Hitting Bottom -- A Bottomless Pit

If there is any more pernicious doctrine in "AA" -- it has to be this "concept" of "Hitting Bottom."

What does it mean to "hit bottom"?

For most people, as far as I can reckon, the idea of "Hitting Bottom" is about "Giving Up."

Yet the AA program takes a man from his own efforts in terms of quitting drink to his own religious efforts, which in that case have more to do with taking one's inventory, going to meeting, and doing "Twelfth Step" Work.

One section of the Big Book suggests that a man's work in the program is never done:

It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities. "How can I best serve Thee - Thy will (not mine) be done." These are thoughts which must go with us constantly. We can exercise our will power along this line all we wish. It is the proper use of the will. (AA, p. 85)

Like many religious systems, mixture is the order of the day. God keeps us sober -- if we work our program. God loves and stays connected to us, provided that we stay in fit "spiritual condition."

Yet what does the Bible say?

"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

"And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

"For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 8: 10-12)

The new covenant has nothing to do with us. Jesus made this crystal clear before, during, and after His death on the Cross:

"I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." (John 17: 4)

then

"When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost." (John 19: 30)

And of course:

"Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God." (John 20: 17)

God is now Father and God to us, specifically, all because of what Jesus has done, and we cannot presume to add one thing, lest we step out of grace and end up in dead works once again.

If we try to "hit bottom" or at least wait for "bottom", we end back in works, and men and women will end up tied up in the "ministry of death" (  ):

"I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.

"For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:

"But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

"O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Romans 7: 21-24)

Now, "hitting bottom" does not set us free, but rather the Truth -- Jesus Christ -- He sets us free:

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8: 32)

then

"If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." (John 8: 36)

It is truth that breaks us free from error, not necessarily breaking down with nothing left to fight with. If we do not share with men and women that every sin has been paid for in full forever, the few timid steps that men and women take toward sobriety will inevitably be tangled up in looking at oneself, wondering about oneself, caught in self, the very bondage which God the Father seeks to break us free from:

"Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." (1 John 4: 17)

Instead of trying to "hit bottom", which is a bottomless pit that leads to destruction, let us reveal to men and women the ministry of righteousness (2 Corinthians 3: 9), that in Christ all our sins are forgiven, that in Him we have both life and security, and that through Him we live and move and have our being.

"Why Don't You Trust Me?"

Trust is a big issue for people.

Ronald Reagan claimed: "Trust, but verify."

I believe that trust is something that must be earned: "Verify, but trust" would be the better turn of the phrase.

I grew up trying to find people that I could trust, individuals who would lead me and advise me on the paths that I should take.

Yet the leading, the prompting that every man seeks, is as simple as the Holy Spirit guiding through the Peace of Christ in us:

"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful." (Colossians 3: 15, NIV)

Parents do their children no favors if they invite their children to run every decision by them, if they fear that by letting their kids demonstrate some autonomy in their lives, even fail, that they will suffer.

The only real suffering for many youth, in my opinion, starts and ends with over-indulgent parents who barge into the lives of their children, refusing to let them grow. Of course, parents have the responsibility and the authority to educate children about the choices that they make, a better approach than outlining for their kids at the outset what they "should" and "should not" do.

If a parent scolds and manages the child, then the young one believes that he or she is simply incapable of deciding what to do, and gets into the habit of running everything in his life by someone else. This is abuse at its simplest, and too many parents, with the best of intentions, are engaging in this damaging behavior.

I can write about this because I suffered through this drought of confusion. The way my parents would spell things out, they would either say absolutely nothing, not outlining the choices and their consequences, or they would rush in and tell me what to do, and then take up the slack if everything fell through or fell off.

I cannot state this enough to parents: there is nothing wrong with telling your kids that you do not have the answer to a problem. In fact, it's time that we impressed on youth that once they are established in God's righteousness, they can ask God the pressing questions, inquire rightly or wrongly about issues (see  Rebekah in Genesis 25). Parents can learn to cast their cares on God, including the choices that their children make. In extreme cases, of course, parents do need to take action, but the habit of butting in and undoing the decisions that their children make will either cripple them or embitter them.

"Why don't you trust me?" or "I need you to trust me." were two phrases that I heard from parents. Either statement, either approach, is not conducive to the well-being of  a child.

"Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.

"For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.

"Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is." (Jeremiahs 17: 5-7)

To trust in the Lrod does not have to be difficult, provided that one has learned and grows in understanding of all that God has done and continues to do for us through His Son.

Dual Diagnosis Nonsense

I will speak on another issue, one which does not relate directly to AA, perhaps, but which indicts the whole pharmaco-therapy industry, one which induces individuals to depend on others for the source of right and wrong in our lives.

Many people receive the "dual diagnosis" in the AA meetings.

They not only struggle with alcoholism, but they also suffer from a brain disorder or a chemical imbalance. Bipolar disorder, ADHD, or any other host of issues.

The real problem, I believe, is that men and women are forced to give up their sanity, their capacity to make rational decisions.

The program from the very beginning informs individuals who struggle with alcohol that they have a different way of thinking, that they are not normal, and therefore their view of the world is marred by the "disease" of alcoholism.

Rather than bringing people out of bondage and setting them free, this line of thinking creates individuals who are introspective, self-conscious, fearful, induced to look over their shoulders and run to meetings or to a sponsor every time the going gets tough.

They learn that they cannot trust themselves to make decisions, but rather must submit to the direction of another. Can any other lifestyle contribute to the upset and setbacks which plague these individuals?

What power does one hope to ever have in one's life if the person in the meeting lives in the worry that he or she has to submit ideas and directions and choices to someone else?

As a member of Celebrate Recovery, I was sucked into a type of dual-diagnosis nonsense. I found myself so turned up with fear on the inside that I ran almost every decision by someone else.
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I wish that someone had shared the following Scripture with me sooner:

"But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things." (1 John 2: 20)

and then

"But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him." (1 John 2: 27)

THe perversion of seeking advice from others, from "experts", the custom of dismissing another man's capacity to let the pace of Christ rule in one's heart (Colossians 3: 15), this dynamic is creating and exacerbating the very problem which people are trying to escape from.

Like many in these programs, I had believed that I could not trust my intuition on anything, so afraid was of taking the wrong step on anything. A life of abject is not the way to live, simple as that.

To be established in righteousness, to be infused with grace, to know and believe in God's love for me through His Son, these revelations have broken me from dependence on man, from the flesh that cannot arm one against the onslaught of lies and deceit:

"That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;" (Ephesians 4: 14)

How do we escape from this tempest of truth and error? This miasma of mental illness, which in truth has its foundations in the lies which are perpetuated in misapplications of scripture? Hebrews contains the answer:

"For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.

"For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.

"But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." (Hebrews 5: 12-14)

Receive His righteousness, let that be the number one priority (Matthew 6: 33), and everything follows from there -- including the discernment of good and evil, of the proper and improper path to take.

By being established in the gift of righteousness, which in Christ I am called to keep receiving (Romans 5: 17), I finally broke free of the bipolar label which had been forced on me at a young age. Growing up in a dysfunctional home can make anyone crazy, can make one's feelings go up and down, depending on whatever is going through our minds at the time. When I learned that I am not my thoughts, I am not my feelings, I broke free from the bondage that I could not think, that my capacities to discern the right and the wrong were in some insidious way delayed or destroyed.

