Unitarian Universalism and the Twelve Steps
O Great Love,
For Defeat,
For being Licked,
For Being Sick
and Tired of Being Sick and Tired,
For Giving Up,
For Enough Finally Being Enough,
For the Path of
Descent That Finally Reaches the Place Known as the Bottom,
I am profoundly
grateful.
(Restored to Sanity,
Skinner House Books, 2014, 7)
The admission
that one is powerless over alcohol is the first step in the Twelve-Step
program. That prayer comes from the book Restored
To Sanity, a book of essays compiled by two Unitarian Universalist
Ministers.
For people who
struggle with addiction, Alcoholics Anonymous has for many years been a
lifeline of hope and recovery. The Twelve Step program of Alcoholics Anonymous
is a time-honored practice that has brought thousands of people who struggle
with addiction to sobriety and, some would say, to sanity. There are other
recovery programs, such as LifeRing and Rational Recovery, but none is as
well-known as AA.
Unitarian
Universalists are among the people supported by the AA Twelve-Step practices,
but there can be a challenge to some who find the language and teachings about
a higher power problematic. I would like this morning to look at some of the
twelve steps through the eyes of the Restored to Sanity authors, all of whom
are UUs. I believe their writings will give us insight into the philosophy and
language of Twelve-Step programs, and help us to see that a spiritual, rather
than religious perspective, may be helpful for the hard work of recovery. What
is more, much of the work of the Twelve Steps can be beneficial for UUs who are not
in need of a recovery program.
The Facts
Romantic, tragic
figures hopelessly addicted to alcohol or drugs litter western popular culture
– from the fictional Nicolas Cage anti-hero determined to drink himself to
death in Leaving Las Vegas to real-life people such as John Belushi, Kurt
Cobain, Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was found dead with a needle still in his
arm last year. But these larger-than-life names glamorize and give us a false
picture of addiction: people who abuse drugs and alcohol are ordinary people
like you and me, who have jobs and children and go to church.
As we learn to
employ coping mechanisms to handle the challenges of daily life, so do they –
except for them, those mechanisms become another challenge: as Denis Meacham
writes in the Addiction Ministry Handbook
(Skinner House Books, 2004), “Chemically dependent people are stuck in a
coping behavior that probably served them well at one time, briefly, and now
they can’t change without help.” (1)
According to the National Council on Alcoholism and
Drug Dependence, Inc.:
“One in every 12 adults, suffer
from alcohol abuse or dependence along with several million more who engage in
risky, binge drinking patterns that could lead to alcohol problems. More
than half of all adults have a family history of alcoholism or problem
drinking, and more than 7 million children live in a household where at least
one parent is dependent on or has abused alcohol. (https://ncadd.org/learn-about-alcohol/faqsfacts) And it is estimated that 20
million Americans aged 12 or older used an illegal drug in the past 30 days.
This estimate represents 8% percent of the population aged 12 years old
or older. Illicit drugs include marijuana/hashish, cocaine (including
crack), heroin, hallucinogens, inhalants, or prescription drugs used without a
prescription. Each year more teens enter
addiction treatment with a primary diagnosis of marijuana dependence than all
other illegal drugs combined."
"The
estimated cost of drug abuse exceeds $190 Billion in lost productivity, in healthcare costs, and in legal costs including
efforts to stem the flow of drugs. Beyond the financial cost is the
cost to individuals, families and society through the spread of infectious diseases
such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C, either through sharing of drug paraphernalia
or unprotected sex; deaths
due to overdose or other complications from drug use; effects on unborn children of
pregnant drug users; and the impact on the family, crime and homelessness.” (https://ncadd.org/learn-about-drugs/faqsfacts)
So how do people begin to get
to grips with recovery, once they hit the bottom? Anne Lamott observes that “Willingness to change comes only from pain.” (Small Victories, 2014, p. 275) The decision to seek help is one thing, but then the
resistance to the Christian trappings of AA programs may keep many people from
fully committing to a Twelve-step recovery program. Theistic language turns a lot
of people off. Two of the Twelve Steps contain the phrase “God as we understand
Him”; for people who have had negative or even traumatic experiences with male
authority figures can’t find meaning or fulfillment with this kind of
description.
The key to the first step for addicts is being able to
turn over their fight against drugs or alcohol, and admit that their lives are
unmanageable. Reaching out and seeking help outside of oneself is possible only
when one knows the limits of exerting control “in the face of uncontrollable
external forces” (27); that means being realistic, and a prayer that is often
recited at Twelve-step meetings is the Serenity Prayer: “God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.”
What are the things we cannot change? According to David
Richo’s book The Five Things We Cannot
Change, and the Happiness We Find by EmbracingThem, they are: everything
changes and ends; things do not always go according to plan; life is not always
fair; pain is part of life; people are not loyal and loving all of the time (cited
in Restored to Sanity, 41). Aligning
ourselves with reality means being open to what life has to offer, and
abandoning our denial of those givens.
