Tag: spirituality

Silkworth, Buchman & Bill

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Alcoholics Anonymous resulted from a combination of two historical trajectories.

One of these had to do with certain people at a certain time wrestling with the puzzle of a particular type of alcoholic. The best doctors, notably William Silkworth and Carl Jung had found their methods utterly ineffective for a certain type of drinker. Silkworth and Jung effectively said to Bill Wilson and Rowland Hazard – we’ve tried everything we know, and we can’t help you. Bill and Rowland were the type of alcoholic who drank even when they didn’t want to, even when they knew a great deal of accurate knowledge about their drinking experience.

To varying degrees, and with varying experiences, they would be overcome by what Silkworth called a physical ‘allergy’ to alcohol, which triggered a phenomenon of craving. One drink could usually trigger this. They also had a mental obsession, or a kind of blank spot, which meant all previous experience of suffering and humiliation and damage went out the window. The alcoholic ‘thinking’ that precedes, justifies, rationalizes or just throws in the towel just before the first drink.

Though such drinkers were often perfectly normal in other respects, being good men, successful businessmen, skilled physicians, etc., will power seemed to be non-operative with regard to alcohol. Their only hope, according to Silkworth and Jung, was what some called ‘vital spiritual experiences’, which had seen some of these types recover. But such miracles were rare and little understood. Alcoholics like Bill and Rowland were sent off looking for such a solution…

The second historical trajectory had to do with other people at another time seeking to get back to the basics of religion – in this case, Christianity. This trajectory in a sense goes all the way back to the dawn of humanity and all religious ideas, but in more practical terms it starts with the experience of Frank Buchman.

Buchman was a Lutheran minister who had started up a hospice for young men, and had grown so upset at the board over financial disagreements that he resigned. At the 1908 Keswick convention in England, a message preached by Jesse Penn-Lewis brought him face to face with his self-focused, self-justifying anger. He came to see that they had probably wronged him, but the main point for him was that he had gotten “so mixed in the wrong that I was the seventh wrong man.”

This foundational pivot, a perfect example of taking the log out of your own eye (Matthew 7:5), set Frank on a trajectory of founding the First Century Christian Fellowship, a movement seeing to embody a return to the original teachings of Christ, simple and practical. This fellowship, later known as the Oxford Group, had a particular affection for the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord’s Prayer, and the epistle of James. They were convinced that faith without works was useless, and that one must clear their blockages from God, be of service to others practically, and seek constant daily direction from God through prayer and meditation.

This movement, seeking to build Christianity down to it’s most vital elements, grew in effectiveness and size. Though they had no formal articulation of their process, through their four absolutes (Honesty, Unselfishness, Purity & Love), they saw the lives of many people with various struggles turned around, including many alcoholics. One in particular went by the name of Ebby Thatcher.

These two trajectories were made for one another, and would merge in the person of Bill Wilson.

Bill Wilson was one of those rare types of drinkers for whom there seemed no solution, save the rare spiritual kind. He was a friend of Ebby Thatcher, who had been dramatically sobered up through the Oxford Group. The story of Ebby sharing his experience with Bill is featured in chapter 1 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, called ‘Bill’s Story’. At the time of the writing of the book, according to one of the foundational stories called ‘He Sold Himself Short’, the Oxford group had a sub-group of Alcoholics who seem to have tailored the Oxford process into a sequence of 6 steps, as used by Dr. Bob (the co-founder of A.A.):

1, Complete deflation.
2. Dependence and guidance from a Higher Power.
3. Moral inventory.
4. Confession.
5. Restitution.
6. Continued work with other alcoholics.

Bill and nearly a hundred other alcoholics adopted the Oxford process and formulated the 12 steps of AA as they are known now.

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

When you look at the steps, especially as they are explained in the AA Big Book, you can see that the first two steps encapsulate the wisdom of Dr Silkworth concerning the unique powerlessness and insanity of the alcoholic concerning alcohol. The rest of the programme seems clearly dependent on the process of the Oxford Group.

