An Artist's Concept
Personal Stories From The First Edition
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is
proof against all arguments and which can not fail to keep a man in
everlasting ignorance-that principle is contempt prior to investigation.
--HERBERT SPENCER"
THE above quotation is descriptive of the mental attitudes of many
alcoholics when the subject of religion, as a cure, is first brought to
their attention. It is only when a man has tried everything else, when in
utter desperation and terrific need he turns to something bigger than
himself, that he gets a glimpse of the way out. It is then that contempt
is replaced by hope, and hope by fulfillment.
In this personal story I have endeavored to relate something of my
experience in the search for spiritual help rather than a description of
the neurotic drinking that made the search necessary. After all, the
pattern of most alcoholic experiences fits a pretty general mold.
Experiences differ because of circumstances, environment, and
temperament, but the after effects, both physical and mental, are almost
identical. It makes but little difference how or why a man becomes an
alcoholic once this disease manifests itself. The preventive measures
adopted for alcoholic tendencies in the future will have to be found in a
more progressive program of mental hygiene and medical research than is
now obtainable. It is important that at present we believe there is only
one sure pathway to recovery for any alcoholic.
In my own case I was not entirely ignorant of the causes that led me into
excessive drinking. In a desperate effort to eliminate these causes, to
find a means to better mental and physical health, I investigated the
alcoholic problem from every angle. Medicine, psychology, psychiatry, and
psychoanalysis absorbed my interest and supplied me with a great deal of
general and specific information. It led me in the end, however, to the
fact that for me here was a mental and physical disease that science had
pl aced in the category of "incurables." Briefly, all that this study and
research ever did for me was to show something about WHY I drank. It
substantiated a fact I had known all along, that my drinking was
symptomatic. It did point out a road to better mental health but it
demanded something of me in return that I did not have to give. It asked
of me a power of self-will but it did not take into consideration that
this self-will was already drugged with poison-that it was very sick.
Intuitively I also knew that a person constrained to temperance by the
domination of will is no more cured of his vice than if he were locked up
in prison. I knew that somehow, some way, the mental stream, the
emotions, must be purified before the right pathway could be followed.
It was about this time that I began "flirting" with religion as a
possible way out. I approached the subject in a wary, none too reverent,
attitude. I believed in an omnipotent God or Deity, but the orthodox
approach through the church, with its dogma and ritual, left me unmoved.
The more I struggled to gain an intelligent grasp upon spiritual
development, the more confused I became. On the other hand a purely
materialistic viewpoint that postulated a "mechanical order of things"
seemed too negative even to entertain. As an artist I had spent too much
time communing with nature-trying to place upon canvas or paper my
emotional feelings, not to know that a tremendous spiritual power was
back of the universe. There was, however, so much that seemed illogical
or sentimental about religion in general-so many doubts assailed me, so
many problems to be confronted-yet there was within myself a strong and
urgent desire for spiritual satisfaction. The occasional periods in which
I felt a spiritual emotion, I immediately examined with all the ardor of
the inveterate analyst. Was this emotion just a form of religious
ecstasy? Was it fear? Was it just blind belief or had I tapped something?
"Most men," wrote Thoreau, "lead lives of quiet desperation." It was the
articulation of this despair that led to my drinking in the beginning.
Religion, so far, had only added to my desperation. I drank more than
ever.
A seed had been planted, however, and a short time afterward I met the
man who has for the past five years devoted a great deal of time and
energy to helping alcoholics. Looking back on that meeting, the
simplicity of his talk with me is amazing. He told me very little but
what I already knew, in part, but what he did have to say was bereft of
all fancy spiritual phraseology-it was simple Christianity imparted with
Divine Power. The next day I met over twenty men who had achieved a
mental rebirth from alcoholism. Here again it was not so much what these
men told me in regard to their experiences that was impressive, as it was
a sense or feeling that an invisible influence was at work. What was it
this man had and these other men exemplified without their knowing? They
were human every-day sort of people. They certainly were not pious. They
had no "holier than thou" attitude. They were not reformers, and their
concepts of religion in some cases were almost inarticulate. But they had
something! Was it just their sincerity that was magnetic? Yes, they
certainly were sincere, but much more than that emanated from them. Was
it their great and terrible need, now being fulfilled, that made me feel
a vibratory force that was new and strange? Now I was getting closer and
suddenly, it seemed to me, I had the answer. These men were but
instruments. Of themselves they were nothing.
Here at last was a demonstration of spiritual law at work. Here was
spiritual law working through human lives just as definitely and with the
same phenomena expressed in the physical laws that govern the material
world.
These men were like lamps supplied with current from a huge spiritual
dynamo and controlled by the rheostat of their souls. They burned dim,
bright, or brilliant, depending upon the degree and progress of their
contact. And this contact could only be maintained just so long as they
obeyed that spiritual law.
These men were thinking straight-therefore their actions corresponded to
their thoughts. They had given themselves, their minds, over to a higher
power for direction. Here, it seemed to me, in the one word "Thought"-was
the crux of the whole spiritual quest. That "As a man thinketh in his
heart, so is he" and so is his health, his environment, his failure, or
his success in life.
How foolish I had been in my quest for spiritual help. How selfish and
egotistical I had been to think that I could approach God intellectually.
In the very struggle to obtain faith I had lost it. I had given to the
term faith a religious significance only. I had failed to see that faith
was "our common everyday manner of thinking." That good and evil were but
end results of certain uniform and reliable spiritual laws. Obviously, my
own thinking had been decidedly wrong. Normal most of the time, it was
abnormal at the wrong times. Like everyone's thinking, it was a mixture
of good and bad, but mainly it was uncontrolled.
I had been sticking my chin out and getting socked by spiritual law until
I was punch drunk. If one could become humble, if he could become "as a
little child" before this powerful spiritual thought force, the pathway
could be discovered.
The day I made my first efforts in this direction an entire new world
opened up for me. Drinking as a vicious habit was washed completely out
of my consciousness. I have never even been tempted to take a drink
since. As a matter of fact there are so many other things within myself
that need correction that the drink habit looks silly in comparison.
Please do not assume that all this is but an exposition of spiritual
pride. A chart of my spiritual progress would look like the "graph" of a
business that had been hit by everything but an earthquake. But there has
been progress. It has cured me of a vicious habit. Where my life had been
full of mental turmoil there is now an ever increasing depth of calmness.
Where there was a hit or miss attitude toward living there is now new
direction and force.
The approaches of man to God are many and varied. My conception of God as
Universal Mind is after all but one man's approach to and concept of the
Supreme Being. To me it makes sense, opens up a fascinating field of
endeavor and is a challenge, the acceptance of which can make of life the
"Adventure Magnificent."
Contact:
The Legacy Group of Alcoholics Anonymous © 2005