I quit the bipolar meds once and for all, and now for a little over a year, I have been free of the nonsense that is AA as well as the baseless charge that I needed medication just to keep my mind in line.

Indeed when you know the Truth, that Truth will set you free (John 8: 32).

Paula Poundstone -- Bad Comedian, AA Detractor

Paula Poundstone: Anti-AA

I remember Paula Poundstone:

She was a loud and crass comedienne, landed some heavy charges for child endangerment and other alcohol-related problems.

She was also the first account that I ever read of a celebrity who threatened to sue because she was court-ordered to go to AA.

She claimed that the order violated her freedom of religion.

At the time, I thought that her ranting about her rights was the least of her problems, in large part because she had put her own children in danger.

This was ten years ago, of course, and I had lived in the confines of AA for so long, convinced that if I just worked this simple program, then all would be well.

Life at the time posed no problems or challenges for me, so I just went along with the line that Paula was an alcoholic in denial who needed to get her act together.

Now looking back on that incident, a margined blurb in Time Magazine, I believe that she had a point.

The state has no business foisting recovery on people. The state has no right directing people to a program which tells them to find a "Higher Power".

I more vividly oppose court-ordered AA because the program can bring people back, or take them down, when people need truth in their lives, not more facts and opinions which offer them nothing but failed ideas.

I resent the argument which legal experts continue to sell, that AA is the best program for breaking alcoholism, when to this day there is no evidence to support the charge.

For once, Paula Poundstone was pounding the right issue, and I hope that people like her start leading the charge to put an end to the forced march that DUI offenders have to take as part of their plea deals.

"As Bill Sees It?" -- As Christ is, So Are We!

One book in the AA literature, "As Bill Sees It", outlines a series of phrases and quotes from the Big Book, from the Twelve and Twelve, and also from the founder's letters and articles in different periodicals.

The vast majority of meetings are run according to the program outlined by this failed stock-broker lawyer.

But a life of "As Bill Sees Is" -- is that the life that men and women are really looking for?

I do not want to live out the life that this man outlines for me. Is Bill W. going to come down from Heaven (or rise up from Hell?) to tell me how to live my life?

This element of the AA program is the most offensive and officious, that men and women gather around the ideas and the life of some drunk who set up a program so that he give himself the impression that his life matter. Yet more often than not, this program does not give life, does not give hope, does not even give answers. The whole thing is a "program", but not "a program for living".

I still cringe when I think about the portraits of Bill W. and "Doctor Bob" in the different meeting halls of AA. The hagiography of Bill W. is full of lies and distortions, teaching men and women to turn their will and lives over to a line of thinking and getting along which has nothing to do with real life.
Instead of "Seeing things" the Way Bill sees things, I choose to look on Him who has saved me in every way:

"If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." (Colossians 3: 1)

Part of the reason that I focus on Him, is because He is my life (John 10: 10; John 14: 6), and I am seated up there with Him:

"But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,

"Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

"And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:" (Ephesians 2: 4-6)

This kind of love we do not find in a meeting, or greeting other alcoholics,  or reading over and listening over and over to the sob stories of men and women have lost their way, and have found their way into AA meetings, where the "Way" is still not made plain to them.

Forget "As Bill Sees It" -- I am most interested in how God sees me now:

"Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." (1 John 4: 17)

Start with the Proper Premise

The First step informs individuals of powerlessness over one issue:

I am powerless over alcohol, and it makes my life unmanageable.

Yet we are dead in our trespasses, not just powerless:

"And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;" (Colossians 2: 13)

How did Jesus help us to diagnose this spiritual death? See the Sermon on the Mount:

"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." (Matthew 5: 17)

and

"For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5: 20)

The Pharisees were esteemed as quite a holy cadre of people. Yet Jesus disdained their outward pretense of righteousness. The law demands perfection on the inside:

Murder is more than taking a life:

"But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire." (Matthew 5: 22)

Adultery is more than sleeping with another persons' spouse:

"But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." (Matthew 5: 28)

Human beings have more than drug or alcohol or sexual problems. In Adam, death has reigned over the human race:

"Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come." (Romans 5: 14)

Yet Jesus Christ rescues us from sin and death:

"For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ." (Romans 5: 17)

Let us start with the proper premise: We have more than a mere drinking problem, or drug problem, or another perversion which saps a man's strength and empties him of any life. Without God, we are dead in our trespasses, and any program which presents a solution which deals with neither the "death" or "the sin problem", will bring a man no closer to the happiness, joy, and freedom which he seeks, yet which can only be found in His Creator-Father and His Redeemer-Son.

"At Least You're Sober!"

I  was not even an alcoholic!

Yet my mother made me go to those meetings, in part because she was convinced that I needed to learn more humility.

I have since learned that humility has nothing to do with what I think of myself, or even if I think of myself less, but everything to do with the amount of trust that I have in God:

"Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:

"Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you." (1 Peter 5: 6-7)

The greater our understanding of how much God loves us, the more that we will trust Him, and this we receive as we gain a greater understanding of Jesus Christ and all that He has done for us. Thus Paul prayed the following for the Ephesian Christians:

"16That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; 17That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 18May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; 19And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." (Ephesians 3" 16-19)

The love mentioned here is not a warm feeling, or a welcome hope, but the warm certainty through the Finished Work of Jesus Christ on the Cross:

"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4: 10)

Those were trying times in my life. I had just graduated from college, yet I did not know what I wanted to do with my life. I had applied to law school, the top three schools in the state, with nothing to show for it. The three law schools where I applied had received an unprecedented number of applications.

I was down and out, mostly because I was trying to live up to standards that stifle rather than enhance life. I tried so hard to be good, to be pleasing to others, and the result: I had a miserable time established myself, the proper boundaries of a working relationship, and I did not even know what to do or how to behave.

I was not succeeding in my life, but my own mother refused to recognize that it was the dead-on-arrival AA program which was stifling her life and my growth. Because that was all she knew, that was all she gave me, and so off to AA meetings I went -- even though I never drank a drop in my life.

The majority of people in these meetings reminded me of myself, in a way. They were down on their luck, unsure why their lives were going nowhere fast. Still, I felt good, that perhaps going to these meetings, working the steps, and talking with other people would solve all my problems.

In fact, looking back on the time that I had spent in these meeting, I realized that these steps and the cult/culture of labeling and dependence were creating the very problems that I was trying to break away from.

The members of this program would go on and on about all of their problems, still unable to stand up to their spouses, still unable to make any sense in their lives. Yet for all their troubles, they would fall back on "At least I am sober!"

Sadly, life is a lot more than not drinking, and a life based on "not doing" something is not life. I do not care what the doctor on page 444 wrote or said, not at all.

Indeed, I was sitting around in the meetings, burned up about people, places, and things in my life. I still had not learned how to handle the angry feelings that were welling up within me. I was still easily hurt, easily frustrated, yet on one afternoon, when I was still down and out about many things in my life, another member came up to me, and trying to cheer me up, she said:

"Well, are you sober? At least you've got that!"

But being sober was a done deal for me, anyway! I was working these steps, and I was going nowhere! Now I realize that the whole program was based on so many false and flimsy premises, that in now way would I ever have found the relief and victory that I was still searching for in my life.

"At least you're sober!" just does not cut it in the face of so much turmoil on the inside, especially when you are working a program which claimed to set you free from all of these issues, yet never does.