So there you have it.

Silkworth & Jung found that the alcoholic problem needed a spiritual solution
Frank/OG spread a spiritual solution that relieved all kinds of problems.
Bill and the early AA’s said yes – thank you.

the tempting evil of unforgiveness

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In Matthew 6, Jesus gives masterful teaching about prayer. He understands with perfect clarity the way that our egos work as we relate to others in the world.

The usual form of the Lord’s Prayer that most of us know and use is a combination of the versions given here in Matthew 6 and in Luke 11. With this combined form in mind, Matthew’s version seems to end abruptly. And on top of this, the follow up teaching on forgiveness seems a bit late, coming after the final bit about temptation and evil. It can feel like the gospel writers (or Jesus) made a literary mistake and got the order of lines out of whack. Something like:

  • pray this way about forgiveness
  • and finally, pray also about temptation and evil
  • Oh yeah, rewind back to forgiveness, I got a tad more to say on that…

This apparent disorder vanishes when I recall that Jesus (and the gospel writers) were rather intelligent people, and when I recognise that unforgiveness is a very common, tempting, and evil tendency for humans.

Jesus, we must remember, is the one with the most important and accurate information on humanity. He knows precisely how our egos tend to judge others and justify ourselves. He knows this tendency is profoundly common, very tempting, and he rightly uses the language of ‘evil’ directly in the middle of it all. Positively, Jesus knows what how we must think, act, and pray to counter this. With the greatest urgency, we must learn, practice and keep practicing the art of being a forgiving person.

Jesus knows how natural it is for us to point the finger of judgment at ‘them’. Look at what ‘they’ did. He knows how quickly we assume that ‘we’ would not (indeed, could not) ever do what ‘they’ did. Jesus knows that if I insist that I could never do what ‘they’ did (to me or to others), then I don’t think I need the same kind of forgiveness that ‘they’ do. He knows how this self-righteous judgment blocks me from fully savoring – and sharing – the forgiveness that the Father so freely offers me.

So then, I can read these verses more like this…

“Forgive us our various kinds of sins, just as we keep on practicing forgiving others of their various kinds of sins.
After all, do we not all stand in need of forgiveness, and could we not all see ourselves in one another?
Keep us from being tempted away from forgiveness like this.
Deliver us from the evil One who is the source of all blame, finger-pointing, gossip, and discord.
Deliver us into the free and forgiving arms of You, our Father.”
For this is how forgiveness works. It has to be shared to be experienced. Your Father is eagerly watching and waiting for us to get our hearts in a posture that can receive forgiveness and share it. It just doesn’t work any other way.

from resentment to acceptance

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Many of us will be familiar with the four stages of competence. It’s a really useful framework:

  • Unconscious incompetence – we are unaware of room for improvement
  • Conscious incompetence – we learn we have room for improvement
  • Conscious competence – we are doing better with deliberate concentration
  • Unconscious competence – we do better naturally without having to concentrate

These stages can be helpfully applied to the journey from resentment to acceptance.

  • Unconscious resentment – we are angry, but not aware of it or the ways it is keeping us sick.
  • Conscious resentment – our anger is still hindering our mental health, but at least we are aware of it
  • Conscious acceptance – we make a conscious decision (or multiple decisions!) to let go of our anger and accept others as imperfect like us – we enjoy moments of relief from the effects that anger has on our mental health.
  • Unconscious acceptance – seeing others as equal to us has become an embedded habit – a way of being that we do not have to labour at – more like brushing teeth than solving a complex problem.

entirely devoted

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The King James version of 2 Chronicles 16:9 reads like this:

For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.

It’s a famous little verse, wrapped in the middle of a critique that the prophet Hanani issues to king Asa for relying on human strength instead of divine strength. Asa had a heart problem.

