Through the Red Door Blog

1)   Admitted that we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.
2)   Came to believe that a power greater than us 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.

I am writing this blog post on Monday of Holy Week and I am more aware than usual how fortunate those in 12 step programs are to live in a quite incarnate way the mystery of the cross and resurrection. Very few people can claim to have suffered in exactly the same way as those who’ve found their way to the rooms; very few can know so fully the power of resurrection that occurs through fully embracing the cross of addiction. This is true across the board, whether for those in Alcoholics Anonymous or those in any number of other programs that have arisen in the shadow of AA using the same 12 steps. It doesn’t seem to matter what one’s difficulty or addiction might have been; those who come to the 12 steps and take them seriously are those who’ve confronted the stark and inescapable cross of their own powerlessness.

Christ, too, knew powerlessness. When he asked the night before his death that the Father might take his lot from him, he knew powerlessness of the sort that those who’ve come to the end of their suffering in addiction and compulsion know well.  In his passion and crucifixion and death, Jesus knew the kind of soul wrenching terror of those who know they cannot continue living as they have, that something will need to die if they are to go on living.

Did Christ come literally to believe that God would restore him to life in the resurrection? We don’t know, though we do know that Jesus seems to have had complete faith in the Father till the end of his earthly life. We do know that he completely turned his will and his life over to the care of God from the cross when he prayed, just before dying, “Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit.”

Jesus rose from the dead after a process that very nearly mirrors the first three steps of the 12 step program. It is often said by persons who have longtime experience in a 12 step program that the first three steps are the only ones that can be completely taken and that they are the primary ones that keep individuals in recovery on a day to day basis.

For those in 12 step programs who are also Christians, there is great solace in knowing and understanding that the recovery process so closely patterns itself after the central mysteries of the faith. The path of loss and recovery that those in 12 step programs tread is the same path taken by Jesus.  It is not uncommon to hear Christians state that “WE ARE AN EASTER PEOPLE!” Perhaps this is no more evident than in those lives that have sought and found recovery through the 12 steps.

Jesus answered, “…I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

“’What is truth?’ Pilate asked.”¹   Pilate dithered between his own certitude and the Jews’ insistence that Jesus die.  Jerusalem was jam-packed on this high holy day and, for the Roman governor of this volatile hell-hole, it was easier to snuff out one life than quash an uprising, so in the end, Pilate set aside the truth and caved.  On that day, no one listened to Jesus, heeding instead the imperatives of self-preservation and privilege.  Ouch – a little close to home for a recovering drunk like me. 

Truth is incidental to addicts and alcoholics, sometimes expendable entirely.  Truth interferes with our addictions and the ideas and attitudes and behaviors that sustain them. Truth is our addictions’ enemy, which is why “rigorous honesty” plays so prominently in recovery: “Those who do not recover are …usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. … They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a way of life which demands rigorous honesty.”²

In isolation, we reinforce and exaggerate the lies we tell ourselves, the lies that excuse our addictions and demand our manipulations to feed them; lies that affirm our delusions that we are “fine”, repelling any impulse to seek help and dismissing every hope of a way out.  We recover the truth together, because when we are lost in ourselves, the truth doesn’t stand a chance – Pilate knew this and so did the Jews.  Alone with our fears, facing a drink, we are swept into darkness.

“Martin, if you’re talking to yourself, you’re talking to the wrong guy.”  Early on, my sponsor explained this simple fact of recovery.  It stuck, though it was years before it penetrated the armor of my self-sufficiency.  In time, talking with friends in recovery, I began to open up and began recognizing, then listening for Jesus.  As I continue to engage intimates in recovery, the truth of my venality and self-centeredness, the truth of my fears and resentments, the truth of my innate gifts and swelling graces are revealed.

“I am the heart of Christ…The self of you becomes itself in me. …Pray to me.  Few words need be said.”³  

“What is the truth?”  In the words and actions of people who are not only regaining sobriety, but reclaiming grace, we learn to listen for Jesus.  In prayer and meditation (Step 11), through scripture, tradition and reason, and in the silence of our hearts, we learn to listen for Jesus.  It is in his “experience strength and hope” that we learn the truth.  In him, we learn to live in the truth.  -Martin McE.