Affirming the interdependent web of all existence, of
which we are a part, is Our Seventh Principle, and it is a way to understand
our place in a world that does not revolve around us. It also allows us to
frame our understanding of a higher power in ways that are familiar for UUs:
the Restored to Sanity essay by Paul says that “God, for me, is in the process
of living and is a verb rather than a noun.” (30)
One well-known AA slogan is
“Let go and let God”; Meacham says that “it is not only acceptance of a higher
power that is difficult or impossible for some people but also the call to
surrender their will to that power.” (26) The Third Step is the decision to turn one’s will and
lives over to the care of God. The surrender step means reassessing
our sense of self-importance and our inability to beat forces that are more
powerful than we are. Meacham says that to surrender in the spiritual sense means not
only to change thoughts and attitudes, but also to enlarge one’s existence in a
relationship with a higher good that can transform the very foundation of one’s
being.” (28)
Writer Anne Lamott puts it this way: “when we agree to (or get tricked into) being part of something bigger
than our own wired, fixated minds, we are saved. When we search for something
larger than our own selves to hook into, we can come through whatever life
throws at us.” (Stitches, 2013, 91)
It can be tough
for a UU to see how it’s possible to turn one’s will and life over to the care
of God precisely because of the way we might understand Him. In an essay in
Restored to Sanity, Kent writes that he is acutely aware of the unfairness of
life; when he surveys the suffering in the world, he rejects theologies that
claim that God is in charge of everything and has a larger plan that we should
trust: “Many of us have wondered why we should risk “turning ourselves over” to
a chaotic, unfair world. I have come to believe there is a gracious goodness in
AA groups, the church, the community, and the world. If we open ourselves up…we
can benefit greatly.” (34)
A belief in a
new, higher good can free us to follow a new direction in life and to reconnect
with others; here at this church we call that reconnection the beloved
community, a faithful gathering of people whose lives are for service to the
greater good. We offer each other companionship along the spiritual path that
each has chosen, and those who are in recovery can offer as much to our
congregation as their peers do to them.
There is a
commonality between AA and UU – in the First Principle UUs affirm the inherent
worth and dignity of every human being. In AA those struggling with dependency
learn that they have inherent worth and dignity. Julie writes: “In AA we learn,
often for the first time, that we alcoholics have inherent worth and dignity.
Once we understand this about ourselves at the deepest level, we know the First
Principle.” (40)
The 4th
and 5th steps are difficult for many people because they ask for
inventories, the 4th for a fearless and moral inventory of
ourselves. Step 5 is admitting to
God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our
wrongs. (61) Chris writes that
there is nothing a person can do or not do that can add to or subtract from
their worth and dignity: “Whereas the forms of Christianity I experienced
taught me that I am a ‘fallen’ human, a sinner, and that only through Jesus
Christ can I be redeemed, Unitarian Universalism teaches that I am worthy already.” (62)
There are other
steps that are very challenging - Step 6 asks that a person be ready to have
God remove all defects of character, 7 that God remove our shortcomings. “I
realized that having character defects simply makes me human – no more, no less…As
I engaged with Step Six, I realized that the part that I could do was to get
ready – to prepare; the part that God did was to remove my shame about having
character defects at all.” (73-74)
But the next two
steps are very involved: Step 8 is to make a list of all persons we have harmed
and be willing to make amends to them all; the 9th step is to make
direct amends to those people whenever possible. (93, 99)
Step 11 is
seeking through prayer and meditation to improve conscious contact with God as we
understand Him, praying only for our knowledge of His will for us and the power
to carry that out. Meacham in the Addiction Ministry Handbook suggests
that in order to work on this step we need to Cultivate an awareness and
receptivity to the transcendent in life: “being open to such experiences as we
go about our lives belies the notion that there are specific times or places
for the soul to be refreshed or inspired. Recovering people must be in the
world with such openness and trust that they can be fully ready for the
numinous to break through at any time. Being open to the transcendental in life
requires being fully present in the moment – being here now.” (35)
Sarah writes in
her essay "Will and Power", “Step 11 brought spirituality out of the musings of my
intellect and intot he experience of my heart and soul; it came to life. I am
no longer interested in being right ot=r wrong. Rather, I seek to be connected
to spirit, to live with peace, serenity, and an overflowing fountain of joy.” (141)
We all can benefit by being mindful
of and present to our lives. Anne Lamott says that “Grace meets us where we are,
but does not leave us where it found us.” (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/annelamott391308.html)
In the hymn Amazing Grace we sang “‘tis grace that brought me safe thus
far…” so dare we use the word salvation to describe the ‘spiritual awakening’
that the 12th step mentions? For UUs who can reframe the experience
and thus enrich their well-being, that is a question worth asking and
answering.
Lynn Ungar’s poem Salvation asks this:
By what are you saved? And how?
Saved like a bit of string,
tucked away in a drawer?
Saved like a child rushed from
a burning building, already
singed and coughing smoke?
Or are you salvaged
like a car part—the one good door
when the rest is wrecked?
Do you believe me when I say
you are neither salvaged nor saved,
but salved, anointed by gentle hands
where you are most tender?
Haven’t you seen
the way snow curls down
like a fresh sheet, how it
covers everything, makes everything
beautiful, without exception?
(http://www.clfuu.org/read-mobile/quest/salvation/salvation-poem/)
What is meant by salvation is in the end not as important a
consideration as the inclusive faith of Universalism, as articulated by theologian
Forrest Church, that rejects the divisive notion that people fit into two separate
categories: sheep and goats; the saved and the damned. As Ziggy Marley wrote, “bring all the lovers to the fold, cause no
one is gonna lose their soul” (Love Is My
Religion). Even as
we are spiritually awakened, we can follow our mission to carry our saving
message to others, not from a position of superiority but of solidarity, as
fellow human beings, each of us with inherent worth and dignity.
And in
the words of Forrest Church:
“The surest way to find the sacred is to decode our own
experiences, not only of beauty…but also in sacraments of pain by which we
commune with one another… We all suffer. We are broken and in need of healing.
We struggle to accept ourselves and forgive others. To adopt the old language,
we are all sinners. Aware of our imperfections, we seek more perfect faith,
hope, love, and justice. At our best, we empathize with one another's pain and
rise together in answer to a higher law.” (http://www.uuworld.org/ideas/articles/2786.shtml)
May we be the
ones who make it so.
GWO 2-19-2015
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