But what about that little word ‘perfect’? What’s going on there? Does God require ‘perfection’ in matters like this, or in general? Why would someone with a perfect heart need God to be strong for them? Aren’t they already perfect?

We could rightly point out that this is not some kind of unattainable Greek, mathematical, mechanical ‘perfection’ that is in view here. It is instead the complete, total and absolute orientation to God. Like when an Olympic athlete, skilled woodworker, tailor or electrician puts aside all distractions and focuses ‘entirely’ on the difficult task they are doing.

There are three components to the verse: The searching eyes of the Lord, the state of human hearts, and the resulting strength from God. Other translations swap out the word ‘perfect’ for ‘fully committed’, ‘blameless’, ‘fully devoted’, ‘loyal’ or ‘completely his’.

Some things in life are a spectrum like a dimmer switch, and other things are either/or, like a on/off switch. When a carpenter strikes a nail with a hammer, they either hit it or they miss (note: a miss also includes hitting it wrongly and bending the nail!). Careful, diligent focus on the nail head is required for the nail to be driven. With that kind of ‘perfect’ focus, the power of the hammer can be effective.

So then, this is less about some kind of ‘make sure you’re good so that God will love you’ kind of moralism or legalism. This is about the spiritual law that there is no transformation without our participation.

The 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous touch on this principle in step 6: “(we) Were entirely ready to have God remove from us all these defects of character.” For God to do the removing of the defects (discovered through the inventory of step 4 and disclosed to God, self and another in step 5), I must be ‘entirely ready’; and my actions must show this. God moves mountains, but I must bring a shovel.

God’s power to protect or transform is never forced upon us. It is released when we position ourselves in alignment to God and his loving purposes for his world. As Augustine said, without God, we ‘cannot’. But God ‘will not’ without us.

refuel, release, reconnect, relax

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I was thinking about the acronym H.A.L.T. (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired) today.

This is an acronym that use used and cited frequently in contexts that are about life-improvement. Mentoring, coaching, supervision, and counselling. The idea seems to be that being unaware of how I’m feeling sets me up for various kinds of unhealthy life patterns. For example: if I find myself particularly triggered by something someone said to me, it may be related to me motoring on through the day not realising that I forgot to have lunch Or if I’m not particularly motivated around my work today, I may be lacking connection with other humans.

It should be obvious that it is a good thing to recognise and respond accordingly when I am any combination of Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired. There is everything right and nothing wrong with this acronym.

But I tend to use it in as a reactive diagnosis.

It’s all well and good to be able to reactively diagnose my behaviour in the past-tense by linking it to my unawareness in the past-tense of how I was feeling. What I really need are habits of being that keep me from getting into these states of unaware un-wellness. I want and need to be spiritually proactive rather than cleverly reactive.

How do I have a way of life (or a ‘rule of life’) that will guard against me being Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired?

I can practice the fulfilling opposites of those dysfunctional states. I can develop and maintain:
1) a regular pattern of eating,
2) an ongoing practice of processing and letting go of anger,
3) a frequent custom of social interaction,
and 4) a dogged commitment to times of rest.

I can learn, on a continual basis, to:
Refuel my tank (and not get Hungry),
Release others from my wrath (and not grow Angry),
Reconnect with humans (and not become Lonely),
and Relax my body (and not get Tired).

If this is sounding a bit like a cheesy book-turned-movie like Eat Pray Love, I think I’m OK with that, because those are, regardless of how they might be framed in that book or that movie, good things.

Living a lifestyle of this kind of discipline is not complicated, but various challenges can make it… well… challenging.

A wealthy, upwardly-mobile, business-type person could find that:
meetings crowd out lunch,
high pressure situations don’t allow for on-the-spot forgiveness,
endless emails and report-writing isolate me from colleagues
demands of family mean there is ‘just no time’ to rest

A less-wealthy, less-mobile person with less-choice could also be faced with realties like:
they cannot afford to eat properly
they live in a conflict-ridden, war-torn context, fearing for life, with a long-list of real enemies and justified resentments
they are forcibly isolated from human contact or loved ones
they have to work 80 hours to feed their family

I don’t have anything but empathy for the latter of those two.
But for those of us whose lives are more like the first, there is possibly more opportunity and choice than we admit.