¹  John 19:37-38, NIV
²  Alcoholics Anonymous [Big Book] GSO World Services, Fourth Edition 2013
³  I Am the Heart of Christ, George Gaston

“It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.” 
Seen on a poster on the office wall of a Crisis Counselor.

I had believed the trauma of my childhood, the nightmare of living with a continually drunk alcoholic stepfather for several years were far behind me. In fact, I sometimes wondered if

I had been affected at all.

Then one night as I shared some of the crises our family was experiencing with my small church group one of the members spoke privately with me as the meeting ended. “It sounds like you have a high tolerance for inappropriate behavior. I’ve come to see that as one of the symptoms of adult children of alcoholics. I go to an ‘al anon’ group for adult children on Monday nights and you’re welcome to come with me.”

“High tolerance”? that sounded like a compliment. It took time for me to hear the ‘inappropriate behavior’ part of what she said. In the days to follow I became aware that my understanding of appropriate and inappropriate behavior was very limited and I couldn’t/didn’t often make the distinction. My need to know and my desire to control and fix things motivated my decision to accept her offer. The following week I attended my first meeting.

Attending ‘Al Anon’ meetings and working the 12 Steps became part of my weekly schedule.

There were days when I felt elated and liberated but there were times when my childhood terrors, fears and shame began to surface and I felt panic stricken. When my stepfather left I was 9 years old and my mother said “that chapter in our book is closed.” We didn’t talk about him. As I attended my first few meetings listening to each person share their experience, strength and hope, I was amazed as I heard my own unvoiced thoughts and feelings being expressed.

If it’s true that “we can’t heal what we can’t feel”, it is also true that we can’t heal what we don’t remember. Memories that I had been able to bury for most of my forty-something years began surfacing – it was liberating and frightening. It sometimes felt like a light going on. At other times it felt overwhelming. Moving away from denial to honest self-disclosure felt very awkward. However, staying with the program helped me to come to terms with my past, understand the effects of childhood trauma and begin to get acquainted with my real self.

My big question, as I reconnected with my inner child, was why my alcoholic stepfather was so angry with me. The answer my sponsor gave me – “He was an alcoholic. His anger had nothing to do with you. You just happened to be there. The anger was in him.” That acknowledgement and assurance marked the beginning of my recovery. My denial came to an end and I began the hard work of recovery. Ernie Larson says, “If we hang on to anger for more than 10 seconds it becomes a resentment. A resentment is a poison we take to hurt someone else.” Today I’m thankful to have traded my resentment of my stepfather for compassion.

Today I know that life is for growing - mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I believe, too, that working the 12 Steps of AA is a daily guide to help us grow and heal.

-Anonymous

I tripped this morning while running and fell. I run almost every morning (it's an addictive behavior with far more positive benefits and risky side effects) and sometimes toward the end of a run, I'm fatigued and not as careful picking up my feet.

I was almost home, just a block away and running in the middle of our narrow residential street, where the road is smooth and flat. I saw one of my neighbor's car headed my way so I veered toward the sidewalk. My toe caught momentarily on the lip of the curb and I pitched forward.

A runner's forward momentum makes it nearly impossible to avoid a fall at that point. I've done it many times in the past, scraping knees, calves and even breaking a pair of glasses once. This time was different. I fell well.

Many years ago I took karate briefly and one of the things we had to learn to do is fall well so as to avoid injury. This morning, for some reason, I remembered to twist my torso so that I landed at an angle which allowed me to "roll" through the fall. I bounced right back up with no damage. My neighbor slowed down to make sure I was okay and saw me sprint right off, no worse for wear.

As a recovering sexaholic, I have had to learn to fall well in my progressive victory over lust. Unlike a recovering alcoholic who can avoid bars or liquor stores, I can't ever leave my brain behind, so I have to be vigilant about things that trigger me, such as an attractive jogger, or any number of provocative images in media. So I know that I'm going to be triggered constantly: taking that second glance, or wanting to click on a pop-up on my smartphone screen. I will trip, but now I am more aware and astute of falling well and resuming life after I've tripped up.

