Step 2 of AA – A Christian Standpoint

Step 2: Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Restore us to sanity?

Yes, we are insane. Everybody is to some degree. No not necessarily ready for the rubber room, but a form of insanity nonetheless. Insanity has many different definitions like most words. But clearly doing something destructive time and time again is a form of insanity.

The first time I read the 12 Steps was on the wall of a Narcotics Anonymous meeting in Ardmore, Oklahoma. I read step 2, looked around the room, and thought smugly, “Maybe these guys are insane, but not me. I can just skip to step 3.”

Turns out I was probably the craziest one in the room at the time. I was over 5 years sober before I realized that.

That’s real insanity.

And in AA you will hear stories galore. Once you are around for a while, what seemed to be normal behavior when you were drinking, you will see is entirely insane.

But that’s not the insanity they are talking about. Again, they are talking about the insanity of the first drink. Knowing this behavior is destroying your life and the lives of those close to you… But here you are drinking again.

In Step 1 we learned we had a problem. The problem can be serious and often fatal. Our lives are unmanageable. (If it were not unmanageable, there would be no reason to quit drinking.) And there is no solution for it within our own power. We are powerless.

In Step 2, we find there is a solution. The solution to homelessness is a home. The solution to powerlessness is power. And since we have found we do not have the power, the solution must lie outside ourselves. The solution lies within a power that is greater than we are.

AA is very liberal about what higher power you choose. Some even go so far to say a doorknob can be a higher power. Which is of course hyperbole. A doorknob has no power. People who suggest such things are trying to get you to reach outside yourself… for something. Anything. A power that is truly greater than you will come later after you become willing to reach out.

AA’s success was due partly to the fact that people did not have to believe in God the same way you do to stay sober. Some people I hear in AA circles have had bad experiences in organized religion. They judge God by the mistakes His people make. Which is sad, but a fact of life.

But there is clearly a solution. I’ve met people who have been sober over 30 years. And I had a hard time staying sober 24 hours! They solved the problem – but how?

Some people who have had a bad experience with religion choose to use the AA group as a power greater than themselves until they can manage to eject the prejudices that they have. Surely the AA group with many sober members is more powerful than one poor soul who can barely draw a sober breath.

Then there are people who belong to other faiths or are atheists in AA and remain so. I’m not going to argue with them here.

How to find God?

God cannot be seen with the human eye. He is not electromagnetic. He does not reflect light in the tiny bandwidth we can see with our eyes.

He must reveal Himself to you.

And you have to ask Him. He will reveal Himself to you in a way that will make sense to you. It will not be the same way that made sense to me. It will not be in the same way He revealed Himself to your sponsor. Everybody is different. God will customize His revelation to you.

Note: It will probably not be a “burning bush” or a spectacular supernatural event. Things will happen in just the right way at just the right time that when it all gels together, you will have what they call in AA a “Spiritual awakening”.

Note also that there is no mention of doing any rituals or incantations or other special things to find God. Simply ask Him with a humble heart, and start watching for His answer.

We found that God does not make too hard terms with those who seek Him. To us, the Realm of Spirit is broad, roomy, all inclusive; never exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly seek. It is open, we believe, to all men.
Alcoholics Anonymous “The Big Book” Page 46

Step 1 of AA – A Christian Standpoint

Alcoholics Anonymous’ Step 1 is about desperation. How desperate a person must be depends upon the individual. Some have to sink quite low; others “get it” without going so far down.

Step 1 states, “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.” (Alcoholics Anonymous Page 59)

Two things are going on at the same time. We are powerless over alcohol: No matter how much willpower we exert, we are not able to stop drinking. Our lives had become unmanageable: No matter how much it wrecks our lives, we are not able to control our drinking or stop.

Why don’t you just quit? If willpower alone would do it, there would be no alcoholics. We’d just quit. Some people can be quite heavy drinkers and not be actual alcoholics. Alcoholism is actually a threefold disease. It is a disease of the mind and of the body. It is also a disease of the spirit, though some people do not believe in spirits.

Why don’t you just read your Bible, pray and Jesus will remove your alcoholism? If that were so, then then AA would never have had to been formed – the alcoholic would just go to church and that would be that. In the 1930s when AA was being born, people were going to church and reading their Bibles even if they didn’t really believe in what they were doing. Remember “Otis” the town drunk on The Andy Griffith Show? Even he went to church. Sure, Jesus could just cure you by a miracle, but that would not be getting to the core of the problem.

It is a disease of the body. It is an allergic (abnormal) reaction to alcohol. The reaction is not sneezing like hay fever, or not hives like an allergy to strawberries. The allergic reaction to alcohol is to immediately want another drink. Non-alcoholics to not experience this reaction. A non-alcoholic will want to stop drinking after a while. The alcoholic will want a drink worse after the 5th drink than he did after the first.

