God, as We Understood Him

As I have worked the 12 Steps and shared the 12 Steps with others I have met many individuals who say they struggle with the Steps. Many of them relapse and some make it back to AA or NA but many more of them fall back into their addiction and live the rest of their lives struggling with the addiction, looking for an easy way out, or they die addicted to narcotics and/or alcohol. It brings up the question as to how AA achieved the success they had in the early days and what is being done different today.

I have heard differing numbers recently about the number of people that actually recover today and it’s between 12 and 17 percent. In the early days of AA the number of Alcoholics that recovered was at 75 percent. 50 percent recovered immediately and 25 percent more recovered after a few relapses. In Cleveland Ohio in the late Thirties and early Forties they had a astonishing 93 percent recovery rate. Comparing today with the early days we have to wonder what the difference is between then and now.

The main difference, as I see it, has to do with how the Steps were presented and taken. AA as it existed from 1935 till 1939 met with the Oxford Groups. The Oxford Groups were a Christian Fellowship and God and His Son, Jesus were talked about, shared amongst members and were the main focus of their lives and their recovery. How many AA meetings today do we hear God and Jesus being shared? If an AA does speak about God or Jesus they are generally not called upon to share in the future or at least the other AAs try not to call upon them.

In AA today there are many who have never taken the 12 Steps. They attend meetings, they read the Big Book but never really apply the steps to their everyday lives. Some go as far as getting a sponsor, some go through many sponsors, but they still do not apply the steps to their lives. Many sponsors today have not taken the 12 Steps as they were designed to be taken. If a sponsor isn’t working the steps as they were intended then what kind of an example are they showing the sponsee. A sponsor’s main activity should be carrying the message of AA to others. A sponsor should have a real concern about the sponsee, the sponsee’s family, and the sponsee’s recovery. A sponsor should be applying the steps in their day to day lives and showing the sponsee how to do the same.

In AA meetings today we sit through a hour or a hour-and-a-half of alcoholics sharing about the days of their drunkenness, their sickness, and how they used to be. We hear about how they are still struggling to stay sober and clean. We hear about the problems with their wife, their kids, their job, their finances, their anger, their fears, the list goes on and on. Very seldom do we hear about what our Higher Power is doing in our lives. We do not hear about the changes that God is making in their lives. In AA we all know about our past. We were all alcoholics, otherwise we wouldn’t be there. We don’t need to know more about the way we used to be. We need to hear about the changes that God is making in our lives. If your life is not changing then you have not found the High Power. God, as we understand Him is not turning you life and your will over the the care of a door knob, a cloud, a teddy bear, or whatever your imagination comes up with.

God, as we understood Him is not about picking your own god. It is about starting with whatever knowledge about the High Power, about God, an individual has. Everyone has a knowledge of God, whether it be good or bad. There are those in AA that have attended church for many years and they have a knowledge of God. It can be varying degrees of belief and knowledge depending on the teaching of the church and their own prayer and meditation. As for the atheist or the agnostic, they have a knowledge of God, however they have decided to reject God, that He  doesn’t exist, due to their own reasoning. Then there are those that believe in God but have never experienced God in a tangible way. Everyone has a knowledge of God. Whether they accept to believe that God exists is their choice.

When we start taking the steps our sponsor should have qualified us to determine if we were an alcoholic and if we were ready to get sober. He should have used something like this:

1. Do you think you have a drinking problem?
2. Do you want to do something about it?
3. What are you willing to do about it?

The Big Book states on page 46, “We found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results, even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power, which is God.”  All that is necessary is a willingness to believe. Starting out you may not be able to define or understand the power, but if you give it a chance God will show Himself to you and you will begin to see results. The results of a changed life, a change for the good, and you will be free from alcohol, narcotics and anything else that is controlling your life.

We cannot go on working the steps with our own conception of God. We must take the steps as they were written and that includes submitting to the God of the Big Book and the Good Book. Do you want to be recovered and free from alcohol or do you want to be in recovery for the rest of your life? The choice is yours but really consider if your willing to do anything to be recovered, and if you are find a good sponsor, one that will show you how to take the steps and one that has submitted to God and relies on God everyday. It will completely change your life, every aspect of your life and not just your abstinence from alcohol.