No, the program of Alcoholics Anonymous does not work.
The emotional demands placed on members, in order to stay sober, more likely drive them to drink, or to obsess on other perverse pursuits.
Consider the following:
It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.
If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison. (AA, pg 66)
To be labeled an alcoholic, that you have to fix yourself, maintain a program of not getting anger: there you have a life of futility and unhappiness.
A life where other people do indeed dominate you, where your feelings and thoughts are dictated to you through a religious cult-- there you have the recipe for a life of futility and unhappiness.
We are going to get angry in this life, and we should get angry.
Yet if you are a new creation in Christ, the sudden shocks and upsets in our lives will not only still be there, since we walk around in those bodies, but the frustration we may feel because we still see sin in our lives may set us up for greater despair.
Regarding the opinion of doctors whether alcoholics could recover or not, the AA book relates the following response:
"Yes," replied the doctor, "there is. Exceptions to cases such as yours have been occurring since early times. Here and there, once in a while, alcoholics have had what are called vital spiritual experiences. To me these occurrences are phenomena. They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them. In fact, I have been trying to produce some such emotional rearrangement within you. With many individuals the methods which I employed are successful, but I have never been successful with an alcoholic of your description." (AA, pg 27)
This notion of emotional arrangements suggests that these feelings, this pattern of thinking and feelings occurs without any responsibility or input from the individual.
The truth is - our feelings merely reflect what we are thinking. If we think of God our Father loving us unconditionally because of all that Christ Jesus has done for us on the Cross, we have a sure foundation for our peace and well-being.
If we have an identity based on a sense of provisional acceptance, one which must be renewed and maintained every day by working a program, then the frustrations we face, plus the failures we must accept, will give us the impression that our lives are no better.
We do not need a program of action, but a recognition of our new and eternal status in Christ.
When we see ourselves as children of God, taken out of death in our trespasses and seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, we find peace and wholeness which escapes most people, especially members in AA meetings.
This righteousness is the enforcement clause of the New Covenant:
"10For 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:
11And 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.
12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. (Hebrews 8: 10-12)
For the longest time, I believed that my standing with God depended on how I felt!
I got this evil notion from AA:
Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. (AA , pg 58)
Our feelings cannot block us from God the Father.
Our feelings have nothing to do with our standing before God.
Righteousness has nothing to do with us, either, but with Jesus:
"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)
He paid for everything, not us. We can bring not one thing to standing in His righteousness, but to keep receiving this gift of righteousness. Not a program, but a gift!
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