If…
I want to avoid states of low-wellbeing where I set myself up to not flourish…
then…
I need to set myself up to live well.

I need to be spiritually proactive instead of cleverly reactive.

I need to refuel, release, reconnect and relax.

the profound prayer of Jesus

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Jesus was actually quite a wise student of human nature. When his disciples asked him to teach them to pray, he gave the best answer. His prayer includes everything we need. It’s theologically, practically, psychologically and poetically brilliant.

  • Worship: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Your name.
    • This reminds me that all prayer and living must be done in the glad worshipful awareness that God is our Father, and that God is the ultimate reality over all creation.
  • Submission: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
    • This reminds me that ultimately I have to submit to God’s plan and desire. God is the ground of all ethical/moral imagination. All notions of health, well-being and flourishing are only able to be conceived or pursued because of the sovereign permission and power of God.
  • Gratitude: Give us this day our daily bread…
    • This reminds me that God provides everything: a universe, a fertile planet with liquid water and friendly for complex life, grain and humans who know how to make flour, and ultimately the nourishment and simplicity of bread. It reminds me of the need to share bread with the needy. It reminds me that there is enough to go around. It reminds me that I can be secure in the provision of God.
  • Reconciliation: Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
    • This reminds me that my own experience of God’s forgiveness is linked with my own willingness to be forgiving. If I stay angry, resentful and self-pitiful toward others, I will hinder my capacity to engage fruitfully with the mercy of God that is continually offered to me and the people I may be angry with.
  • Righteousness: And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the Evil One.
    • This reminds me that I am always progressing either towards sin or righteousness. I’m either going with the flow of the Evil One, or seeking the power and presence of the Holy One. If that sounds binary, it’s because it is. Some things are just that simple.
  • Mission: For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever – Amen.
    • This reminds me to carry this prayerful unceasing awareness into each day. My life is offered to God’s mission. Every situation I may face is an opportunity to practice Worship, Submission, Gratitude, Reconciliation and Righteousness. Everywhere. Always. Till kingdom come.

The final observation is that each line instills a principle that enables the next.

Worshipful awareness of God’s ultimacy compels me to submit to his reign over all…
This enables me to see and appreciate his provision…
This security in God’s love is the foundation for giving up my anger and working at reconciliation…
And if I’m secure in God and being reconciled with others, I’m less likely to have a mind that feels angry, victimised, wronged, sore and therefore less tempted to engage in a range of soothing, self-justifying sins like gossip, vengeance, lust, greed, substance abuse, self-harm or other-harm.

Lord, you are the king of the universe. It’s all about you.
I worship you in all of my scientific ignorance and all my poetic babbling.
Your way is what we need. It’s what I need.
If we did what you want, we would know peace.
Literally everything is a gift from you…
From singularity to solar systems to sourdough…
From creation to redemption.
I am safe in your loving provision and forgiveness.
Unclench my angry fists towards others who I feel wronged by…
And hush the frustrated self-talk that blocks the flow of your mercy to me, and through me to others.
Help me help myself to be a person of reconciliation, forgiveness and understanding.
Help me help myself to say no to the luxurious comforts of indulgent greed, lust and power.
Unlock the chains I bind myself in.
Train me to be of service to others in your mission of love for all people and all creation.
It is always all about You.
Amen.

true treatment

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Maybe you are, specifically, an alcoholic. Maybe, like the rest of us, you can identify (a little or a lot) with the language and experience of addiction to some-‘thing’. Here’s something of a progression of how we become aware of our patterns, and how we can find relief and recovery from them.