Harold Hill and AA

I loved Harold Hill, the author of "How to Live Like a King's Kid."

So did my mother, who found and read through his book.

Part of what got her interested -- he dedicated his book to Alcoholics Anonymous, which helped him get sober, apparently.

I was impressed with the book, as well. I loved reading about a man who lived a life of victory in Christ.


Two things were missing from this book, which I have since learned:

We must be freed from the Old Covenant, and we must be established in righteousness, fully vested in the knowledge and the belief that God looks at us, and He sees His Son:

"Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." (1 John 4: 17)

Indeed, we are "King's Kids", but we have to be established in righteousness:

"He withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous: but with kings are they on the throne; yea, he doth establish them for ever, and they are exalted." (Job 36: 7)

Only Kings can be established on a throne, and to be kings, we must be made the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5: 21)

Like Harold Hill and many other members of the Body of Christ, we are not getting skillful in righteousness (Hebrews 5: 12-13)

And of course, AA does not talk about righteousness at all, so that men and women never feel secure in their standing before God.

I noticed that the more that I read his account of spiritual life in Christ, receiving and releasing the gifts of the Spirit, Harold Hill talked less and less about AA.

He did not talk about taking his inventory every day. He did mention at length that the sense of sin, of guilt, of condemnation, was taken away once and for in his life.

I also loved his vision, in which he was sinking in the muddy mire in the outskirts of Maryland, and as every religious figure and spokesman walked by, none of them offered him any help out of the mud. Then Jesus came by, and rather than telling him what to do or what he should have done, he reached down and pulled him out of the pit.

This is the God that Christians believe on and serve, greater than any "Higher Power" that we attempt to understand through our limited intellect.

We must accept that in order to overcome, we need more than a set of rules, a program of action, or even a fellowship where we hear the same rules and regulations and steps landing on us, a series of demands which gives us nothing but a set of distractions away from Life and that more abundantly.

In Christ, believers, we are more than conquerors (Romans 8: 37), this is the victory that men and women are seeking, which they will not find in AA meetings or in the Big Book, which turns out to be a Big Ripoff.

The Twelve Steps -- Another Example of the Old Covenant

"But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:" (2 Corinthians 3: 7)

The Twelve Steps are just a watered-down version of the Ten Commandments,and the rest of the Law.

Bill W., like many New Englanders of Puritan stock, have misconstrued the original purpose of the law, which was not to make a man holy, but to make him wholly helpless so that he would receive the grace of God and be made holy.

"Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

"Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin." (Romans 3: 19-20)

One of the more common complaints against AA and other Twelve Step Programs centers on the lacking guidelines to define "the exact nature of our wrongs", or "defects of character."

And even if a man takes his inventory, he has done nothing to receive the real lacking element: Life, and that more abundantly (John 10: 10).

How many stories have I read, including from Harold Hill the engineer from Maryland by way of New Hampshire, who after giving up the drinking, still felt all kinds of empty on the inside.

In one meeting, a member crowed that the Big Book told him everything that he needed to do to get through the day. I believed him, yet upon taking his advice I found that the book simply outlined nothing but the steps that I needed to take in order to stay sober. The program is not a way of living, but rather a means for taking one's inventory and engaging in never-ending maintenance, a program which causes people to spend more time looking at ourselves rather than living the life that we can receive by faith.

We need to be set free from the law altogether, not just seek a new program that attempts to keep us in line with rules and regulations:

Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant (Hebrews 9: 15), and thus he replaces and removes the Old Covenant:

"In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away." (Hebrews 8: 13)

The Twelve Steps is just another spin on the Old Covenant, one in which man tries to come to God through His efforts, who tries to earn God's love and favor, and just as the Israelites would sacrifice animals to atone for their sins, members of AA will show up to meetings, take their inventories, and then engage in little "Twelfth Step" work to make up for anything lacking in their lives.

The whole thing ultimately reeks of a grey existence, one which has so watered down the Law, that man attempts to live by a set of rules, and makes nothing of God's grace, which empowers us to live the life victorious in Christ Jesus.

"I Don't Know What I Would Do Without AA"

I remember hearing this phrase a  number of times in Alcoholics Anonymous:

"I thank God for AA."

"I don't know what I would do without AA."

"I don't know where I would be without AA."

I believe these people when they share that they "owe their lives" to this program.

For them, though, life and death begin and end with not drinking.

But is not life more than "not drinking"?

Many of the people in these programs remind me of the Israelites who wandered in the desert for forty years, refusing to believe God that He had given them a land flowing with milk and honey.

Like many cults, the members have been fed a lie which implies that they will go back out and drink again if they leave the program.

The same line of unreasoning also keeps patients taking mental health medications. We have become so satisfied with letting men and women define our experiences, we have surrendered our own capacity to think, convinced that the truth and error escape the minds of certain people.

For me, as well as for many people, the escape begins when we escape from the nonsense of defining our experience based on the tenets outlined in a DSM manual.

I am convinced, however, that most people do not break free of these dependency programs because the fear has brought them into bondage to showing up every week.

If they leave, they get afraid, they start becoming introspective, and these anxieties well up in a person who for so long has been trained to be dependent on a program which defines the human experience based on our feelings, as opposed to the facts or faith.s

Fear and punishment do not bring a man life. When we know the truth, the truth then sets us free. Programs like AA incline individuals to believe that they must "do something" in order to maintain their sobriety, or else. Ironically, the fear of drinking is the very bondage which will lead people to drink in the first place.

What we need is not a program of action, but life and that more abundantly. We need true freedom from self, which we find in the life of Another, one who died for us and as us, who by His death set us free from Death, Sin, and the Law (1 Corinthians 15: 56-57).

In Christ, who needs AA?

How Many Times Do You Take the Fourth Step?

I will never forget what Jesse T. from the TLC Alano Club told me some years ago:

"You are going to be doing Fourth Step Work for the rest of your life."

Yet I thought that the AA program would bring an end to all the guilt and frustration in your life?

Of course, the passage in the Fifth Step in the Big Book suggests otherwise:

When we decide who is to hear our story, we waste no time. We have a written inventory and we are prepared for a long talk. We explain to our partner what we are about to do and why we have to do it. He should realize that we are engaged upon a life-and-death errand. Most people approached in this way will be glad to help; they will be honored by our confidence.

 

We pocket our pride and go to it, illuminating every twist of character, every dark cranny of the past. Once we have taken this step, withholding nothing, we are delighted. We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. We begin to feel the nearness of our Creator. We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly. We feel we are on the Broad Highway, walking hand in hand with the Spirit of the Universe.

 

Returning home we find a place where we can be quiet for an hour, carefully reviewing what we have done. We thank God from the bottom of our heart that we know Him better. Taking this book down from our shelf we turn to the page which contains the twelve steps. Carefully reading the first five proposals we ask if we have omitted anything, for we are building an arch through which we shall walk a free man at last. Is our work solid so far? Are the stones properly in place? Have we skimped on the cement put into the foundation? Have we tried to make mortar without sand? (AA, pg. 75)

 

This portion of the Big Book talks about finding a close confidant with whom we can share all of our upset, all of ours sins, or rather "defects of character".

 

The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly. We feel we are on the Broad Highway, walking hand in hand with the Spirit of the Universe.

