SHAM: The Humpty-Dumpty Syndrome

Now here's an idea I never thought about:

"[T]he impresarios and self0styled healers of the twelve-step world went one better than finding a need: They created  a need by devising a twisted metphysic wherein caring about people equals codependency. . .For the individual consumer, Recovery may be worse than merely wasteful. 'The problem with a lot of it,' says James Q. Wilson, 'is the unfortunate and diabolical human tendency to reject the good news while embracing the bad.'"

Wow! How true that is. No wonder Adam and Eve were in so much trouble the moment that they looked at themselves after eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. No matter how hard we try to cover up our imperfections, the need to fix something else will replace whatever we took care of.  Reminds me of one scene from the movie "Manic": You have a problem. You fixed. You have another problem. Then you fix that."

Not much of a life, yet a pattern which defines much of self-help, especially the AA cult.

Salerno continues:

"Therein lies the supreme and fatal paradox of Recovery, and of so much for self-help in general: It is easily capable of persuading followers that they're gravely flawed. But getting people to the next step--that they can change--is a major stretch. Many in this created class of victims never attain 'wellness.'" (Pg 158-159)

I know and believe that for Bill W. with Alcoholics Anonymous, he knew full-well that there would be no wellness for the converts forced into that awful cult. To stigmatize individuals as alcoholics, as though the malady is a disease, and then inform the newly-christened (or cursed) as alcoholics creates the very problems which the struggling suffers were seeking to overcome.

"The result is what some label the Humpty-Dumpty Syndrome--wherein we're taken apart, but your pieces can't be put together again."

Honestly, all the pieces can come together, through Christ:

"Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: 16For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: 17And he is before all things, and by him all things consist." (Colossians 1: 15-17)

That word "consist" means "held together", by the way, in that Jesus holds this world together, and us as well.

While men are good at point out what is wrong with us, the Holy Spirit has been introduced into our lives to manifest the Gospel, that we receive a new bearing, a  new self, and a deep conviction of righteousness (John 16: 8-11)

While because of Adam all men fell, like the Big Egg Humpty Dumpty but with far greater and messier consequences, the Second Adam, Jesus Christ, not only puts us together again, but fills us with something sweet, and then enshrines us like the most priceless Faberge egg out there!

Forgive me my metatophors, because all that Jesus has done for me is more than I can share in just one post, and still I am learning!