1 The ‘thing’ is an effective ‘treatment’ – until it isn’t

It may sound odd to speak about alcohol as an ‘effective treatment’ for alcoholism, but in a very important sense this is true. At least for a certain period, a drug (alcohol, cocaine, work, sex, food, etc.) does something for you at some level. Whatever your ‘thing’ is, it treats the addiction, or you wouldn’t do it. You wouldn’t stay late at work every day (neglecting family, your own needs, etc.) if it didn’t provide the desired effect – which I’m guessing is increased income, a jolt of feeling like you are smashing out tasks and carrying the business on your shoulders, etc. You wouldn’t do drugs if they didn’t give you a hit. You wouldn’t look at inappropriate content online if it didn’t provide an escape. You wouldn’t go on food binges unless you got a hit.

The sad reality of addiction is that it is progressive. We need more of the ‘thing’, or stronger versions of it, to provide the same surge of energy or the same numb-out escapism. The drug works – until it doesn’t. It’s an effective treatment – until it isn’t.

Sooner or later, the ‘treatment’ for the addiction is accompanied by side-effects. We notice that our life is affected and that the ‘thing’ is not only failing to provide what it used to, but that our use of the ‘thing’ is succeeding in providing negative circumstances that we don’t want. We decide that we want… or need… to stop.

2 Merely ‘abstaining’ leaves me with un-treated addiction

The difference between addiction and non-addiction is that the non-addict can succeed in staying stopped, or moderating their use such that the side-effects are managed or eliminated. You are not an alcoholic if you can stop drinking entirely, or if you can keep yourself to 1-2 beers every time you drink.

The addict, however, has a tragic problem of not being able to stop or moderate. They may be able to stop for a time, but eventually give back in. They may moderate a time or two, but regularly lose control over the amount.

There’s another difference however that is crucial.

When a non-addict stops using, they feel better. When an addict stops using the thing they crave, they feel horrible. This is called withdrawal, or being in a state called ‘dry drunk’. You may not be using, but you are just gritting your teeth waiting to. Here is the territory of slips, relapses and falling over again.

Addiction demands to be treated – one way or another. The question is: what do you do when the using that used to treat it no longer does, and the abstinence from using doesn’t seem to work either?

Here is the sweet spot that brings people to their knees. They feel they have no direction to go. The drug threatens to kill them via drowning, and abstinence threatens to kill them via dehydration.

3 Knowledge is an ineffective treatment for the addiction

A very attractive pursuit for many who are struggling with addiction is the pursuit of more and more knowledge. Books on addiction. YouTube videos. TED talks. Articles. The idea here is that knowledge is power, and ignorance is weakness. If I’m struggling with addiction, it must be because I don’t know enough about my addiction. Perhaps I need to learn how my childhood trauma has made me a workaholic. Maybe I drink because of this or that. Or maybe I can learn more about how addiction is managed through avoiding triggers, or keeping myself safe.

Here again the distinction between addict and non-addict is key. A non-addict can indeed stop with good reason and good knowledge. They get the tools and use them if needed. And the tools work.

But for the addict, they may have all the tools in the world, all the good reasons to stop, all the life-hacks and strategies, but they just go back to it again and again.

4 Spirit Power is the true sustainable treatment for addiction

12-step spirituality insists that what we truly need is a Higher Power.

The idea here is that instead of fighting the addiction directly via will power or mind power, I surrender to complete defeat and instead commit myself to a course of action (the Steps) that put me in touch with Spirit power.

I set myself on a course of action that involves desperation, surrender, trust, introspection, confession, willingness, restitution, discipline, prayer and service.

And as I progress on this course of action, I suddenly notice that the addictive obsession and compulsion have been sidelined. I am so concentrated on trusting God, cleaning house, and helping others, that my problems are dying of neglect.

This is not ‘curing’ me of addiction as though I could never go back to using.

This is what it means to recover, and be recovered, from the addiction.