It is a disease of the mind. In AA lingo, it is called the obsession of the mind. The alcoholic’s mind wants a drink. The alcoholic cannot stop thinking about a drink for any appreciable amount of time. This is a very compelling desire, and can go on for months or even years (in my case, a little over two years. Dr. Bob, co-founder of AA obsessed for 2-1/2 years. I thought I was going to match or beat his record. I got close! But by the grace of God, it finally went away after 25-1/2 months). An obsession is described as an idea that overpowers all ideas to the contrary. The result is: at first the alcoholic may have made a solemn promise to himself never to drink again (And he really means it!) only to find himself sitting at the bar just a few hours later wondering how it happened.

It is a disease of the spirit. Sometimes called a soul-sickness. Alcoholics can be filled with resentment: Churning over and over in their minds bad things that other people have done to them. Alcoholism brings fear. Fear of just about everything. Whether the fears are founded or not, they are very real. One of the first things that happens in your mind is that alcohol lowers a person’s inhibitions. People will do things while drinking that they would not do sober. This is why men try to ply women with drink. Doing things that you would not do otherwise will cause you to have a guilty conscience. Spending money on drinking that, for instance, should be spent buying your children shoes can lead to a guilty conscience. Some people become violent when drinking. People drink to drown their sorrows. You lose all self-respect. One great AA speaker said, “I became everything I detested in a human being.”

A person really arrives at step one when still drinking. Some people will call the trip to step 1, step zero. You have come to the end of your rope. You can’t live with it and you can’t live without it. You realize that you have to have help. You are powerless over alcohol.

Step one is not just admitting — “saying” — you are an alcoholic. People used to call me an alcoholic all the time, and I’d say, “Heck, yeah! Bring me another beer!”
Admitting you are powerless is an entirely different process: a process of helplessness. A feeling of desperation.

How the 12-Steps Work and Why They Are so Effective

Unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery (Dr. William Silkworth, M.D. “The Doctor’s Opinion” – Alcoholics Anonymous page xxvii)

The Problem

Your mind can only handle so much negative emotion. At some point your mind snaps unless you do something about it. Some people pass the breaking point and have a nervous breakdown. Some abuse food sex, money, gambling, alcohol, drugs, etc. as a way to relieve their problems. Some become “workaholics”. To keep the reading smooth, I am using the words “alcoholic” or “addict”, but these principles apply to any problem that the 12-steps address such as Overeaters Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, SLAA, etc.
Though sometimes addictive activities may appear to relieve the suffering, they are always incomplete and temporary. The problems are still there. In fact, the abuse of their “crutch” usually adds to the problems instead of relieving them.
Inside the mind of every person are varying degrees of negative emotions. Fear, guilt, shame, remorse, anger, resentment, low self-esteem, and so on. In an alcoholic and drug addict’s mind these are usually aggravated more than in most people’s because alcohol reduces inhibitions and the drinking alcoholic will do things they would never do sober. Also, in order to fund their habit the addict/ alcoholic will do things they would not ordinarily do. Also lost jobs and productivity usually lead to financial despair if the addiction is left untreated.

Why can’t they “just” quit?

No room for any more bad stuff, crises, etc.

One problem with trying to “quit” without the aid of a 12-step program is that whether you are aware of it or not, the negative emotions are still there in the back of your mind — if not in the forefront — every waking moment (And sometimes in your sleep, too – especially in late stages). Life’s problems are like a water faucet that drips new problems and aggravations into the sufferer’s mind. There is already very little room in your brain for more bad things because of years of accumulation (remember your “crutch” has never relieved the problem, it just took your attention away from it temporarily — if you were lucky.) These new problems add to the already accumulated feelings of fear, guilt, self-pity, remorse, etc. until finally the breaking point is reached… and the addict reaches for the only solution they know of. Their “fix” – whatever it may be.

The Solution

The 12 steps help a person deal with the day-to-day stresses of life without your mind ever getting to the snapping point. (“Living life on life’s terms”) The addict/ alcoholic through the 12 steps, with the help of some activity (“working the steps”) the help of other people, and their higher power (usually God), the guilt fear, shame, anger, and remorse gradually begin to be replaced by serenity and positive emotions and thoughts such as love and real happiness — things the alcoholic has not found important for much too long.
As an added bonus, any new stresses that the faucet of life drips in do not immediately add to the remaining problems, they now “filter” through the renewed mind – and often are dissipated before ever being added to the current problems. The same event that use to be very stressful and emotional no longer seems like such a big deal.

Bad Emotions being replaced by Serenity

The guilt, fear, shame and remorse never go away completely. But as the good things keep coming in, there is no longer room for the bad things. They go away. Unlike when actively abusing the crutch, which only seems to temporarily distract the sufferer’s mind from the problem.

