The NEW Promises. The Old Promises REVISED. Something!

Here are our beloved Promises from the Plain Language Big Book:

"If we are painstaking about Step Nine, we will be amazed before we have made amends to half of our list of people.  We will find new freedom and new happiness.  We will not regret the past or wish we could forget about it.  We will understand the word serenity and we will know peace.

No matter how badly we have behaved in the past, we will begin to see how our experience can benefit others.  Any feelings of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.  We will lose interest in selfish things and begin to take an interest in helping other people.  Self-seeking will slip away.  Our whole attitude and outlook about life will change.  Fear of people and of money worries will leave us.  We will know how to handle situations which used to confuse or worry us.  We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises?  We think not!  These promises come true among A.A. members every day - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.  They will always come into our lives if we work for them."

Work?  Work?  Nobody said anything about work!

Sometimes real fucking slowly.

I have always objected to the assertion that these are not extravagant promises.  I think that they're extremely extravagant.  They're extravagant as hell.

I really like that the qualifier "before we are halfway through" is further explained to mean half way through the amends process.  There has been a lot of confusion about that over the years.

I note that a lot of the phrases translate word for word from the original text.  In the new version, of course, the Traditions and the Steps are not changed.  Old-timers are howling already at the apostasy of changing one word from the original book.  I can only imagine the riots that would occur if we tried to modernize the Steps.

As a kid who grew up in a Protestant church let me draw this analogy to those of you who are offended at this new offering of literature: church services were conducted in Latin - to a largely illiterate population, mind you, meaning the priest could be saying whatever he wanted because none of his parishioners could read a word  - until the 15th century.  Catholics didn't switch to the vernacular until the 1960s, for heaven's sake.  Then, the first translation was called the King James version and was packed with thous and thees and shalt nots and a lot of other stilted, old-timey language.  Eventually, this was replaced by a series of revised versions but not until the start of the 20th century.  At one point my very religious, extremely conservative parents bought me a Bible - which I read several times - that was meant to appeal to people who were a lot younger.  The cover featured hip, happy and attractive young people.  So where does this lead me as I ponder the outrage over the Plain Language Big Book?  I'm very, very, very tolerant.  I'm finding the reading to be completely inoffensive.  I don't think anything material has changed.  The message is the same - just written in the vernacular using words and phrases common in 21st century dialogue.

Big, Big Words

Resentment: A complex, long-lasting emotion combining anger, bitterness, and disappointment, often stemming from feeling unfairly treated, wronged, or underappreciated.  Experiencing a resentment is reliving an offense that injured you in the past. (The italics are mine.)   

I find it very affirming in my spiritual quests to see the same concepts repeated across the ages and shared among different philosophies and religions.  I was struck dumb recently at a Toltec passage about how nefarious and damaging resentments are to our psyche. Then, the passage quoted from the Big Book in today's Daily Reflection, is another big fan favorite: "Resentment is the 'number one' offender.  It destroys more alcoholics than anything else.  From it stems all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick."

Again, I love the choice of words: offender, destroys, spiritual disease.  Big words, big, big words with a lot of oomph behind them.  Hard to misinterpret the concept of being destroyed.

The Book is Packed

When that happens, our great natural assets, the instincts, have turned into physical and mental liabilities.

To define the word 'harm' in a practical way, we might call it the result of instincts in collision, which caused physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual damage to people.

Yet these instincts .  .  . often far exceed their natural function.   

Whenever a human being becomes a battleground for the instincts, there can be no peace.

Such is the power of the instincts to overreach themselves.

For every time a person imposes his instincts unreasonably upon others, unhappiness follows.

Unreasonable fear that our instincts will not be satisfied leads us to covet the possessions of others, to lust for sex and power, to become angry when our instinctive demands are threatened, to be envious when the ambitions of others seem to be realized while ours are not.

Instincts restored to true purpose!

Once again, look at those dang words: battleground, unreasonable (twice, mind you), angry, threatened, envious, no peace, damage.  What if I was given this option to start my day: you will spend all of your  time waging an invisible war in an internal battleground, fueled by angry, threatened, envious emotions that threaten any possibility of peace.  Sounds like a plan, a shitty plan, gotta be a better plan than that.  And I love the idea of trying to impose my demands and will on others . . . and doing it because I perceive, sometimes correctly, often not, that others are doing better than I am.  No shit!  There are always going to be people out there who are on an easier track than I am.

Instincts On Rampage

How instincts can exceed their proper function.

The collision of instincts can produce anything from a cold snub to a blazing revolution.

We have learned that the satisfaction of instincts cannot be the sole end and aim of our lives.

If we place instincts first, we have got the cart before the horse; we shall be pulled backward into disillusionment.

When the satisfaction of our instincts for sex, security, and society becomes the sole object of our lives, then pride steps in to justify our excesses.

By now the newcomer has probably arrived at the following conclusions: that his character defects, representing instincts gone astray, have been the primary cause of his drinking and failure at life.

Here's an interesting factoid: the words instinct and instincts appear about 35 times in our literature and all but two are in the 12&12.  Moreover, the two times they appear in the Big Book they are not referencing our own personal instincts.  Apparently, after a few years the founders started to be suspicious that they had really missed something important when they were writing the book.  Fair enough - it was sort of dicey and experimental at the start.  Dr. Bob had at least one seance at his house, for chrissake.

Here's one of my favorite lines in the literature: "Instincts on rampage balk at investigation."

Rampage: A period of violent, reckless, or destructive behavior, often involving a person or group rushing around frantically.  It signifies uncontrolled rage and chaos.  Synonyms include frenzy, rage, and uproar.

Bill loved those kinds of images.  He loved to portray alcoholism in graphic, powerful words and images.  I have instincts.  My instincts like to riot violently.  C'mon, whether or not you're a Bill W fan that's some pretty cool shit.

