Intelligence and Willpower

Action: Something done so as to accomplish a purpose.

"We are certain that intelligence, backed by willpower, can rightly control our inner lives and guarantee success in the world we live in."  12&12 p 37.

I had the distinct and great honor of sitting down with a new-ish guy today and talking about The Program.  He has been active in The Fellowship but really hasn't gotten down to the Working The Steps part.  I can wholeheartedly identify.  I spent an amazingly useless chunk of time going to a lot of meetings and pretending like I was in recovery.  I was doing better than when I was drinking but I was doomed to eventual failure, and fail I did.  The Program is all about working the steps.  This is what we do.  We don't think about working the steps.  We work them.  There are no chapters called "How It Thinks" or "Thinking With Others."  It's enough with the thinking already.  We're good thinkers.  We sit by ourselves and think great thoughts and never get sober.  We don't have anything left to prove with the thinking.  We're established thinking superstars.

I don't think my friend believes he's too smart to get recovery but I surmise that he's frustrated that he can't figure out the solution to the puzzle he has been living.  I really believed that I could study the problem then employ my not inconsiderable willpower to applying the solution and Voila! Sobriety!  He appears to be willing at this point.  We all get frustrated eventually with the magic pixie dust technique where some vague Sobriety Fairy sprinkles your head with a white powder that looks suspiciously like anthrax and you're miraculously cured.  I always wanted to be struck sober.  I didn't want to to do the work to get sober.

I had a sponsor early on who, frustrated with whatever bullshit I was currently dispensing, exclaimed: "Go home, fill up a bucket with soapy water, and scrub down your kitchen walls! Do something!  Do anything!"  

As I was renting this made no sense at the time.