The 12 Steps Overview

In Steps 1-3 The sufferer realizes that they have a problem and that there is a solution, and choose to pursue the solution.
Steps 4-9 begin to remove the “bad” emotions by listing, discussing and analyzing their “defects of character” with the help of another person. By step 9, the alcoholic begins to make amends (restitution) to anyone whom they have harmed. These steps are very effective. Many people get the feeling that the drink problem has disappeared by step five. (Alcoholics Anonymous page 75)
By step 9, if they work thoroughly, the alcoholic has usually already started to get a whole new outlook on life. The guilt, shame, remorse, resentments, etc. are starting to vanish and be replaced with positive thinking — emotions and actions that most of us have never had to any significant degree. After step 9, some really amazing things begin to happen. Anyone who has not had an amazing experience of mind renewal (“Spiritual experience”) after step 5 will usually have it at step 9.
Steps 10-12 are the growing steps. They keep us on the right path day to day – these are essential to maintain sobriety. These last three must be worked continuously because left untreated, our minds will eventually slip back to the state they were in… and we may drink. And for many of us, to drink is to die. (Alcoholics Anonymous page 66)

Alcohol and Co-Dependency

Alcohol and Co-Dependency

By Shirley Thompson

When I think of alcohol I think of it as Satan being in a bottle & when you open it you are letting him out. But God is always there waiting to protect you if you’ll let him. We just need to turn to him and call on him and he will prevail. I thank God that even though the sickness was in my family both my parents loved God and taught us children to believe in him and to love him. Without God we would never have survived. God does not bring sickness, death, pain and suffering to us. All of that came about because of sin and we all know that Satan is the father of sin.

Alcoholism is a sickness that can destroy families, homes and lives if we let it. And it is not just the alcoholic it destroys. It also makes everyone else living around it sick. It starts with a genetic imbalance with a chemical that alcohol or drugs activates. It’s a chronic progressive disease and causes damage to body tissues, the brain and central nervous system and eventual death. It has no respect to age, sex, rich or poor. It claims millions of victims. It causes inflammation of nerves, depression of brain function leading to neuritis, stupor, hallucinations, loss of control and coordination. Causes inflammation and hardening of liver leading to cirrhosis. Also has a psychological factor such as feelings of personal inadequacy and self dislike. Causes loneliness, poverty and family and marital struggles. The alcoholic is unable to control his craving and will sacrifice his goals and values. The alcoholic is not a bad person. He or she is a sick person and needs help and understanding.

The active alcoholic may even be a Christian. Even when we are Christians our bodies are still weak. We still stumble and fall if we don’t keep holding on to Gods hand. When we have troubles we can’t be too ashamed or proud to ask for help and to accept it.

I said before that the family is also sick. When we live with an alcholic the disease progresses to us. The disease is inherited but even if we never start drinking or do not have the chemical in our brains that cause us to be alcoholics we are still affected by it. We love the alcoholic and hate the alcoholic. We may feel like we are to blame or that there should be something we can do to stop it. We feel insecure, afraid, depressed. We become Co-dependent. We become dependent on how the alcoholic acts to how we act.

My father was an alcoholic. Sometimes when he was drinking he was real mean. I grew up in a dysfunctional family. My father being an alcoholic and my mother a Co-dependent. There was always drinking, fighting, arguing, and confusion so in turn all the children developed Co-dependency behaviors. I learned how to be afraid, distrustful, insecure, angry, embarrassed, ashamed and confused at an early age. I say learned because we are taught to feel all these negative feelings by the environment we are in. Co-dependents learn not to trust good feelings and to be afraid of them because if you feel any of the good feelings they are soon snatched away.

I was so afraid of my father I ran away from home when I was 14. I had nowhere to go and of course no money. The first time I ran away I was gone 3 days. I spent those 3 days wandering the streets during the day and sleeping on benches in the bus station at night. I had a bottle of aspirin and I had heard that if you took too many aspirin you would die. I walked until I found some woods, ate the whole bottle of aspirin and laid down on the ground and waited to die. I didn’t die but I sure got sick. There are so many times that God heard my mothers prayers and took care of me.

From that time on I have run from one bad situation to another. I hated Daddy. I hated him because I was afraid of him. I hated him for all the things he had done. I hated him because I blamed him for me not being able to see my mother, brothers and sisters. I went home to visit when I was 17 and when I got there Daddy was in the hospital. I didn’t care that he was sick and I didn’t care about seeing him but I went anyway because the family was going and I wanted to be with them. When I walked into the room Daddy looked so pale and so pitiful lying in that hospital bed. I could see the pain in his eyes and the tears running down his cheeks and he said, “my baby did come to see me.” I felt my heart melt and the wall of hatred crumble and I started crying. At that moment I started loving my father. I am so thankful to God that I saw the love in Daddy’s heart and that I was able to forgive him for everything and was able to love him. We were very poor and never had a lot to eat and sometimes we only had cornmeal gravy but Daddy always made sure we had something to eat. There was a time when my Daddy was very well respected and owned a lot of property but with his drinking he lost everything. We didn’t get candy very often but when Daddy could he’d buy each of us a candy bar. There were six of us kids and Mama told me later that when I was gone Daddy would buy six candy bars and he would sit and hold mine and cry. So you see Daddy loved us but he was a sick man. I know now that he was a good tender hearted loving man. He kept drinking and things didn’t get any better but I never stopped loving him again.

