My father drinks wine and beer from time to time, nothing excessive; my mother was a "recovering alcoholic". Never once did she drink in my presence. Before I was born, she had been going to AA meetings. She had quit drinking and remained sober for almost thirty-four years.
My sister and I were reared knowing and hearing and even reading "Alcoholics Anonymous", otherwise known as "The Big Book" for people in the AA program.
I was raised believing that the Bible, the word of God, gave us knowledge about Jesus Christ, but the "Big Book" helped make living "practical". I would read my "one chapter a day" in the Bible, then I would read sections from the other "Big Book" along with selections from "One Day at a Time in Al-Anon" or "As Bill Sees It", a collection of maxims and "insights" from AA founder Bill W. or other prominent leaders in Alcoholics Anonymous.
From a young age, I often found that I was easily upset, even irritable. It was easy to hurt my feelings, and other people had this inexplicable ability to "make me mad." Taking my hints from the Twelve Steps, I would "take me inventory", trying to figure out what I had done wrong.
As I grew up, I found that making individual decisions for myself became more difficult. Often, I was afraid of making someone mad or doing something wrong. Even though at the time I did not realize it, I was falling into the same patterns which define "adult children of alcoholics." But no one in my house was a practicing alcoholic.
My mother was practically a 'cult-adherent' of this program. She claimed that either everyone was an alcoholic, or they were "in denial." She even called me "an alcoholic who did not drink." For many years, I accepted this nonsense. Since it was my mother who had been telling me this garbage, I took her word for it. From a young age into early adulthood, I was living "the program".
For many years, I struggled with guilt, anger, fear, all the terrible emotions which cause people to drink, at least according to the AA program. Every time that I got "a resentment", I would panic because now I had to "so something" about this feeling, or else "something bad" would happen. Often, I would get nervous talking to people, wondering if I had done or said something wrong, or worrying that they would say or do something which would "make me mad".
Since I have learned more about Jesus Christ and Him Crucified, that through Him all my sins are forgiven, that I do not confess my sins in order to get right with God, that through Christ I have passed from dead in my trespasses to alive in Christ, a child of God, whom I can call "Daddy!" because of my standing in righteousness, I have not only learned that "AA" is not necessary for practical living, but in fact is detrimental to having "Life and that more abundantly" through Christ.
The greatest need for man is acceptance, not just money, power, prestige. Yet something in every man wars against this sense of peace, the sense that something that we have done or may do will get us in "big trouble" or rather that we must "do something."
This inner turmoil is a manifestation of the spiritual death which every person born into this world will manifest. God made man in His image, yet when Adam sinned against God, he died by being separated from God. Since then, man is born in the image of fallen Adam, yet the second Adam, Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, came to reconcile all of mankind to God, so that we may receive His righteousness, perfect acceptance, His standing as a Son, and His eternal life.
The sense of "wrong-doing" which afflicts many Christians, and even adherents to other faiths, has a name
Men and women who struggle with alcohol should not be defined by their addiction. Their drinking is a symptom of man who wants to undo the inner death and emptiness in his life, his desire to make himself OK. People do not treat us nicely, or we fail to measure up to our own self-righteous standards, and so people drink.
It is shameful and abusive for any one group or program to label people based on poor or self-destructive behavior. It was even more abusive for my own mother to label me "alcoholic" when I never even drank! Yet such pernicious labeling can mess with a person's identity. This identity issue, more than health or wealth, makes all the difference of us. This matter of identity helps us to make decisions, assess our skills, define our place in this world, filled with conflicting and cluttered opinions. We need to know who we are, and this reality we receive when we know that we are accepted.
Contrary to vile religious teachings or traditional understandings, God is not mad at the world anymore. God took out all His wrath on His Son -- all of it -- and offers to every person to receive His grace through faith to become "the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5: 21). Christ Jesus then comes into the life of a believer through His Holy Spirit, who grants to us a never-ending conviction of righteousness (John 16: 10), or the knowledge beyond our own thinking or feeling that we are "OK".
AA teaches people that they have to "take their inventory" in order to stay in "spiritually fit condition". AA teaches people to keep looking at themselves, to make sure to catch themselves before they slip into fear, resentment, or selfish thinking. The whole program just stirs up a "sin" or "guilty" conscience in people. Every time that I would get afraid, I would get angry that I got afraid, I would focus on myself, trying not to feel that way. It made mountains out of emotional mole-hills, to say the least. Only recently have I learned that our feelings merely respond to what we are thinking. If someone goes about thinking that they have to watch their feelings and "keep short accounts", then it will not be long before this person feels forever trapped in a cycle of "getting by" to avoid "getting upset".
Worst of all, the hurt feelings from the wrongs that people have done in the past, or the wrongs which others have done to us, do not go away with a "Fourth Step" followed by confessing these "wrongs" to an untrustworthy "sponsor", then go about and make amends for it. That "sense" of guilt or wrongdoing just creeps up on people. The Twelve Steps cannot remove man's fallen nature, even though he receives the Spirit of God. This other element about the Christian was never taught to me. I now have Christ living in me, but I still walk around in "the flesh", in a body and a mind which can easily resent, fear, or give into other perversions. Yet as long as I rest in my new identity in Christ, I never need fear falling into sin.
The only way to give our conscience the rest that we seek, the acceptance that we crave, is through the Cross, where we can know and believe that all our sins are forgiven, and that through Jesus' death, we receive His perfect righteousness and Himself living and guiding us through His Spirit. To confess our sins, to make amends with others, or any other activity to give us a sense of "getting right with God" only makes us more sad and depressed, focusing on ourselves, and thus inducing people to engage in addictions or perversions to distract ourselves or calm our emptiness.
AA fosters a guilty conscience; through Christ, you can be made perfect within that His life may live through you.
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