Instincts:  A way of thinking, behaving, or feeling that is not learned; a subconscious, automatic impulse driven by biological survival needs.

Instincts gone astray, exceeding their proper function, with the result that life is deeply, deeply unsettling and painful.  In fact, this state of mind leads to a deeply, deeply unhappy life, to "disillusionment."  I love the words and phrases: collision, battleground, blazing revolution, physical and mental liabilities.  I get the sense that because the instincts weren't properly addressed at the start that the founders really let 'er rip when the 12&12 was written.

Pride: A complex emotion and concept generally defined as a deep sense of pleasure, satisfaction or self-respect.

So pride appears in the literature like a billion times .  .  . I've really started to go down the wormhole.  I better be careful with all this cross-referencing.

Rampage would be an excellent, excellent name for a heavy metal band.

Swipe, Swipe, Swipe

The past is gone; the future may never arrive; being present is as important a spiritual concept as there is.

Sometimes I feel sorry for younger people and the endless choices they have when they're trying to figure out how to live their lives.  When I was looking for work or for a mate I was often restricted to what was presented and was available in my own little sphere of existence.  There wasn't a website where I could peer at hundreds of women on a screen, endless choices, swiping, swiping, swiping and when I looked for work there were ads in the newspaper and maybe a personal connection or two where someone knew someone who was looking for someone to do something.  If I wanted to move to another state I had to go to the library and hope they had the newspaper for Peoria, Illinois where I could peruse the Help Wanted ads.  And even that was an incredible amount of freedom compared to someone growing up on a farm before the advent of automobiles.  Church and community dances were your best bets.  You can go one step further and imagine the societies where family members got together and decided on the best fit for their children and that was that.  I've heard the divorce rate for arranged marriages is lower than for the endless choice societies.  I know some younger single people and I get the sense that they have breakfast with one person, lunch with another, and then on to dinner with someone else.  Sounds exhausting.  Sounds exhilarating which is the point and the problem, I guess.

Toltecs: "The beautiful thing about mortality is that it puts the relationships we have with others and ourselves into perspective.  In this light, any resentment we may be carrying toward another or ourselves is a type of early death.  It has often been said that 'holding on to a resentment is like taking a poison pill and waiting for the other person to die.'  With awareness, forgive yourself and others for any wrongdoings, real or perceived.  In the big picture of life and death, does any resentment you are holding on to really matter?"

So we alcoholics do not have the market cornered on the resentment front.

God and Working on Myself . . . Finally . . . For Once in my Life

I don't know what to call stuff like this: coincidence or serendipity or a God shot.  Whatever.  I love it when it happens.  I wrote my GAD post, picked up my Toltec meditation book, and read this: "Your emotions - regardless of the triggers - are expression of yourself.  Uncomfortable emotions let you know there is a problem to attend to, a wound for you to work on, thus allowing you to see your  own truth.  With awareness, you can observe your uncomfortable emotions, as they may be showing you a belief that you are holding which is no longer true for you."   

Today I am presented with this nugget from the "Into Action" section of the Plain Language Big Book: "Many alcoholics lead double lives.  We are like actors.  When we are around other people, we act like a character on stage, showing them the version of ourselves we want them to see.  We pretend to be people we are not so others will like us.  Psychologists tend to agree that alcoholics struggle to be honest with themselves, and also struggle to be honest with others."

I spent my entire adult life trying to fit in, to be liked by everyone, even people I didn't like or respect.  People-pleasing to the Nth degree.  So it should have come as no surprise that I didn't have a very good idea who I was.  I was shape-shifting to make myself palatable.  Today . . . not so much.  I don't think that it's very hard to get to know me.  I don't think it's very hard to figure out how I act when I'm not in a meeting.  I do enjoy being popular and liked but I don't lose any sleep over it when I'm not

Me and Dr. Bob

Our Founders, Bill W and Dr. Bob.  I always wanted to be a Dr. Bob - kind, humble, thoughtful, spiritual - but I'm clearly a Bill W.  I'm on the move, trying to get people to do what I think is best and to recognize my brilliance in all things human, selling, promoting, always selling.  Sigh.  I AM working on it.  Dr. Bob was once asked why he still attended meetings.  Here's what he said: 

1,  Sense of duty.

2.  It is a pleasure.

3.  Because in so doing I am paying my debt to the man who took time to pass it on to me.

4.  Because every time I do it I take out a little more insurance for myself against a possible slip.

I was pondering in my Quiet Time this morning why I still attend meetings regularly after 38 years.  My list - which I'm typing down before looking up Bob's list so it's going to be interesting/revealing to me to see the convergence and the divergence:

1.  I don't think about drinking or using except on rare occasions but occasionally some stray thought will pop into my head, wondering about the greatly increased THC concentration in today's weed or how hard lemonade or a craft beer would taste.  Very rare but not unheard of.  I need to always remain vigilant.

2.  I owe a debt to the men and women who listened to my insufferable younger self whine and complain about everything.  I was being treated so unfairly by the world and here's why!  That kind of crap.  Thanks to all of you, living or dead.

3. I try to repay this debt in some little form by helping new people begin the trudging process.  God help us all but I do have some experience, strength, and hope to pass along.  This was the genesis of my still shocked realization that giving with no expectation of return is one of life's great joys.  That still makes no sense to me, how satisfying that is, so I try not to think about it too much.  Even writing it down just now gives me the heebie-jeebies.

4.  I gotta say this - alcoholics are very interesting people once they stop acting like out of control psychopaths.  Not just psychopathic behavior - out of control nuttiness.  We're smart and talented and hard-working, curious people with a lot of charm and charisma and we learn how to present this to the world without being insufferable narcissists.  I like hanging around with people in recovery.  It's not often boring.