Through the years I became more and more Co-dependent. I tried to be whatever would please someone else. I would act the way I thought would please someone else. I would dress the way I thought would please someone else. I would do whatever I had to, to please someone else. I became whatever would please others. I did this for so long I lost contact and knowledge of who I was. But no matter how hard I tried to please things continued to go wrong.

The man I had married at 17 had to be put in a mental institution. The weeks before he was taken away were weeks of fear and confusion. It was just me and my two little girls ages 3 and 4. We were in Oklahoma and I didn’t know where to turn or what to do. Again I ran taking the children with me. They were also confused and scared not knowing what was happening. Later he came and took the children away. It was 4 years until I was able to get them back.

Through my life I’ve went from one relationship to another. There were times I was out on the road alone, cold and hungry. The only feelings I knew were fear, pain, hunger, loneliness and weariness. Sometimes I even tried drinking to kill the pain and tried suicide twice more. I was sinking deeper and deeper into despair. My problem was I was trying everything except God. But I know that because of my mothers prayers and Gods great love he was there all along and watching over me and waiting for me to turn to him. At 24 years old I tried suicide for the third and last time. I locked myself in a room in Nashville and no one knew where I was. I took a bottle of sleeping pills and laid down on the bed to die. I was very calm no fear, no nothing, just a calm resignation. For three days I drifted in and out of consciousness. I saw people standing around my bed with a light surrounding their entire bodies watching me. They never spoke and I could not speak or move. I will always believe they may were angels watching over me. Whether it was angels or I was hallucinating I know that God spared me and after three days I came back to consciousness and knew I would never try to take my life again.

It was about two years later that I got down on my knees and gave up trying to control things and admitted defeat and begged God to forgive me and save my soul. Inside my chest was a big empty hole that ached and he filled that empty hole with such joy and peace that I had never known. Afterwards I was so excited and wanted to be baptized and start living for God. But because of the sickness and not knowing any other way of living I let Satan lead me instead of letting God. That’s why we also need Christian fellowship, help and understanding and guidance from our brothers and sisters in Christ.

In June 1989 me and Ricky left Bo and went to California. I guess you can say again I ran. But this time I had turned it all over to God and let him lead me because I was defeated again. I was miserable and sick in my mind. Bo went into a drug and alcohol treatment center and when he got out he came and got me. I was still sick and having panic attacks. But God had taken over and he wasn’t through yet. He was leading us to where we are today. Bo had gone through treatment so he was able to be a great help to me. He put me in the hospital where I could start recovering from Co-dependency. Sept 10, 1989 Bo was saved and we were both baptized Sept 17, 1989. Since then we have kept God in our lives and let him lead us. I am still Co-dependent and still recovering but with Gods help, the help and fellowship of our church our lives gets better and better and we get happier and happier. I shed a lot of tears now but they are tears of joy. Peace, love and joy fill the space now that only knew pain, hunger, loneliness and fear. These feelings didn’t know how to cry.

As I said at the beginning alcoholism is a progressive disease and makes the whole family sick. But we can be healed with Gods help. God does not force us to do anything. He has given us the ability to make a choice in our lives. Hate is cruel, pain, ugly and destructive and Satan is Hate. Love is good, kind, gentle, forgiving, and healing. God is love. In order to heal we must forgive. And one of the things that has been especially hard for me to do is we need to forgive ourselves. It has been much easier to forgive others than to forgive myself. One of the things about a co-dependent is we tend to take on all the blame for everything that goes wrong.

Alcohol is a problem. It’s tough to confront it. But it has to be confronted before anything can be done about it. The first step is to admit it exists. Remember it’s tougher to live with it. And if we let him – God will prevail.

Today I have so much to be thankful for. I thank God for my wonderful children. And although I know I have caused them pain because of my sickness I hope and pray that I too, like my parents did me, have planted a seed in their hearts the knowledge and faith that there is a God and love for God. I pray that they will seek salvation and let God guide them and I know that he will do for them what he has done for me. And I thank God for this church where we get so much love and support from you all. Thank you all so very much. We love you.

Thanksgiving day 1991

Shirley Thompson

Codependency has different faces

Some roles of Co-dependents from the book Rapha’s 12-Step Program for Overcoming Codependency by Pat Springle.[1] A complete, biblically based recovery program for codependents.