 

What I have found time and again, that men and women who share all the terrible things that they have been through do so without pocketing their pride. In fact, in many ways they share proudly the exploits and perversions which they have "enjoyed". The frequent reporting on our sins and shame creates the very self-centeredness that we are trying to escape.

 

How many times do I share my Fourth, or even my Tenth Steps? I found that the more that I talked about how upset I was, the more that I shared the resentments which I was battling, the angrier I got. I never found myself breaking free in this life, but instead I found myself overwhelmed with rage, frustrated to no end because I was getting angry, and then I would get angry with myself for getting angry.

 

The fourth step is not a "Step" as much as a slippery slope into self in which no man ever escapes from relating and retelling his sins. Does the Blood of Jesus Christ count for nothing? Did He die for our sins, or not?

 

The problem that human beings have, the trials that we face, is that we do not "feel" forgiven, we do not "feel" that God is with us. But focusing on feelings just makes us self-centered, distracts us from the the Truth of what already is, that in Christ we are also seated in heavenly places.

 

The Christian Life begins with rest, not works, unless we speak of Christ's Finished Work, and then everything else springs forth from there.

 

How many times do you take the fourth step? Once is too much, and after that any number of times will never be enough.

The Twelve Steps Kill -- If Followed

"And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward:

"Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;

"Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." (2 Corinthians 3: 4-6)

The "letter", the "law" kills. The law was never intended to provide us a framework for living, but to bring us to the end of ourselves, to acknowledge our complete guilt before God:

"Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

"Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin." (Romans 3: 19-20)

The notion that we can remove sin or wrongdoing in our lives by taking our inventory and making amends is blatantly refuted in Scripture:

"For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.

"For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins." (Hebrews 10: 1-2)

The sticking point for many believers, the conscience or the awareness of sins in our lives, brings us into bondage. Many times in my life, I would confess sins, seeking relief from the guilt and the fear, but it never went away. The sense of wrongdoing pervasive in my life would not leave me. Thus, the sense that I had to "do something" still harassed me.

Only through the Blood of Jesus Christ do we have the eternal, unremitting confidence that all our sins are forgiven, that no condemnation need ever afflict us again:

"For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." (Hebrews 10: 14)

and

"Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,

"By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;

"And having an high priest over the house of God;

"Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." (Hebrews 10:  19-22)

Working "a program", taking our inventory, going over our sins with someone else, even though God Himself has sworn that He will never again remember our sins (Hebrews 10: 16-17), none of these activities will grant us a life purged from "an evil conscience".

If we insist on following the Twelve Steps, as if we can find and maintain a peace which we easily receive through Christ Jesus (Romans 5: 1), instead of peace we will find turmoil. Instead of rest, we will continue to wander in the desert, hearing the word yet refusing to mix in with faith, when Jesus has asked us to believe on Him as the only work (John 6: 29).

The "letter" kills, Beloved. Any attempt to obey the law in order to meet God's standard will create bondage and wretchedness:

"21I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. 22For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 23But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Romans 7: 21-24)

Yet there is a Way out:

"I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin." (Romans 7: 25)

His Spirit gives Life (2 Corinthians 3: 6) and His righteousness ministers better things than the condemnation of the law (2 Corinthians 3: 7)

How I Started to Get Out

What changed it all for me? How did I get away from Celebrate Recovery and begin to Celebrate Resurrection?

I was bound down by so much guilt and unrest in my life. It was so bad, that I was living in someone else’s home, so ashamed of myself for things that I had said and done in my life, that I went into hiding. I was just lost, had no idea of the truth or the error of anything. I did not trust my parents, both of whom were so lost in their own errors. My mother was the one who had told me to go to AA when I was younger, then I was going to Celebrate Recovery, then she would tell me – “Do Not, Do not, Do not.”

Yet Paul the Apostle rails against such empty folly:

“20Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, 21(Touch not; taste not; handle not; 22Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men? 23Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh." (Colossians 2: 20-23)

There is no life in not doing anything, but rather in being moved by the Holy Spirit to do all things that He works in us to do.

I had gotten to the point in my life where I just did not want to do anything – it was a slow, grey, existence, one in which I did not want to do anything at all.

I was still under the illusion that if I could make things better with my Mom, for example, then all would be well. She had poisoned my mind about my Dad for a long time, convinced that he was the source of all her problems in her life. Point of fact, her empty religious upbringing, from Catholic School to empty AA had created all the problems in her life. Those two law-centered cultures had created all the problems in her life – and we end up wandering around in the desert forever and ever, knowing that we are now saved, but refusing to rest in the truth that we are set free forever from the bondage of slavery and fear – the Promised Land awaits for all who are willing.

It was a May evening, the 8^th – I remember because Betty White was supposed to hosting Saturday Night Live that evening. The hour before, I had been attending another Celebrate Recovery meeting, but this one I had just gotten to the end of things – so I simply said – this has got to change – no drama, no tears, no fears, just this has got to change.

The next part of the evening, I ended up walking down Skypark Ave, and lo and behold, there was my mother  -- “Oh, my beautiful Arthur!”

 

She embraced me, then she brought me to a local In – and --  Out Joint. I had told her the whole hell that had broken out in my life – at the time, I had not realized, but now I see it, it was the curse of the law, trying to be obedient and make myself righteous which in the end created more problems for me and all who try to justify themselves – we fall from grace!

One more time, this sick lady led me through the Twelve Steps, telling me to take my inventory again and again. It was just terrible ---- here I was as a kid, now a young man, with no victory in my life, still taking orders from Mommy. . .

We had planned on seeing a movie, as well. Monday afternoon, I told her that I could not talk long on the phone because of the minutes, then she rebuked me for that.

The next day after, it was Wednesday, May 12, 2010, and she called me to let me know that we have nothing more to talk about – she basically left me high and dry once again.

This time, I got angry, instead of mad and scared. I had gone out of my way to try and make things right with this person, and one more time she threw me under the bus. I was really disappointed with the whole thing. I did not deserve to be treated like that, not at all!

I also realized that I was tired of  the disrespect at the Celebrate Recovery meetings, where men and women would sit around waiting for their lives to get better. I had had enough of this nonsense.

I went to one more meeting of Celebrate Recovery, where once again I saw the same people still sick and unhappy, unwilling to change, sitting around and talking politics and religion, neither or which with any panache or charm. I was tired of the pizza that I was eating, too. The whole thing was an empty exercise in futility. One guy gave me a hug, then another guy mocked me “Oo, Baby!”

This guy, Mario, was an arrogant Pharisee, one of the worst, and a pervert who took pride in talking about all the problems that he had. What an empty suit he was!

I decided that I did not want to put up with this crap any longer, as soon as I had sat down, I got up again and walked away from the meeting, never to return. I drove my car all the way up to Rocketship Park, looking out over South Torrance on every side. I have so loved it up there, and there I was again, making the most of the beautiful site. Once again, I was free, never again would I have to settle for that nonsense.

As soon as I walked away, though, the men in the group started calling me. “We’re praying for you, Arthur. We just want you to know that we care about you” blah, blah, blah.

I was so disgusted with the whole thing, that I just wanted to be sick. But I simply ignored the phone class, and gladly. Even that creepy Jeff character called me, and I had no interest in getting back with them. They were a bunch of fearful and empty people,  and I  had no desire to see them ever again.

I had solved one problem – but how to live thing called life still seemed to elude me. I had left the bad, but I was still wandering in the wilderness.

