On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 10:29:04 -0700, Warren Ockrassa wrote > Often, yeah. "Higher Power" and all that. IIRC the AA programs end > with "The Lord's Prayer" too.
Typically, but there are many meetings that use the Serenity Prayer to accomodate people who are uncomfortable with one particular religion's prayer. > Therefore in saying that you're powerless over [substance], you're > basically saying that you don't take responsibility for your > actions. I have a serious ethical objection to that assessment. If that's what it meant, then your objection would be reasonable. Like all the steps, it is in the past tense -- we *were* powerless. Powerlessness isn't the same as helplessness; what such programs teach is that there is help available and to look outside ourselves, beyond the popular myth of self- discipline (which in my experience condemns rather than frees). It's a whole lot of letting go. Not that I'm an expert. > As for the "Higher Power" doctrine. Well, I'm an atheist. ;) But > looked at from the perspective of the "powerless" objection, I think > you can maybe see an extension. I've heard a number of people say that their sponsors urged them to write a job description for their higher power, then work with that. One guy I know chose for his first higher power a god to whom he could say "F--- off" any time he wanted. That worked well for him, then he moved to a far more entertaining (but less useful, he said) higher power -- John Cleese, as in "I fart in your general direction." He's moved on further since then, but still reverts to Cleese occasionally, he says. > So in essence one aspect of yourself (Higher Power) is being used to > control your response to another aspect of yourself (reaction to > [substance]). It's more efficient, I think, to eliminate both middle > states and simply say "I'm not going to react to [substance] in the > way I used to; I have control, I take responsibility, and the Higher > Power can get stuffed." But a higher power isn't an aspect of oneself, as far as I'm concerned. Even if it is the 12-step group itself, part of the point is to get outside oneself, to stop being wrapped up on one's own stuff. Not that I'm an expert. And "Get stuffed" isn't far from "F--- off." > This doesn't really solve the problem. It doesn't strike at the root, > the source of the addiction. It simply replaces one behavior with > another behavior, but offers no guarantees that backsliding won't happen. There are no guarantees, especially that one -- hence the saying, "One day at a time." > To eliminate addiction, one must fundamentally alter oneself and > one's responses to the world, not just to [substance], and I'm > uncertain that any 12-step program provides the necessary tools to > accomplish that fundamental transformation. I'm quite sure that some do. I know people intimately who are far more kind, loving and gentle as a result of working the steps. But they don't address addiction per se, they attack the acting out that goes with being an addict, whether the addiction is a substance or a behavior. Nick _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