• Enabler – The enabler tries to make everything okay.
• Hero – The hero thinks that by being perfect, the problems will go away.
• Scapegoat – The scapegoat rebels against the family problems and ultimately believes that he is the problem.
• Lost Child – The lost child pulls into a shell, withdraws and isolates himself from meaningful relationships.
• Mascot – The mascot tries desperately to make everyone laugh in the midst of the tragedy of the family situation.

*Adapted from The Family Trap, by Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse, and The Family, by John Bradshaw.

The story below describes one person’s codependency from the inside. Shirley shares her experience and thinking in a way that no head-shrinker could hope to.

So without further adieu:

I will never leave you nor forsake you — Hebrews 13:5

The message I pray that will reach others is:

1. Understanding of what “alcoholic” means. That it truly is a disease.
2. How destructive it is not only to the alcoholic but to the family also.
3. Anyone who has this problem is not alone.
4. That there is treatment for the alcoholic and also for the Co-dependent. There are programs for both and if you work the program it will work.
5. How important compassion and forgiving is.
6. Most of all the Power God has and what he can and will do in our lives. With God in our lives we will never have to walk alone. He will never forsake us.

I would like to add that it is not just alcohol. It is any kind of addictive behavior.

At the time I wrote this was while Beau and I were still together and he had quit drinking and I had started working on my recovery so things were going pretty well for us. It was after I had been in the hospital for depression and 3 years before he left me and Ricky.

I hope that when people read this it will help them to recognize things about their own lives and give them hope and make them see that with God there is healing.

Alcohol and Co-Dependency

By Shirley Thompson

When I think of alcohol I think of it as Satan being in a bottle & when you open it you are letting him out. But God is always there waiting to protect you if you’ll let him. We just need to turn to him and call on him and he will prevail. I thank God that even though the sickness was in my family both my parents loved God and taught us children to believe in him and to love him. Without God we would never have survived. God does not bring sickness, death, pain and suffering to us. All of that came about because of sin and we all know that Satan is the father of sin.

Alcoholism is a sickness that can destroy families, homes and lives if we let it. And it is not just the alcoholic it destroys. It also makes everyone else living around it sick. It starts with a genetic imbalance with a chemical that alcohol or drugs activates. It’s a chronic progressive disease and causes damage to body tissues, the brain and central nervous system and eventual death. It has no respect to age, sex, rich or poor. It claims millions of victims. It causes inflammation of nerves, depression of brain function leading to neuritis, stupor, hallucinations, loss of control and coordination. Causes inflammation and hardening of liver leading to cirrhosis. Also has a psychological factor such as feelings of personal inadequacy and self dislike. Causes loneliness, poverty and family and marital struggles. The alcoholic is unable to control his craving and will sacrifice his goals and values. The alcoholic is not a bad person. He or she is a sick person and needs help and understanding.

The active alcoholic may even be a Christian. Even when we are Christians our bodies are still weak. We still stumble and fall if we don’t keep holding on to Gods hand. When we have troubles we can’t be too ashamed or proud to ask for help and to accept it.

I said before that the family is also sick. When we live with an alcholic the disease progresses to us. The disease is inherited but even if we never start drinking or do not have the chemical in our brains that cause us to be alcoholics we are still affected by it. We love the alcoholic and hate the alcoholic. We may feel like we are to blame or that there should be something we can do to stop it. We feel insecure, afraid, depressed. We become Co-dependent. We become dependent on how the alcoholic acts to how we act.

My father was an alcoholic. Sometimes when he was drinking he was real mean. I grew up in a dysfunctional family. My father being an alcoholic and my mother a Co-dependent. There was always drinking, fighting, arguing, and confusion so in turn all the children developed Co-dependency behaviors. I learned how to be afraid, distrustful, insecure, angry, embarrassed, ashamed and confused at an early age. I say learned because we are taught to feel all these negative feelings by the environment we are in. Co-dependents learn not to trust good feelings and to be afraid of them because if you feel any of the good feelings they are soon snatched away.

I was so afraid of my father I ran away from home when I was 14. I had nowhere to go and of course no money. The first time I ran away I was gone 3 days. I spent those 3 days wandering the streets during the day and sleeping on benches in the bus station at night. I had a bottle of aspirin and I had heard that if you took too many aspirin you would die. I walked until I found some woods, ate the whole bottle of aspirin and laid down on the ground and waited to die. I didn’t die but I sure got sick. There are so many times that God heard my mothers prayers and took care of me.

