January 1964

Moses on Mt. Sinai. Many skeptical clichCs like “exerting more will folk are inclined to s ~ y ,concerning power” are utterly impractical. We Moses’ inspiration, “0, this is a are just as powerless by ourselves gathering together of previous ex- over temper, or a bad tongue, or a perience: it didn’t come all at moody disposition, or a habit of once like that.” I have no doubt lust, or a hard and critical spirit. It THOSE TWELVE STEPS about the previous experience entering in; but I know that there are is only pride and lack of insight into ourselves that would keep anyinspired hours when people have one from saying, no matter what as I understand them been able to gather and put down compendia of truth in a fashion that their problems or lack of them, “our lives have become unmanageable.” can only be called “inspiration.” It This is the first step, not only is an hour when men’s powers are towards sobriety, but towards selfby the Rev. Canon Samuel M. Shoemaker, D.D. at high pitch and tension, and when understanding and the nowl ledge of the Spirit of God hovers near, mak- life. Dr. Samuel Slioemaker, the widely known Episcopal clerxyman who helped ing suggestions. I doubt if the 2. Came to believe that a Power so greatly in the founding o f A A , wrote tlris article for the Grapevine Twelve Steps that have changed the greater than ourselves could restore several months ago. It was already in type und .sclteduled for the present course of existence for so many us to sanity. \

issue when the news o f his death on Thursday, October 31, 1963 reached thousands of lives could have been How come? By standing in the .. us. (See page 2.) Here lie reviews our Twelve Steps with that wonderful the mere product of human insight middle of the field calling out to clarity which has always characterized his speaking and writing. and observation. And they can and some nameless’Power? By reading will bless anyone, alcoholic or not, long books of philosophy or thewho will follow them through and ology? No! By seeing scores, and N E of my most treasured pos- for all its leaders and members. be obedient to them. They are maybe hundreds and then thou- 0 sessions is a pair of gold discs which I carry daily in my pocket, One of my cherished memories is of one of the girls at St. Louis who morally and spiritually and psychologically and practically as sound sands, of individual men and wornen whose lives had been defeated . attached to my watch chain. One is said to me, “Dr. Sam, you may not as can be. and wretched (making thousands marked “From the Manhattan be an alcoholic, but by God you 1. We admitted we were power- more wretched also) transformed ‘group of AA” which was given me certainly do talk like one!” less over alcohol . . . that our lives into new men and women. Each one by Bill when I left New York in I have always been interested, had become unmanageable. of these lives is a kind of miracle- 1952; and the other is marked not alone in what AA is doing for The reason so many people in not to be explained in purely hu- “Honorary Member in Perpetuity the alcoholic, but in what this pro- AA give thanks that they are alco- man terms. Doctors and psychiaof Pittsburgh AA,” given me when gram can mean to anyone who holics is that the problem of living, trists and clergy, helpful as they I left that city in 1962. They wrestles with a real problem. And and the failure to meet life success- have been to some alcoholics, have mark one of the happiest and most who does not? A pile of wisdom fully, is singled down for them to no opportunity to report such a privileged relationships I have ever and experience is packed into the the problem of alcohol. It is definite high percentage of victories as AA. enjoyed. I watched the first be- Twelve Steps. I have even com- and specific. This is exactly what How wise AA was not to attempt ,ginnings of AA always with interest, pared the inspired forty minutes Christianity has taught from the be- too specific a theological definition! sometimes with misgivings proven during which ,those Steps were given ginning, not only about a problem Too fine-spun words were bound to false by all that has happened. I to the Founder, to the Ten Tables like alcoholism, but about the whole offend some and put off others; nothank God for AA and pray daily of the Law that were given to range of human defeat: that the old body can fight against the rather ‘

