They make a lot of recovery meetings. They may even sign up to make coffee for the group or greet members at the door once in a while. And some of them may abstain from drinking for several months, perhaps even a few years.
But they still have the same problems that they had when they first came to AA. They still complain about everything, from broken shoelaces to broken relationships. Their marriage still sucks. Their kids still won’t talk to them. Their job still sucks. They’re still broke. They’re still as lonely as ever. And they still blame God and everyone else for everything bad that happens to them.
In 1 Corinthians 3, verse 2 and part of verse 3, the apostle Paul says, “I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.” Paul was referring to the members of the church in Corinth as still being infants in their faith. Spiritually speaking, they had grown very little. And what Paul was ultimately getting at (I believe) was this: You know ‘The Way,’ but you continue to choose to walk in the ways of this world. You should be more mature in your faith, but you’re not. You’re still babies.
We find this same dynamic in recovery. Most alcoholics or drug addicts never grow beyond an introductory phase in their recovery. They just can’t seem to move beyond that first Step of Admission that they have a problem. They realize they still have the problem, otherwise they wouldn’t show up to meetings. But just like the churchgoers in Corinth, they refuse to mature. They can’t bring themselves to work the remaining 11 Spiritual Steps that are the AA program.
Merely attending AA meetings doesn’t make us sober, no more than sleeping in a garage makes us a car. But there’s a popular mindset that persists in AA that if we just simply make enough meetings, things will change and get better; that our problems will magically disappear. But the truth for some is that their problems won’t disappear; they’ll only grow bigger. And eventually they themselves will be what disappears.
All of us drank the milk when we first came into AA. But not many of us grow out of the milk phase. Those 12 Spiritual Steps require too much honesty and self-examination for some of us. We never graduate to eating the meat and potatoes, the actual working of the Steps with a sponsor.
In reality, each and every one of the 12 Spiritual Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous are Spiritual truths taken directly from the holy Bible. They work! It is impossible for someone who truly wants to change, and earnestly does his very best at working each and every Spiritual truth, to not grow spiritually! It is impossible! Because what we ultimately suffer from is a spiritual problem, and we’ve spent many years of our lives trying to solve this spiritual problem with a chemical solution. And that foolish decision has left us even more spiritually broken and bankrupt. The 12 Spiritual Steps of AA are not our solution. But they are a roadmap back to a God-centered, others-centered way of living that is our solution.
To say that the 12 Steps alone are responsible for the changed life of an alcoholic or drug addict would be utterly demeaning to the power of our Divine Creator. The program of AA is merely a conduit that introduces the alcoholic to a loving God, and leads him into a genuine relationship with God, through which he is then enabled to be transformed by God.
It is not the spiritual map that does the changing; it is God’s Holy Spirit working within us that does the changing.
That’s why milk no longer satisfies those of us who truly want to get better. We need the meat and potatoes. Our diets must change, or there is no change.
Former Blackout Artist 