As I scrolled through Facebook this morning, I came across the following quotation attributed to Marianne Williamson: “Until we have met the monsters in ourselves, we will keep trying to slay them in the outer world. For all darkness in the world stems from darkness in the heart. And it is there we must do our work.” Earlier this morning I was talking to a friend about a sermon preached by his minister. While the minister seems to have good intentions, his sermon was not only dour, boring, but also negative.

As we discussed the sermon it dawned on me that this man’s sermon had something of the quality of sermons I might have preached when I was active in my addiction. Recovery has changed me, my attitudes, my approach to sermons/homilies. There was a time when I saw the world as negative, and in my mind, I was convinced that God was going to send me to a place of darkness for eternity because the god I believed in was a punishing, vengeful God.

The more we discussed the sermon it became clear to me that my friend and I had something that the minister did not have; a Twelve Step program. I went on to explain that no one in their right mind would take a fearless and moral inventory of themselves, then call someone to listen to it.

How could a church begin if the church planted told people: “You first have to admit you are powerless over people, places and things; that your life has become unmanageable. Then, you come to believe in a power greater than yourself, turn your will over to the care of that Power, and then you take a fearless and moral inventory of yourself and share that with a member of the church.”

In my active addiction, the problems of the world were “out there.” Other people were to blame. If only “they” would listen to me all would be well. Why can they not see that I am right? And the ones who were especially wrong were those individuals in positions of authority. “Who in their right mind put that person in charge?”

And, almost all the time, I was running into a brick wall with its negative consequences.

“Until we have met the monsters in ourselves, we will keep trying to slay them in the outer world. For all darkness in the world stems from darkness in the heart. And it is there we must do our work.”

I did not enter treatment with a positive attitude and certainly did not believe I had a problem with alcohol or other mood-altering chemicals. Five weeks in a four-week treatment program did not convince me I was an addict. Nothing people in AA said convinced me I was an addict. It was a sense that I wanted what they had. They were “happy, joyous and free.” I was tied up in knots. As one old-timer told me: “Seamus, that man who comes from the prison and tells his story is freer in jail than you are walking the street.”

Just over four years of what I later learned was a dry-drunk, I had my spiritual awakening. I grudgingly took responsibility for my attitudes, my behavior and slowly began to see how I had hurt other people. Slowly, I became aware of the monster living within me that I was fighting on my own. What fascinated me was that as I became open to listen to others, to identify with them instead of looking at our difference, I began to see the light to recovery and serenity.

I began to do the work of the steps. But another old-timer told me: “Seamus, if you’re not living the program, you’re not working the steps.” The program soon became alive, the lights went on in the darkness of my mind. Living the program meant that I had to make it a way of life and not just something I did.

In working the steps, I met the monsters, turned my will and life over to God, made a real moral inventory, shared it, identified my defects of Character, made amends, and began a life of being consciously aware of my Higher Power, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for me and the power to carry that out.

The darkness lifted. The world around me was brighter. I found the peace and serenity I wished for. At a meeting one day I was reading The Promises and I almost cried. They had become real in my life and all because, with God’s help, I did the necessary internal work to change.

Séamus P Doyle.

Séamus is a retired Episcopal priest in the greater New Orleans area.