests not all people are ‘real alcoholics’ as referred to above. Meanwhile, Christianity contends that all are sinners.
But there are similarities.
The sharp distinction AA makes between alcoholics and non-alcoholics does not mean that no common patterns exist when it comes to the human consumption of alcohol. You don’t have to be a ‘real alcoholic’ to really get into real trouble with alcohol. In fact, Part II of the AA Big Book entirely contains stories of “actual or potential alcoholics” who became convinced that “compulsive alcoholism already had them”. They didn’t want alcoholism to progress like cancer to the state of being “malignant… before seeking help.” They “didn’t want to hit bottom because, thank God, we could see the bottom. Actually, the bottom came up and hit us”
Meanwhile, with sin, the fact that Christianity places all of humanity in one sinful boat does not mean that everyone experiences sinfulness in exactly the same way all the time. Some people can see their sin and then repent almost immediately. (This is certainly the recommended strategy for life!) Others struggle with it for a while, experience some mild consequences, and then turn around. Others still, like the lost son in Luke 15, waste their whole inheritance and find their entire lives ruined. In the Christian understanding, sin can grow and develop to the point where it becomes addiction. Repeated behaviour (for good or for ill) becomes habitual, ritualistic, automatic and second nature. The wisest path is to “see the bottom” before you hit it. See the destruction that sin can cause and turn around. Seek God’s love and spirit and kingdom.
So then… the parallels are clear.
I am not any kind of alcoholic (that I know of? yet!?), but I know I am not only a potential sinner, but a real one. Just like an alcoholic needs to work a program or die, so also I need to pursue a live of prayer and service or I’ll wreck my life. I need to pursue the grace and spirit and strength of God, just like a “real alcoholic” must seek escape from alcoholism “with all the desperation of drowning men.”
Recovering the Kingdom 