I know that I will never be free of lust and its constant allure, lurking in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to trip me up. But when it does, my Higher Power and program of recovery remind me how to fall well.

Scott

I often joke when I speak at a meeting that God brought me to recovery and recovery brought me to God.  But it is my absolute truth.  As we wind our way through Epiphany this year I have been so conscious of the influence of the Program in my life as an Episcopalian and now as a seminarian.  It seems like every encounter with scripture, every sermon I hear and encounters with others I have are enriched by the gift of the Twelve Steps in my life.  

This is especially true, as we have encountered Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew over the past few weeks.  The counterintuitive nature of the Beatitudes, where high is low and low is high, poor is rich and rich is poor, where humility is celebrated, and death is transformed into life, punctuates for me the radically transformative nature of surrendering to win that I have been shown so dramatically in my own recovery.  Sobriety is not only transformative; it is God’s gift of new life each precious day.

I don’t think I have ever been so grateful for the “rooms of recovery” and for our Traditions and singleness of purpose.  Being in a meeting is safe harbor for us.  With the current turmoil in the U.S. and the caustic rhetoric that seems to have invaded every corner of living, being “in the rooms” has never been such precious sanctuary as it is right now for me.  It’s much the way that the apostle Paul describes who we are in Christ, “neither Jew nor Greek, male or female, slave or free”.  When I am at a meeting, I can leave the pervasiveness of politics, political partisanship and differences in viewpoint at the door.  They will be there waiting for me when I leave, but oftentimes I find that simply setting them aside for an hour allows me to once again bring the focus back to living out my faith and my recovery, with the help of my Higher Power.

And while I can find blessed peace and centering in a meeting, I am also so aware, perhaps more now than ever before, that my program is meant to be lived out in this crazy world.  The road to happy destiny holds no promises of being without challenges.  Thank you God for the Steps and my companions along the way!

-Sandi A.

At my weekly AA gathering it is customary, after hearing the daily readings and instructions for our time together, to go around the circle and introduce ourselves and share our experiences and/or reflections on the literature, etc. This is pretty much standard practice in most meetings, I suppose. Last week I especially noticed how many participants began their allotted time by saying something like: “my name is _______ , and I’m a grateful recovering alcoholic, and thankful to be at a meeting tonight…”  

Grateful. Thankful. What important words these are. Even more, what an important attitude. The Psalmist encourages and challenges us to offer gratitude and thanksgiving to God in every situation: “I will bless the LORD at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.”  (Psalm 34:1) St. Paul advises the congregation in Ephesus: “Do not get drunk with wine… but be filled with the Spirit…giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Ephesians 5:18-20)

And the apostle Pauls’ parting words in his first letter to the Thessalonian believers seem to settle the matter: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (I Thessalonians 5:16-18)

At all times? For everything?

This has indeed been a struggle for me as I continue in recovery. What am I to do with all the wasted years given over to addiction, when my life, it seemed, was spinning out of control? Should I be thankful for all the grief and loss my family and I have endured in the past? And what about the present? Should I be grateful when there is a temptation to relapse? Should my first response to challenging  circumstances like these really be to simply give thanks, or to fight- to make holy war on the disease that has robbed me of so much? I must confess my first inclination is to fight.

Here’s where Step One of the AA Twelve Steps can be a source of wisdom and encouragement to us:

“We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.”

Power-less.

I have a pastor friend, a mentor, whom I’ve known for over thirty years. He concludes all his letters to me not with a “sincerely yours” or “be blessed!” but with the command, “stay weak!” This is truth that is counterintuitive; none of us wants to be weak. We want to be capable, self-reliant, powerful, certainly not weak.  Yet this is exactly what Christ became:

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave…and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:5-8)

Father Richard Rohr, in his thoughtful book Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps, observes: “What humiliated and wounded addict cannot look on the image of the crucified Jesus and see himself or herself? Who would not rush toward surrender and communion with such a crucified God, who against all expectations, shares in our powerlessness, our failure, and our indignity? Who would not find himself revealed, renamed, and released inside of such a God?”