From that time on I have run from one bad situation to another. I hated Daddy. I hated him because I was afraid of him. I hated him for all the things he had done. I hated him because I blamed him for me not being able to see my mother, brothers and sisters. I went home to visit when I was 17 and when I got there Daddy was in the hospital. I didn’t care that he was sick and I didn’t care about seeing him but I went anyway because the family was going and I wanted to be with them. When I walked into the room Daddy looked so pale and so pitiful lying in that hospital bed. I could see the pain in his eyes and the tears running down his cheeks and he said, “my baby did come to see me.” I felt my heart melt and the wall of hatred crumble and I started crying. At that moment I started loving my father. I am so thankful to God that I saw the love in Daddy’s heart and that I was able to forgive him for everything and was able to love him. We were very poor and never had a lot to eat and sometimes we only had cornmeal gravy but Daddy always made sure we had something to eat. There was a time when my Daddy was very well respected and owned a lot of property but with his drinking he lost everything. We didn’t get candy very often but when Daddy could he’d buy each of us a candy bar. There were six of us kids and Mama told me later that when I was gone Daddy would buy six candy bars and he would sit and hold mine and cry. So you see Daddy loved us but he was a sick man. I know now that he was a good tender hearted loving man. He kept drinking and things didn’t get any better but I never stopped loving him again.

Through the years I became more and more Co-dependent. I tried to be whatever would please someone else. I would act the way I thought would please someone else. I would dress the way I thought would please someone else. I would do whatever I had to, to please someone else. I became whatever would please others. I did this for so long I lost contact and knowledge of who I was. But no matter how hard I tried to please things continued to go wrong.

The man I had married at 17 had to be put in a mental institution. The weeks before he was taken away were weeks of fear and confusion. It was just me and my two little girls ages 3 and 4. We were in Oklahoma and I didn’t know where to turn or what to do. Again I ran taking the children with me. They were also confused and scared not knowing what was happening. Later he came and took the children away. It was 4 years until I was able to get them back.

Through my life I’ve went from one relationship to another. There were times I was out on the road alone, cold and hungry. The only feelings I knew were fear, pain, hunger, loneliness and weariness. Sometimes I even tried drinking to kill the pain and tried suicide twice more. I was sinking deeper and deeper into despair. My problem was I was trying everything except God. But I know that because of my mothers prayers and Gods great love he was there all along and watching over me and waiting for me to turn to him. At 24 years old I tried suicide for the third and last time. I locked myself in a room in Nashville and no one knew where I was. I took a bottle of sleeping pills and laid down on the bed to die. I was very calm no fear, no nothing, just a calm resignation. For three days I drifted in and out of consciousness. I saw people standing around my bed with a light surrounding their entire bodies watching me. They never spoke and I could not speak or move. I will always believe they may were angels watching over me. Whether it was angels or I was hallucinating I know that God spared me and after three days I came back to consciousness and knew I would never try to take my life again.

It was about two years later that I got down on my knees and gave up trying to control things and admitted defeat and begged God to forgive me and save my soul. Inside my chest was a big empty hole that ached and he filled that empty hole with such joy and peace that I had never known. Afterwards I was so excited and wanted to be baptized and start living for God. But because of the sickness and not knowing any other way of living I let Satan lead me instead of letting God. That’s why we also need Christian fellowship, help and understanding and guidance from our brothers and sisters in Christ.

In June 1989 me and Ricky left Bo and went to California. I guess you can say again I ran. But this time I had turned it all over to God and let him lead me because I was defeated again. I was miserable and sick in my mind. Bo went into a drug and alcohol treatment center and when he got out he came and got me. I was still sick and having panic attacks. But God had taken over and he wasn’t through yet. He was leading us to where we are today. Bo had gone through treatment so he was able to be a great help to me. He put me in the hospital where I could start recovering from Co-dependency. Sept 10, 1989 Bo was saved and we were both baptized Sept 17, 1989. Since then we have kept God in our lives and let him lead us. I am still Co-dependent and still recovering but with Gods help, the help and fellowship of our church our lives gets better and better and we get happier and happier. I shed a lot of tears now but they are tears of joy. Peace, love and joy fill the space now that only knew pain, hunger, loneliness and fear. These feelings didn’t know how to cry.

As I said at the beginning alcoholism is a progressive disease and makes the whole family sick. But we can be healed with Gods help. God does not force us to do anything. He has given us the ability to make a choice in our lives. Hate is cruel, pain, ugly and destructive and Satan is Hate. Love is good, kind, gentle, forgiving, and healing. God is love. In order to heal we must forgive. And one of the things that has been especially hard for me to do is we need to forgive ourselves. It has been much easier to forgive others than to forgive myself. One of the things about a co-dependent is we tend to take on all the blame for everything that goes wrong.

Alcohol is a problem. It’s tough to confront it. But it has to be confronted before anything can be done about it. The first step is to admit it exists. Remember it’s tougher to live with it. And if we let him – God will prevail.

Today I have so much to be thankful for. I thank God for my wonderful children. And although I know I have caused them pain because of my sickness I hope and pray that I too, like my parents did me, have planted a seed in their hearts the knowledge and faith that there is a God and love for God. I pray that they will seek salvation and let God guide them and I know that he will do for them what he has done for me. And I thank God for this church where we get so much love and support from you all. Thank you all so very much. We love you.