It is not enough to run away from one bad home -- we must run to another home, the Promised Land or rest in Christ our rest! (Hebrews 4: 9)

Getting Away from Abusive Parents -- We Still Need a Parent

I will never forget the story that my mother would tell me.

She sat in an Al-Anon meeting for about two years. She shared with the other ladies in the group that she was having a terrible time with her own mother, a woman who had abused her much.

I have heard stories which suggest that my grandmother was very abusive to my mother, that she would go over her childhood home to meet with her mother, then she would come home and cry because of all the hurtful things that she would say.

My father told my mother that if she insisted on going to visit her mother, at least she should not take us, me and my sister, with her.

But the day finally came when she began sharing her painful upset with the other members of her Al-Anon meeting.

Then she would tell me how one of the woman then walked up to her:

"Do not let anyone get in between you and your higher power."

I used to hear this phrase over and over. She shared  this story many times, and I was convinced that she was bringing up an important principle about living a healthy life -- anyone who causes you immense spiritual trouble must be removed from your life.

Now that I look back on this event, I have begun to realize that there are a number of problems with it, and the resulting issues which caused so much grief then never got settled.

Indeed, my mother finally wrote her mother a letter, letting her go once and for all. My mom later told me that they had one more meeting in their lives, then her mother died.

Yet I can tell you that my mother did not have peace. She did not let go of her upset about her mother. Many times throughout her life, she was still talking about the terrible pain that her mother had put her through. From time to time, she would scream and yell about the things that she had gone through.

"You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

It's the Truth that sets us free, and a crucial element of this truth -- that in Christ we are a new Creation, in our Spirit we are made new, in our minds and bodies we may still fail, or fall short, as in the case of reminiscing about people, places, and persons who have hurt us.

I am more convinced than ever that Satan uses these memories to try to bring us into bondage, yet the more that we rejoice in the forgiveness of sins, the blood the keeps on cleansing us, then the greater the grace and truth that we receive which sets  us free!

I am outraged at the crappy program of AA, one which teaches members to keep looking at themselves, their feelings, telling them that they must take their inventory, keep confessing their sins and shortcomings. We are to reckon ourselves dead when we are slighted, we do not have to give in to those empty feelings. Not at all. Look at Jesus, people, as He transforms you from glory to glory.

Thank You, Jesus, for being the Truth that we all need!  I am still learning so much about identifying with Jesus as opposed to trying to fix "dead Adam".

Having written this part, I must share that it is not enough to "get rid of" the people in our lives who have harmed us. The lies which we have been bombarded with in our lives can keep us captive, even if we cut off the hurtful people who have done us wrong, yet if we go to the Word, we will find the Truth that sets us free, the altogether lovely Jesus Christ, we never leaves us nor forsakes us.

The other issue from that little meeting that my mother had many years ago, which I now look at from a different perspective: No one can separate us from our Higher Power. To even speak of a Higher Power is sheer nonsense, to boot. Jesus Christ is as High as it gets -- and we are seated in Heavenly places with Him! (Ephesians 2: 6)

Not only does it do us no good to cut off the bad parents in our lives, we still need a Parent, a Big D-Daddy whom we can run to whenever we have a need:

"For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." (Romans 8: 15)

I am now convinced that the only trick that the enemy powers and principalities (2 Corinthians 10: 4-5) have is to distract us from receiving this love, from growing in grace and knowledge of Him who has called us, who has sanctified us, who is moving in our lives all the more.

We still need a parent, we have this parent, and let us get to know this parent more and more!

"Hitting Bottom": A Bottomless Pit

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8: 32)

The idea that individuals have to "hit bottom" is pure nonsense.

For many people, they never reach the bottom. They will struggle and fall, then when things start to even out, they will end up doing the very things that had brought them into bondage before.

What is the bottom for most people? Even in the "Twelve and Twelve" different members would share that for some people, it was losing their job. For others, they had to lost everything that they had. Still others kept on drinking, convinced that they could never break free.

Of course, what causes people to lose themselves in their addiction is the excessive effort which they put into doing what they are doing.

What does it mean to give up on living our lives "Self-will run riot"?

I have found that as often as I was willing to keep taking my inventory, to keep focusing on what I had done, then the bottom never really ended, did it?

The whole program is spiral of self, where men and women spend more time just looking at themselves and their feelings, never looking at Jesus Christ, seated at the right hand of the Father:
"If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." (Colossians 3: 1)

Jesus is the Truth, and He gives us Himself, He is our rest, and we can rest assured in Him that He will meet all of our needs, if we will only trust Him.

When I realized that I could never confess my sins enough in order to take away the sense of shame, then I felt a sense of peace. However, the sense of shame could come and go. Yet when I rest in the TRUTH that I am a new Creation in Him, when I accept that all things have changed for me, regardless of how I feel or what I may be going through, then I found peace. You will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free.

It's not doing or saying or even thinking something over and over that sets us free -- it is the growing revelation of God's love for us that sets us free. The element of doing something over and over, as if the doing will change our lives, creates more problems, getting us lost and occupied in ourselves instead of resting in the Truth.

"Keep coming back, it works if you work it" -- the whole program turns into a cycle that no one escapes from.

The way out of the pit is not to hit a "bottom", but to hear the truth that in Christ, all your sins are forgiven. Then life goes from avoiding one pitfall after another to growing in revelation of all the wonderful things that are in you through Christ Jesus!

Turn Your Will and Life Over to Whom?

I never liked the exhortation of the Third Step:

"Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. "

"Turn our will" -- only one will? Yet there are many lives. . .

What's going on here?

The notion that one will animates every member of the program leaks through in this step, and this idea is a false one worth no honor or respect.

How can I "turn my will and life" over to someone?

And who is this "God" that I am trusting?

This thinking kept me locked in such heavy bondage year after year. Often, I would wait for a "voice" or some impression to work its way through in my life, which never happened.

The religious fanaticism that this step, when applied in its full, unadulterated entirety, creates more problems than solutions, further pushing individuals to run their lives by someone else rather than trusting God to lead them through the promptings of the Spirit.

A Bad Sponsor with a Bad Conception of God

So, Sam dropped some wicked ideas on me.

He had told me that he would be happy to meet with me, then at the last minute tried to back out.

Then he told me that if I wanted to go through the steps with him the same way that his sponsor had done, then I had better prepare for twenty-four weeks of inventories, working steps, writing out my thoughts and amends on paper.

I did not want to do any of that, for the most part because I had been doing that for so long, anyway, to no effect. At the time, I had not put any of this together.

Then Sam went on about his little life, how he liked to build things, how he liked to rest and depend on his wife, hoping that she would play Mommy for him.

Then he shared a more sinister turn to his program. This man began to have some shaky ideas about the God of His understanding.

He had started losing faith in a God who could "sit by" in his words while terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

He could not reconcile his understanding of a Higher Power with this image of a distant deity who did not care.

This account blasts through once and for all what men and women cannot choose a God of their own understanding. The God revealed in the Bible is a lavish, loving God, one whose goodness leads to repentance, a goodness which mankind in his fallen mind cannot grasp except by giving up on his own efforts, submitting to His love because in his own efforts man cannot be holy and blameless.