A suffering Savior? Inconceivable to the first-century mind. A scandal, and utter foolishness to most, says St. Paul; the majority prefer their deity to be invulnerable, powerful.

Yet those of us who have been slaves to addiction are continually invited to fall into the arms of the one who himself became a slave; the one who gladly gave up his privilege and position in order to forever redeem us from the powers of sin and death – and addiction.

I’m convinced, too, that giving thanks and daring to rejoice in our powerlessness is a spiritual discipline.  It’s a valuable thing to go around the circle at meetings and echo the words “I’m a grateful recovering alcoholic…” It’s like the words of the liturgy; you hear it, and repeat it enough times and eventually it seeps down into your soul and ultimately you believe it. This is important work. Gratitude is an attitude, yes; but it’s also something we must practice. If you really want to learn something, you practice. As a musician, I know this. Scales and arpeggios. Arpeggios and scales. Played over and over until they become a part of you, until they are literally hardwired. Continually acknowledging God’s care for us and his presence, even in the midst of our pain, reminds us that we are not alone in our struggles. Moreover, giving thanks also reminds us that even the most hopeless circumstances and wounds are redeemable, and can be occasions for grace. Julian of Norwich wrote:

“First the fall. Then the recovery from the fall. And both are the mercy of God.”

Be grateful. Give thanks. It won’t always be easy.

And stay weak!

Fr. Richard W.
Goshen, Indiana

Today the Church marks the Conversion of St Paul.  Today also marks my 25^th anniversary of sobriety.  I certainly didn’t plan to be converted on January 25, or any other day, for that matter.  But there are some interesting similarities when one sets aside the old way of life and picks up the mantle of a new one.

I doubt I ever would have awakened one day to decide I’d call anyone or anything to ask for help.  Yet people who knew me began to hear of my deteriorating life, and they were wise enough to know that an intervention was mandatory if my life was to be spared.

I don’t know how much Saul might have been looking for a conversion on the Road to Damascus.  For us today, perhaps it doesn’t matter that much.  Something was working inside him, and he was open to a sudden or radical conversion.

For someone who drank every day for 20 years, the idea of staying sober for a day was about as radical as can be.  To me, the idea of becoming a non-drinker was more than a conversion, it was an impossibility.

But our God is a God of surprises and there is no question He was working on a big surprise that day.  My first night in treatment, a kind, older, wizened woman told me I didn’t have to drink tonight.  And it was obvious I wouldn’t find a drink anywhere in a treatment center.  She also told me I didn’t have to give up drinking forever, just for today was enough.

I find sometimes the smallest thing can start the conversion.  It might be a burning bush, but more likely God messes around with things much more subtly.  Living with the questions and recalling that we do not hope for that which we can see.  Once we see it, there’s no need to continue to hope.

My Church was newly meaningful to me in the midst of this conversion and it was a safe haven, a refuge from my storm, and a place of hope.  I am glad I had spent 40 years attending church every week and serving in a multitude of other ways. 

Church was significant in my recovery as it welcomed me back in so many new ways.  In 25 years, I see how this is the experience that many have after they begin recovery. Not all, but some.  This alcoholic is grateful for all that God has done for me, and for all He has spared me.

What Paul received, he passed on.  Conversion and hope is what I can pass on to others in recovery.  I hope you can do so, too.

Gary G

January is a month of new beginnings! It's that time of the year where we make resolutions and try something new. The name January actually comes from Janus, the Roman god of transition or beginnings. Janus is represented by two faces looking in opposite directions; the past and the future. Janus was also thought of as a gate, a doorway, or of passing time. In the spirit of Janus I begin the new year with working Step One of AA which has been about a new beginning for me!