Thanksgiving day 1991

Shirley Thompson

What Is Co-Dependency?

What is Codependency (Co-dependency)?

Codependency is often defined as a phenomenon where the co-dependant person’s happiness is determined by how happy the other person is. If daddy is unhappy, momma’s unhappy.

The programs of Al-Anon and Alateen focus largely on overcoming codependency.

Some think that codependency is the minds way of dealing with the spouses or parent’s intolerable behavior.

Of course it is dangerous to pigeon-hole any illness of the mind. Some people seem to be born codependent. The cause is not important for purposes of this category. This site is geared toward the solution.

Drinking is a Sin?

Misconception: Drinking is a Sin

Some people claim that drinking is a sin. It is clearly not. Just about every book in the Bible talks about drinking. Jesus, Himself spoke fondly of wine. (Matthew 26:29) Jesus’ first miracle was turning water into wine (John 2:1-10). Clearly the act of drinking is not wrong.

Where the “sin” comes in is when it becomes in excess — the drinking takes over God’s place in a person’s priorities, when it results in injury to one’s own life, or to the lives of others.

Alcoholism has been convincingly (but there is controversy of course) called a disease. It is just as much a mental disease as schizophrenia. But the disease also affects the body.

The Twelve Steps

The Twelve Steps

The twelve steps can be viewed on Alcoholics anonymous’s website. (Click here for a PDF)

The steps are tailor-made for the alcoholic. They also work for drug addiction and just about any other obsessive-compulsive behavior. Obsessive people tend to be self-centered. Their thought lives are almost exclusively spent thinking about themselves: how they are going to get high today, thinking about their own well-being, their own comfort, their own pleasure. Rarely does an alcoholic or addict think about the welfare of others enough to take any action that will “cost” themselves (unless, of course, they have something to gain from it in the future). An obsession takes over the thought life, and nothing else seems important. Obsession has been described as an idea that overpowers all other ideas.

The steps are often summed up as follows: Trust God, Clean House, Help Others. Trust God (Steps 2-3) Clean House (clean up the damage that you’ve done to your life and the lives of others — Steps 4-9) Help Others (Step 12).
Step 1 is recognizing the problem. Until you recognize the problem (often even recognizing the fact that you have a problem) you have no hope of solving it.
Steps 10 and 11 help you to grow emotionally and spiritually. In working step 10 you watch your behavior and when you make mistakes, promptly fix them. In step 11 you try to improve your conscious contact with God

Why and How the 12-Steps work

Why and How the 12-Steps work

An addiction is not a process of the conscious mind (Frontal lobe). By the time the frontal lobe of the brain is informed of the decision to drink (or use drugs) it is too late.

The term “dying for a drink” (fix, cigarette, etc.) is actually not an exaggeration. The decision to drink/ use is made in a “primitive” survival instinct part of the brain. I’ve heard it said that the decision to drink or use is triggered in the same part of the brain that provides the “fight or flight” mechanism. HBO’s report on addiction says it happens in the same part of the brain that controls the urge to eat and the sex drive. In either case, these parts of the brain are not under full command of the frontal lobe. There is a “stop” mechanism in the brain, but this mechanism becomes inoperable in the addicted mind (especially in adolescents whose stop mechanisms are not yet developed). This renders willpower alone helpless to stop. The addict/ alcoholic genuinely thinks they are going to die, and the frontal lobe (conscious mind) agrees completely. The focus of the mind narrows so that nothing else becomes important. Even though the consequences can be catastrophic, the addict simply cannot care – They must have their drink or fix.

The urge to drink/ use can be caused by nearly anything, but the real killers, so to speak, are emotions and stress. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks[2] What makes this worse are resentments. Negative experiences are compounded by “re-living” the event over and over again until the stressful situation is blown way out of proportion by the mind. The twelve steps reduce stress so that the mechanism that makes the alcoholic/ addict think they need to take a drink/ fix to live will, over time, no longer be triggered.

The twelve steps are not so much a way to get sober (If getting sober was enough, detoxification “detox or rehab” would be enough to keep people clean and sober. But anyone who has been around an alcoholic/ addict who has tried, knows that detox by itself is not enough) The 12-steps offer a way to live sober. The members no longer feel they need to escape because their consciences are kept clear by a daily working of the steps. They are able to cope with problems by letting God handle the ones which are insurmountable. They do not feel they have to lie to cover up their bad actions, because, though nobody is perfect, when they do wrong, they promptly admit it. They do not allow their minds to entertain resentments. With God’s help, they deal with problems before the mind tries to exaggerate them.