I remembered his dour appraisal of his higher power, enough that when I went back to that same meeting a few months later, I saw Sam again, but at that time he was half the man he used to be, so quiet, so beaten down, so unsure of himself and everything around him. He said nothing during the entire meeting. He looked disappointment and aggrieved, as if the peace and joy that he was looking for had been alluding him all this time.

The AA program will "help" break people from alcohol, perhaps, but the program does not give man what he really needs: life, and that more abundantly. In permitting men and women to choose their "own conception of God", they are created gods of flesh and law and effort which demand from them more than they can do, for men and women in their limited means will only conjure up ideas and powers who are like them: fallen, unforgiving, brooding, and never satisfied.

A Bad Sponsor for One Day

I remember another guy from the AA meetings that I used to attend.

This man had impressed me, somewhat, a really sharp tack who seemed to have all the answers.

This guy had a halt in his step, from a stroke, but for the time being, this guy acted as if he had all his oars in the water, that he knew where he was going and what he wanted out of life.

When I was down and out in my life, I found myself back at the same meeting where I had met this halting man, Sam.

He loved talking about his sponsor, a gruff man who got in his face "You're full of sh--t! You're full of sh--t!" He loved to shout in Sam's face, pulling his covers for trying to get away with something, anything.

I was really surprised at how calm and sure the guy acted in the meetings at least. I finally approached the man and asked him to be my sponsor, or at least let me share my umpteenth fourth step with the man.

This guy was happy to oblige, as most people are willing to play confessor and feel better about themselves.

Now, this guy said that he was willing to meet with me on a Tuesday. The Tuesday came, and for some reason the man had not shown up, yet. I called him, and then he told me on the spot that Tuesday was his "rest day", one in which he normally took no time to meet or talk with others.

This man was selfish to beat the band, I began to realize, a guy who did not care about me as much as he wanted to make himself feel good. I was really hurt that he was so unthinking.

Grudgingly, he agreed to meet with me at the local food place down from where I lived. He showed up, walking in very haltingly, taking his time. Then he started talking to me about how he had run the program with his sponsor, the guy who would yell in his face "You're full of sh--t!"

He told me about the crazy stuff he had done when he was drinking, how his sponsor told him everything that he needed to do in order to work his program. He then dropped another bomb on me, this time stating that if I wanted to go through the Twelve Steps with him, I was going to meet every  two weeks to go over every step in detail. I did not want to do that. I just wanted to get some stuff off my chest, which I had been doing for quite some time for years, and to no effect, apparently.

I look back on how many times I went through my fourth and tenth steps, talking about the things that I had done, trying to find out what sin that I had done that had made my life unmanageable. Now I fully realize that no amount of inventory taking would have made a difference, and that any confession was not necessary because in Christ all my sins are forgiven and keep being forgiven over and over through His blood.

Another Pharisee -- Mario: Part IV

Mario never connected the dots about another strange trend in his life.

Every Celebrate Recovery meeting that he went to, the meeting got small then died out. He was often the only member left.

It never occurred to the man that the meetings were just not working, and that they were just not worth it. The whole program is a shameful shambles of a scam, one which distracts believers from the power and position that they have in Christ by forcing them to focus on themselves and their own efforts instead of trusting in all that God has done for them through His Son.

I often wonder how many meetings have gone belly-up in the last year alone.

I have seen so many signs of "Celebrate Recovery" taken down all over the South Bay. This program does not work, precisely because we are the ones working it in our own effort instead of trusting and resting in God's grace to see us through it all.

The obliviousness of men and women in the Twelve Step Programs is just appalling, yet understandable, as most people have no other idea what they are supposed to do with themselves when they have heard only part of the Gospel, and not the whole Blessing.

Another Pharisee -- Mario: Part III

Mario was a Pharisee, one who pressed works, works, works.

"If you do not work, you do not eat," he loved to quote at me:

"For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat." (2 Thessalonians 3: 10)

Of course, like many verses in the "Celebrate Recovery" program, this verse was taken out of context. Here's the concern that was getting Paul's attention:

"11For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies. 12Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread. 13But ye, brethren, be not weary in well doing." (2 Thessalonians 3: 11-13)

The problem for Paul was not that the members of the Body of Christ in Thessalonica were shiftless layabouts, but that certain people were minding other people's business, not doing anything that was edifying or meaningful which served the Body of Christ. Paul even exhorts these people to do their work in "quietness". Work is not about stress and strain, not about hurting oneself so that individuals can pride themselves on all that they are doing for others.

The Bible teaches differently about the works that He has supplied for us to do:

"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2: 10)

The works that He wants us to do, He has already supplied for us! He made us, He fashioned us, He makes the works within us, and He grants us the will and the ability to do these things (Philippians 2: 13)

The verse that we need to give to people who are down on the luck should not be more demands and shame, but the truth that sets them free:

"Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth." (3 John 2)

Like many people who find themselves down on their luck, they feel that God is angry with them, or they feel that they are enduring poverty or privation because they deserve it, and therefore they must keep "doing something" in order to break free. We need to rest and relish our righteousness, which is Christ's, or anything that we do will be marred by our sense of unworthiness, by our constant frustrations to make ourselves right with God, and thus inadvertently bring ourselves under the Curse of the Law instead of the Cross of the Lord.

 We must learn to be skillful in righteousness, resting in His perfect approval paid for us at the Cross, then God's grace can flow in our lives and bless us in all our doings. We need to prosper in our mind, will, and emotions first, then our finances and our health will follow. All of this is a matter of faith from beginning to end.

This kind of petty politicking goes on all too often in "Little C" Churches. Old bitties and businessmen who want to pass out their cards rather than receive, rejoice, and release the grace of God in their lives.

Mario was another of these Pharisees, running about being really busy, doing things for the church, but refusing to rest and believe on Him whom God the Father sent for us (John 6: 29). He prided himself on singing in the choir in Church, attending the Celebrate Recovery meetings two or three days a week.

He also volunteered at a Soup Kitchen in Bellflower. This soup kitchen had started out with two or three people showing up. At the time that Mario told me about the soup kitchen - "The King's Table" it was called, but "Beggars Banquet" would have been more appropriate. The beggars, of course, were not the poor men and women who had no jobs and could not afford any food, but rather the men  like Mario from the wealth Beach Cities who wanted to feel good about themselves for about three or four hours dishing out food to people less fortunate themselves.

He was a fussy man during these times, so caught up in making himself feel good about doing something good for someone else. Once again, he reminded me of my Dad, who would get very picky and haughty with me when he wanted me to pass the collection plate in church, I guess in part because he wanted to impress other parishioners in Church.

 I have to wonder -- are we really doing poor people any favors just giving them good, when they need to hear the Good News of Christ Jesus, that all of their sins have been forgiven, and that if they rest in His grace and truth, he will cause them to prosper. Instead of just giving them physical bread, let us give them the Bread of Life, that eating they may find the greater Strength of Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit, who has freed us from the cursed bondage of the law and has given us the gifts of righteousness and grace.

But the men who would congregate in this beaten down church had nothing to give those men and women looking for help, except a lot of food and sense of arrogance self-righteousness as the result of doing something good for someone else. What greater good is there than what Jesus has done on the Cross?

I really hated how they would cut and spread the food all around, how they gave me nothing to do but watch. They scolded and lectured me while I was standing around waiting for something to do. I have never liked these churchy charities which spend more time provoking others and promoting themselves. Mario and his band of "merry men" would also crack crude jokes about their love lives, as if that kind of talk was becoming in a church.  I was appalled at what I was hearing.