Step One can be the beginning of a new way of life. This step is an honest statement about what our lives have become. "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol-that our lives had become unmanageable". When I came to AA I was told that this was the only step I had to get right and that the rest of the steps were suggestions for a new way of living. During those first few months my mind was in such a mess. I knew that my life was unmanageable. In my confused state, many told me to focus on the word "WE". "We" is the first word in Step One and I believe it is for a reason. It means we are not alone. I had felt alone for so long that I hung on to the word "WE" for dear life, leaning on others and listening to their stories. I learned to identify with people and to quit comparing. When I saw myself in others I began to see that we were connected, that we needed each other. We were never meant to see ourselves as alone. Was this really what Step One stood for or was there more?

As part of working Step One, it was suggested that I look up the words powerless and unmanageable to make sure I knew what these words meant. It gradually dawned on me that these words were about giving up. I knew from listening to talk in the rooms that I was supposed to surrender, but who wants to admit defeat? What was I surrendering to? I knew it was supposed to be God, but even though I grew up in the church, I really didn't know God yet. I began to keep a journal and to write about how these words were manifested in my life. Slowly I came to the conclusion that I gave my power away out of fear. I tried too hard to be strong when letting go was all I needed to. "When I am weak God is strong", but I wasn't there yet. I was not able to see that I didn't need to pull myself up by my own bootstraps. I was trying to do God's job. I went through the rest of the steps as suggested to the best of my ability, but it wasn't till I started with a new sponsor after several years in the program that Step One took on a whole new dimension for me.

My new sponsor said to me one day that "I Can't" was a short version of Step One. When she said "I can't" a light bulb exploded in my brain! I immediately grasped what Step One was trying to reveal to me! It was that I can't fix the chaos around me and that I am powerless to fix almost everything. Realizing that "I can't" was probably the biggest epiphany of my spiritual journey in AA. It helped me to start letting go. I now could see the futility of what I have been trying to do all my life. To be honest I still sometimes try to slip back into my old habit of crazy thinking, trying to take over and fix things, but then my dis-ease reminds me it’s my Higher Power's job to take care of the universe and not mine! It is the small deaths daily to my ego that reveal my true self to me - the self that can be of service to others and not get stuck inside my head.

Step One continues to help me surrender and let go. The amount of time to let go depends on how much pain I want to deal with. Pain is a gift now instead of something I want to be free from. It is a warning sign. It usually means there is something wrong with my attitude or how I am looking at the world. I accept that pain and suffering are part of the human experience. Trying to escape pain is what led me to drink in the first place so accepting it has set me free. Today I have a new pair of glasses called AA. AA has helped me experience the world the way I feel God meant it to be for us. So today let January, a time of new beginnings, remind you that Step One is all about bringing you to a place of transition and transformation. May you experience it and you too finally let go.

Margaret D.

I recently had the coolest, most spiritual recovery experience I've had in quite a while!

One of our local meetings had four birthday celebrations, and although I don't normally go to that meeting (even though it's an awesome meeting), I went this particular night for the birthdays.

It was a huge meeting. I sat down and looked across the room and saw a lady who looked so familiar, but I couldn’t place where I knew her from. It didn't seem like it was from our local meetings.

Towards the end of the meeting she shared that she had just gotten out of prison, and it clicked. She had been in the women's facility that we had been taking meetings into for the past year! She shared that although she had a year clean, someone told her it didn't count since she was in prison. My first thoughts were how awesome it was to see this lady in a meeting and that people CAN recover in prison, too! Plus, she was going to meetings there and now at a meeting on the outside!

She picked up a white key tag when they were handed out. After all of the anniversary medallions were given out, the chair of the meeting stands up and says, “We just happen to have another one year medallion. And yes, prison clean time counts, so come get your medallion!” It teared me up then, and still does, and gives me chills every time I think about it.

Out of the six panel members for the women's department of corrections, five of us were at the meeting that night. That is amazing in itself. I'm not saying God magically put all this together—her being there, us being there, the medallion—but it certainly was a special god moment for me, another spiritual awakening, more proof that taking meetings into prisons does make a difference.