Eventually, usually from six months to two years, the addict/ alcoholic begins to experience serenity. The stress levels never build up to a breaking point. In time, the irresistible urge to drink/ use is taken away. we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality—safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. [3]

2 Alcoholics Anonymous (The “Big Book”)
“The Doctors opinion” (By William D. Silkworth, M.D.) Pages xxvi – xxvii

3 Alcoholics Anonymous (The “Big Book”)
“Into Action” Page 85

The Controversy about the Twelve Steps

The Controversy about the Twelve Steps

I am a recovering alcoholic. The 12 steps saved my life. I haven’t had a drink in over 5-1/2 years at the time of this writing. I found out that there is some controversy about the 12 steps, so I looked into it. If you want to hear the entire scuttlebutt, just search for “the orange papers” in your favorite search engine. I am deliberately not going to place a link to their site on this one.

The twelve steps are under fire. The major complaints are from secular people. The ways of God are foolishness to the unbeliever. No amount of explaining will convince them. Here are a few of the complaints and my answers:

• They complain that the first step makes a person feel powerless. This is patently absurd. In my experience (I and every alcoholic and addict that I know) were powerless while under the substance’s spell. Think about this: If we were not powerless, there would be no addiction, right? We’d simply quit!
  Anyhow, through the 12 steps, I was later empowered by God.
• They complain that our dependance upon God is a bad thing. However, mankind was not created to be autonomous. We are finite beings with finite understanding. Autonomy – trying to live without God’s guidance – is what got us into this mess in the first place in the garden of Eden
• In step five you admit the exact nature of your wrongs. But the mockers – the enemies of AA – complain about “confession”. Confession is an important part of a Christian walk. Without it, you carry the burden of guilt with you. Even secular psychologists know the value of confession. One author says that “Confession is located in that place where psychology and religion meet–guilt.” [1] Besides, step five is not confession, anyhow. It is trying to get to the bottom of the nature of our wrongs so we can begin to correct them.
• Then to top it all off, they accuse us of “channeling” God. Step 11 says we seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand him. Where do they get “channeling”? The detractors of AA do not have a leg to stand on. When a person accepts Christ as their savior, the Holy Spirit quickens your spirit, and moves in with you. If you want to call that channeling, so be it.

References/ Further reading

The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (Click here for a PDF)

1 The value of confession and forgiveness according to Jung
(See http://www.springerlink.com/content/wn435676776n2q08/ for quick reference)
Journal of Religion and Health
Publisher Springer Netherlands
ISSN 0022-4197 (Print) 1573-6571 (Online)
Issue Volume 24, Number 1 / March, 1985
DOI 10.1007/BF01533258
Pages 39-48
Subject Collection Behavioral Science
SpringerLink Date Saturday, April 23, 2005

Alcoholics Anonymous’ Theology – Is AA a Religion?

Alcoholics Anonymous’ Theology – Is AA a Religion?

Alcoholics Anonymous does not have a rigid, published “Theology” as such. Much of the talk you will hear in AA circles is based upon the co-founder Bill Wilson’s (known as “Bill W.”) spiritual journey. The beginning of Bill W.’s experiences can be found in pages 9-15 of the book Alcoholics Anonymous (The “Big Book”) The 12 steps are adamant about God “As we understand Him”. AA does not attempt to force their concept of God upon anyone else. The newcomer to AA will hear about how Bill W. found God, and how the other members came to believe, and hopefully, they will find a way to connect with God, themselves.

AA is not a religion It is a spiritual program. In a religion you do certain things or act certain ways to gain God’s favor. But AA is a growing relationship between you and God (See the twelve steps. Search for the term “12 Steps” on AA’s website http://www.aa.org/ They are also on pages 59-60 of the “Big Book”). You will not hear in AA that you have to act a certain way. Though people will make suggestions that work for themselves.

There are people from all faiths in AA. Most that I’ve met are Christians. But I’m sure in other parts of the world, the ratios are markedly different. Just like in other walks of life, some are more active and zealous than others. There are also many who have made AA their God. One guy I know has remained atheist. As far as I know, he’s been sober over five years.

AA believes “come as you are” Even a rough concept of God (God as you understand Him) will be sufficient starting place. AA does not ask you to believe in God in the same way that they do. But most would agree that the program is based upon Biblical principles.

You’ll usually not hear the name of Jesus much in AA, but He is there in many members’ minds. The idea of the nameless “Higher power” is to draw people who have pre-conceived notions about God into the fellowship without scaring them off. A lot of people had bad experiences in sanctimonious churches and think the experiences are from God. Sad, but a fact of life.

AA is not intended to save your soul. I’ve heard it said many times, “Jesus saved my soul, but AA saved my skin”. And it is true. If going to church by itself could keep a person sober, AA would never have had to form. Because most people went to church in the 1930s and before. And low-bottom alcoholics had virtually no hope of staying sober before AA.

AA’s spiritual principles are almost without exception, straight out of the Bible — focused on the areas that the alcoholic tends to lack. You can hear the spiritual principles here and there if you go to church often enough, but never cohesively enough to stick well enough to form a program in a person’s mind. Especially a mind pickled by alcohol.