When I decided to grab something to eat, Mario scolded me for eating near the counter, so worried was he that the health department would "shut them down" -- Oh my goodness!

I hated it. I could not wait to leave. And the second, the last time, that I went to "The King's Table", I was outraged once again that I showed up, and there was nothing for me to do. I stormed off, receiving a call about an hour later from Mario "apologizing" for the misunderstanding. Then again, this guy just shamed me once again for walking away from "fellowship" at the soup kitchen.

I hated it, and the whole thing smacked of making these "rich people" feel better about themselves rather than helping the poor find real power to overcome in their lives.

Much like all Twelve Step programs, which make a fuss about making oneself feel good by finding lower companions to "care for".

Another Pharisee -- Mario: Part II

Mario was just like my Dad, showing that I was still looking for some Dad to depend on for everything. He was steeped in the "manhood cult", that by having a job, a wife, and a meeting to go to meant that he measured up the standard of a man.

Yet a man who is striving in his own efforts is still dead in his works, and a man who does not even believe on Christ Jesus is dead in his trespasses, and no amount of "manhood" makes one a worthy.

This ugly doctrine has worked its way into many "men's groups", a bunch of foolishness which makes no difference whatsoever for anything.

We all have a Heavenly Father, and Jesus Himself jealously guarded his standing:

"And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven." (Matthew 23: 9)

The more that we learn that we have received the Spirit of adoption (Romans 8: 15), that we have a Father in heaven who lavishly loves us, who has provided all things for us because His Son took all the shames and the beatings and the privations for us, then we rest in the truth that we are taken care of in all things.

For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." (Romans 8: 15)

"Abba" means "Daddy", the cry of an infant completely dependent and identified with God the Father. The "manhood cult" which was dominant in those Celebrate Recovery meetings that I used to attend was all too prevalent. I still recall another member who was reading a book called "The Father Wound", yet there is a better term for this "wound": spiritual death, and the answer is redemption, remission of sins, and resurrection life in Christ Jesus.

Yet for those who still think that they can, or that they must, go through the motions of believing and hoping and trying to get better on their own, the next best thing is an old man bereft of humility, who prides himself on "taking people through the Twelve Steps."

The Twelve Steps to perdition, of course.

When does this insanity end? For me, it took a long time before I began to realize that the people whom I was reaching out to were not helping me at all.

Mario was the worst offender because he really thought that he was doing me a favor. This guy would let me call him and let me pour out all my problems. What I needed was a heavy dose of righteousness, not a bunch of empty, heedless advice.

This man was so arrogant, and I was so ignorant, that I had spend so much running everything in my life by this guy, so convinced was I that I could not rest and trust God to see me through everything by the power of His Holy Spirit.

Every time I had to make a decision, I found myself running the issue by someone else. I simply could not trust myself, I was so afraid that I would so something foolish or wrong. I had such a conscience of sin, fully unwilling to rest because I knew nothing about grace and righteousness. I was totally accepted in righteousness before God, and I can now trust His grace to see me through every trouble.

Yet like many people in the Body of Christ, including Mario, I had no knowledge of righteousness or grace, none whatsoever. So, I resigned myself to confessing my sins over and over, and calling up Mario every time my life was not going the way that I hoped it would. I spent hours applying for jobs that I did not want, I spend at least two days a week going to meetings that I hate, convinced that I had to run my life by "a group" of people so that I did not make the same mistakes which I had made in the past.

The more time that I spent in these meetings, however, the more mistakes that I ended up making. I found myself losing my temper even more. I found that I had no peace whatsoever, no matter how hard I tried to make peace with the world. I was so frustrated, so unable to go forward or backward.

Of course, anyone living under law will experience nothing but this frustration of going around and around in circles. Could it possibly be otherwise?

Still, the notion of working the Twelve Steps over and over seemed like the only other way to get through this life. It seemed like the best that I could ever hope for, so scared was I that I would fail, that I would fall, that I would lose my way in this life.

But this was not my life that I was called to lead. We are called to let Christ Jesus live in us!

This has no salience for men and women in "Celebrate Recovery" and other hollow Twelve Step meetings.

Another Pharisee -- Mario

Then there was this guy, Mario.

This guy loved being the "elder" or "the old timer" in the meeting.

He acted as if he had it all together. He pretended to be my friend, he wanted to help me out, I am sure that he did.

Yet I was surprised that the more that I talked to this guy, the more he turned out to be one more perverted old guy who still had not grown up.

He was the type who boasted about praying for two or three hours. He was the type of person who spent so much time trying to make people see how religious he was.

He proudly bore his "Yes on Prop 8" bumper stick, and he made a stink over and over about homosexuality.

He talked about sex a lot, too. This guy was out of control on the inside, I am sure, for that is what law-keeping will do to people.

I had asked for this guy to be my "sponsor", another someone with whom I could be dependent, a guy whom I could run and call whenever I was having trouble.

I am still astonished how much this guy was like my father. He would make jokes about "Good stuff, Maynard" from the Doby Gillis show.

He told me that if things got really bad, he could just give me a bowl of popcorn. Like many men, it seemed, his highest ambition was just quelling the unrest in people so that they would stop feeling sad, and therefore he could feel better about himself.

This man was estranged from his kids, just as I was estranged from my father and mother at the time. I was so lost in the days, so unsure about anything in this life, so overwhelmed with all the problems that I was facing, and I was still convinced that I had to, that I could work hard enough to break free from the all hardships which I was facing.

This arrogance on my part took me a long time to separate from. I was still trying to live this Christian life myself, and no one had bothered to explain to me that it was not only difficult, but downright impossible to live the Christ-ian life. Christ lives this life in me, and I rest in Him so that He can break forth.

This notion of "Rest so that God Works" is lost on many Americans, who are still giving into the cult of manhood and rugged individualism, falling in line with the empty paradigm of provider and protector which those corny 1950's TV sitcoms used to glorify.

Christ gives us life, and that more abundantly, not a storybook fable with everything in nice and neat creases, with June Cleaver ready to serve a chocolate cake so that everyone will sit down and make no noise.

The Original Cause - Shame and Prohibition

The United States has endured the over-moralizing and underwhelming Temperance movement for years.

In the early eighteen hundreds, though, alcohol abuse was a major problem, largely due to the poor water sources in rapidly expanding urban centers.

The water was so bad, that men would resort to "the water of life".

The Temperance Movement then reached its way into the highest eschelons of the government, with advocates displaying anti-alcohol rhetoric in kid's textbooks. Ken Burns issued a massive documentary exposing how temperance leaders infiltrated schools, thus poisoning kids' minds and heightening society's intolerance to alcohol abuse.

If a man or woman chooses to drink, that's up to him or her.

I do not drink, myself. I do not care for the stuff. I had one glass of wine when I was fifteen, got sick off the stuff, and decided that I did not want to drink anymore.

I do believe that there are people who drink and harm themselves by choosing to do so. I also believe that some people do not have the physical constitution for drinking.

What made "drinking" such a serious problem, then, for people, especially in the early 1900s.

The shame about having a drinking problem -- thus brings so many people into bondage.

Alcoholism, like another perversion in human life, is borne of man trying to get something for himself, when what we all need is life, and that more abundantly.