So, here's a plug for being of service in this way. In our area there are facilities WANTING recovery meetings—but there are not enough willing people to take these meetings in. Why, I wonder? We have a big fellowship. The women's prison panel goes in twice a month. Wouldn't it be awesome to go every week??? Many of us got clean in a prison or treatment facility. I know I did, and being of service in this way (taking meetings into prisons and treatment facilities) is how I show my gratitude. I'm grateful that the opportunity came up for us to go in this women's prison, and that I just happened to be at the right place, at the right time (a Hospitals and Institutions learning day) to find out about it. I need to be of service for my recovery and this is a much needed and very rewarding way to give back to the fellowship that saved my life.

-Lucy O

Advent is observed by the church as a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the birth of Jesus. The word Advent comes from Latin word adventus which means"coming" or "arrival" and in Greek it is the word parousia which was used to describe the coming of a King or in this case about Christ's second coming. So with these meanings in mind it is for many Christians that Advent is the anticipation of Christ coming from these two perspectives of the ancient longing for the Messiah and being alert for His coming again. It is about expectant waiting and the hope coming into the world.

When I was a child I would get so excited during Advent about the preparations for Christmas: the presents, the tree, the decorations, wrapping paper and the wonderful scents in the air of balsam and pine and especially the rich and succulent food prepared by my Grandmother. The anticipation alone would keep me awake at night. I would get so excited and anxious that I also could not enjoy the days of Advent, because I would wish them away for Christmas! As I got older it was the anticipation of the people that would come and celebrate with us, usually some new boyfriend when I was teenager and young adult. My feelings were always about me and my expectations.

Growing up in a home with an active alcoholic Father and in a family that pretended that the problem did not exist was very hard, especially since I wanted my home life to be different, to be normal. Many holidays were about stepping around the elephant in the living room. This would make me dive further into my own thoughts and desires, to try and think a way out of what was in front of me. Part of my escapism was at church; the smell of incense, the brightly colored poinsettias, and the beautiful carols during the holidays! I loved them so much I would wrap the sights, fragrances, and sounds of the season around me like a beautiful multicolored quilt to protect me from the fear that was always on the edge of my horizon. I would be so tightly wrapped in anticipation that come Christmas Day all the excitement was gone and only disappointment was what I felt. This would usually come to a peak for me on Christmas Eve. This is when my family would meet at my Grandmother's for dinner and presents. It would end with midnight mass at our Episcopal church. In the dark cold night of Christmas Eve as I left church I would look at the stars and wonder why all my dreams and wishes did not come true. Why did God not stop my Father from drinking? I prayed to God that he would make my Father well. I wanted God to love me and save me from all the craziness of my life. What was I doing wrong? So Christmas Day would come and we were just back to a normal day and my same problems were still right in front of me. I couldn't see God's Love right in front of me, within me and all around me. I didn't know how to see God's infinite love because I had so many expectations and no hope.

All the hopelessness of crazy thinking led me to drinking. I began to see myself repeating history that I saw in my Father's drinking. It terrified me that I was becoming like him. However, I knew about AA and I knew there was a solution there. I had seen my Father's best friend become sober and his life change miraculously. At my end I knew I had lost everything that meant anything to me. I was on my knees in so much pain that the only way out was to give up. Surrender and defeat became my "gifts" that I had been looking for all those years ago as I struggled to find the baby Jesus that would come on Christmas and save me. Looking back. my life had been a continuous crazy kind of “Advent" as I lay in wait hoping for something or someone to rescue me from my life. I looked for salvation in people, places, and things and of course that did not work. I also didn't see I had a part to play in all of this. It was through the action of my surrender that my real Savior materialized before my eyes and I realized God had always been there waiting patiently on me. What a surprise! God celebrates Advent too! He waits patiently for us to give up!

It was eight and a half years ago that I finally gave up. I now believe Christmas comes to each of us when it is supposed to. It is the gift of dying before we die that saves us and helps us find our Messiah. I began to see Advent for what it truly is. It is a time of quiet expectation, not the expectation that is leading up to a resentment like most of our human expectations are, but a spiritual expectation where we know that God Loves us just the way we are and His grace is sufficient for us. We are made in the image of God, we see God in His examples of creation and soon one day we will all return to God as the very source we came from. While we are here in Advent let us be patient and full of hope in waiting and know that God is already here waiting just for us!

Margaret D.