The shame about having a drinking problem, this leads individuals to strive in their own efforts to break free, and the result is the exact opposite, they end up sinking deeper into the drink.

The shame about alcohol dependence brings people into bondage, pure and simple.

During the age of Prohibition, men and women went to jail because of alcohol abuse, which does not set people free, but brings them into greater condemnation. Now they feel compelled to get sober, because they are afraid to go to jail, but then the problem gets worse, not better.

When Alcoholics Anonymous meetings began, men and women were so ashamed of their "disease" that they would wear masks when they came into meetings. The real problem, therefore, was not the drinking, but the shame about drinking.

Yet to label people according to their perversion does more harm than good. There is no pride in parading one's shame, as if that can set anyone free.

Deal with the condemnation, then the drinking will fall away like dead leaves off a living tree:

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8: 1, NIV)

and

"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (2 Corinthians 5: 21)

As we are established in His righteousness, which is a gift that He wants us to keep receiving (Romans 5: 17), and this gift allows His Spirit to live and thrive in us:

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Corinthians 3: 18)

God wants us to change from within, which He accomplishes in us by His Spirit, not by our effort.

AA - Never Growing Up

The men and women in this program feel compelled to run their lives by other people. They never grow, they never grow up, because they have not learned that in the Scripture God invites us to be his little children.

"Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

"That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;" (Ephesians 4: 13-14)

The Twelve Steps, with the nonsense that men and women must run their lives by other people in order to live their lives, is a glaring wave of doctrine which is wafting people away from the simplicity that is in Christ (2 Corinthians 11: 3).

The Twelve Steps are steps that take a man nowhere towards life and that more abundantly, but by creating a set of steps and rules, man will discover that the harder he tries, the worse off he is, especially in the program of AA.

How can we expect anyone to "grow up" if they are bombarded with the erroneous notion that they must run their lives by a series of steps and sponsor?

The whole model is flawed, from top to bottom.

Jay -- The Proselyte

This guy, Jay, had nothing but smarts mixed with religious arrogance, a man whose conscience was seared with the hot iron of guilt, with no respite, so it seemed, of breaking free.

I cannot begin to recount all the terrible things which he claimed that he had done, but the more that he recounted the things which he had endured, the more that he seemed to be glorying in his shame:

"It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.

"And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you." (1 Corinthians 5: 1-2)

This man was proud of what he should have been ashamed of, yet if he had understood the fullness o Christ Jesus' work on the Cross, there would have been no occasion for shame, either, because God has pledged to remember our sins no more (Hebrews 8: 12)

This man reminded me of the proselytes who end up twofold sons of hell.

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves." (Matthew 23: 15)

They are sincere in their devotion, and they are devoted to the law, which cannot make a man devout, so that he lives in the hell of sin, death, and condemnation while on earth and will miss out on the one who can grant him eternal life, Jesus Christ.

Jay went to CR and AA meetings, and he found himself more and more confused than ever. He would hear about God and Jesus Christ in one set of meetings,  yet in another meeting Jesus was not allowed to be mentioned at all! Talk about confusing.

He ended up getting drunk over and over, unable to break free from the shame that he was in, I am certain. Just as much as he would brag about telling other people how to live their lives, he was so caught up in his own perversions that one wonders how expected to get out of anything in his life.

I hope that Jay is OK, wherever he is. I hope that he has received the gift of "no condemnation" which comes from knowing Christ and Him Crucified in His fullness - not one thing needed on our part!

The Pharisee Element -- Now it Makes Sense

The people in AA and CR meetings cannot help but be Pharisees –they are still under law, still provoking others because at least they do not drink.

Thank God for people like Dorothy, people who got tired of going to meetings because they got tired of the rank hypocrisy. I still remember how she told me that she stopped going to AA meetings because she could not stand listening people who would commit terrible crimes, yet they would boast that "at least" they did not drink for the day."

I remember another guy, Jeff, who wanted to a good Christian, and he wanted to get sober, too, he became a Pharisee – provoking me to my face about something that I had shared in a meeting. He became the most arrogant person in the meeting, sadly.

At the time, I did not understand what was going on. I had gone to these meetings looking for life and help, what I was getting was more hurt and pain. The very people whom I thought would be helping me were actually causing me more pain than the “unsaved” people out there in the world.

This man gave me a hard time about sharing something in a meeting, something from way back when. Where did this guy get the rank audacity to tell me anything, when he could not rub two days of sobriety together?

Now it all makes sense. This man, like many of the people in these Twelve Step programs, became a proselyte, and they may indeed become twice as much sons of hell:

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves." (Mathew 23: 15)

AA is sadly filled with such tragedy, men and women who are looking for a way out, and instead the program brings them into deeper bondage, scaring them with the evil notion that if they leave, they will start drinking again!

If you are reading this, and you are someone who used to go to AA meetings and have gotten out, please let me know. . .

We need to impress on people in these programs that the life and more abundant which they seek is not found in the "Big Book" but the only Big Book -- The Holy Bible, which witnesses from cover to cover Christ and Him Crucified, He who gives and never taking!

A Great Friend in the Body of Christ -- "Terry"

One guy whom I really looked up to, Terry, was a man who was after so much more in this life. He did not want to settle anymore for any less.

This man shared with me a number of times how he was tired of the life that he was leading. He wanted more , a man who was not afraid to quote God’s Word when times were tough.

It was Terry who ministered grace to me, even after I had the worst day at Hawthorne High School, then I gave one of the best interviews ever. Even the principal had to admit that I had a lot going for me --- in the interview.

Terry was the first person who taught me the importance of getting my mind off of myself and to focus on the truth of God’s Word – God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind.

Terry was a great guy, one of the first people who questioned the whole Twelve Step cult – which at the time I was not prepared to do, since I did not see anything wrong with taking my inventory, with trying to make myself better so that I could better serve God and others. At least, this was based on my terrible lack of understanding about the Gospel.

He started getting in touch with other support groups, which then brought him to the celebrated passage of John 8:

“Neither do I condemn thee -- Go, and sin no  more!” (John 8: 11)

Now, the "Little C" Church has got it bass-ackwards- "Sin no more, then we will not condemn you" – but that never changes people – never! The condemnation is no longer there:

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." (Romans 8: 1, NIV)

We need the gift of righteousness first, and then the grace of God flows in our lives – Romans 5: 17.

He had learned what I was still struggling to accept – there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. Yet because I was so suffused with AA, I could not break away from the idea that I had to keep taking my inventory– at least, for the time being. When  a man has such a conscience of sin in his life, he will find himself getting nowhere, and fast:

"21I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. 22For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 23But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Romans 7: 21-24)

Too many people for get the last verse in Chapter Seven:

"I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin." (Romans 7: 25)

But Terry was already learning about it, and now so have I!

Terry was one of the first men to stop going to those CR meetings. He was not afraid to admit that he was not getting the help that he needed from the Twelve Steps.

He was the first of many who introduced me to the grace of God, the unmerited favor of God almighty.

God has already forgiven us! This gives us the power to forgive and to live!

Terry was always there when I needed to talk to him. He was someone who was interested in sharing the Gospel with others – he was the type who was tired of the hum-drum run-of-the-mill Christian walk which brings so many people into bondage.

I do not know where he is, but I have tried to get in touch with him time and again. Terry figured out something sooner than I did, I believe, because he was not imbibed on the terrible AA program the way that I was.