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vague term “Power greater than ourselves.” The crucible of laymen working it out among themselves, sharing experience with one an- “‘Self-surrender must always be regarded as the vital turning point … 93 other. 1 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him. tight enough to touch the place us a good going over; for most of in the one who hears the story, and William James, in a classic pas- where the current comes out; but us are terribly blind and terribly some discretion in the keeping of sage of the “Varieties of Religious this decision of the will is not the self-deceived. One can even make a confidences. Let’s face it-a certain Experience,” said that the crisis of current itself. The current is the “formal confession” to a priest in desperation underlies this. Every self-surrender has always been and spiritual power that flows when we the Church and not really get wise minister wishes he could induce the must always be regarded as the vital cry out our need to God and He to oneself. Deepest of all, greatest same kind of desperation in the genturning point of the religious life. answers. of all, and subtlest of all, will be eral run of his people, so that they Look through the life of any saint, 4. Made a searching and fearless pride in some form, usually mas- would face their over-all spiritual I almost any great servant of man- moral inventory of ourselves. querading under the guise of some ineffectiveness and their need to kind, and you will find a moment, There is no more difficult thing virtue. Alcoholism may force such make the same kind of “admission” an hour, a day when the crisis took in the world than to face yourself an honesty about oneself; would as alcoholics find necessary, This is place. You can gather materials for as you really are. We flee from one that all the other and more respec- always a costly and painful process. a decision over months and years, sin after another as they catch up table sins did the same thing! I suspect that one reason why it is and you can carry out the effects of with us, making excuses all the 5. Admitted to God, to our- so effective is that what happens is .a decision over long periods of time, time, and pleading that our virtues selves, and to another human being not only the opening to another hubut a decision is sudden. It is a in another direction more than the exact nature of our wrongs. man being of the “exact nature of crisis. This is a vivid way of saying make up for them. What most The practice of Confession is, of our wrongs,” but the laying of pride that all spiritual experience must be- people need, what all must have if course, an old one and in some in the dust by letting someone else gin decisively if it is going to begin they are to find an answer, is just churches a constant one. I suspect know the depth and desperation of at all. This, is the great, open, spir- the willingness to make a search- that its efficacy depends in part on our need. Shams go off when you itual secret which so many have ing and fearless moral inventory of the sincerity with which the confes- do this. You can’t keep on’faking. missed. They tried to ooze into it. themselves. Some sins are obvious. sion is made, and on whether the This, and not only the detail of mis- You can ooze into booze, but you But when it comes to the spiritual person confessing really means to doings, is what gets us where we can’t ooze out of it. You can’t ooze sins-like pride, and unforgiving- get out on new ground and be dif- can begin to be different. into God. Everybody in the world ness, and resentment, and touchi- ferent thereafter. True confession 6. Were entirely ready to have needs to learn this truth. I had been ness, and inflexibility about having not only cleans up the past with God remove these defects of chara nominal Christian for ten years our own way-they are not so ob- God’s forgiveness, it looks to a new acter. before anybody challenged me to vious because their damage is less kind of future, else it is bogus. Con- It’s not hard to feel like that on a surrender myself to God. This has easy to see quickly. The Ten Com- fession to other lay-people has gen- “morning after,” but we know this to be done more than once, as we mandments will form a good guide. erally been discouraged by the may be remorse and not repentance, shall find; but it has to begin some- So will the Sermon on the Mount. church as being risky, but AA has superinduced more by a heavy head where. This decision puts us in We may need to sit down with proved its efficacy in the case of than by a contrite heart. The furtouch with God, so that He can someone who knows us and will be alcoholics, it being possible to take ther away we get from the last work. It is like screwing the bulb in honest with us and ask them to give for granted some degree of maturity binge of alcohol (or of temper, or

whatever), the better the wrong- ship is so essential, why it is so getting much of a prize. It’s mostly some roots of a tree, and do not doing looks-more innocent, more dangerous for anyone to think he broken pieces I’m giving you. But easily come loose. We need help, attractive. Are we ready then to can take a little spiritual inspiration I ask You to mend them. You can Grace, the lift of a kind of divine “have God remove these defects of or power and go off and enjoy it all take the pride and the lust and the derrick. The amazing thing is that character”? It is one thing to want by himself. Soon or late he is back anxiousness and the fear and the such a prayer is answered if we to put behind us the inconveniences in the old groove. We need God ‘ resentment. Please do take them, truly want it to be. Our own wills of wrongdoing, but another to and we need each other. God alone and me with them.” Something like are so much a needed part of this leave behind the wrong-doing itself. can give us this new mind and that. We may say this in the quiet of that it almost looks as if we had This requires two things, I think: keep us in it. All people need it, so- our own rooms, or we may say it done it; but the help from God is so ( 1) a real vision of how much bet- called good people as well as so- kneeling in our church, or we may much a needed part of it that we ter the new life really is than the called bad ones. We need to pray say it as we pray with another per- are sure that without Him we could old, fortified by what we have heard for this fundamental willingness to son. There must be an intended not possibly have done it. We learn from people living in it, and (2) have God change us. finality as we make such a prayer. great truths, long known and often real help from the Higher Power, 7. Humbly asked Him to remove We can’t do it with tongue in cheek. discovered, as we begin a genuine for the will alone is not capable of our shortcomings. So far as it is possible, we mean to spiritual awakening. sustaining this attitude. It is good to How often have we prayed for be done with the offending thing. 8. Made a list of all persons we be pushed by the danger and hell of “things,” or favoring circumstances, We find again that “will-power” had harmed and became willing to the old life, but we must also be or a hundred and one things that only goes far enough to secure our make amends to them all: pulled by the constant vision of life were really selfish in nature! Here intention: the actual praying of In some ways it is easier to integrated under God, living in and is where real prayer begins-not such a prayer already implies help straighten things out with God than for and by Him and in and for ends-in asking God to change me. from Him to Whom we pray. Sins with other people. He fully underother people. This is why fellow- “Lord, I’m not much. You aren’t get entangled deep within us, as stands everything, we can count on 4. !

His forgiveness, we talk to Him as it, perhaps often, in the after-stages gain the reputation of a gossip, it were “in private.” But it is not of it. which will shut off people’s conenough to be right with Him, we 9. Made direct amends to such fidence from us. Such actions are must also be right with man. How people wherever possible, except usually those of the Pharisee-type, well do I remember that from the when to do so would injure them or the good and righteous type. But first moment of fresh conviction others. they are sometimes those of the there was a letter I had to write to We must be willing to be abso- changed Prodigal also-and nothing someone in the family towards lutely honest, but indiscriminate is worse than the fury of a Prodigalwhom I held a long-standing resent- “absolute honesty” would blow the turned-Pharisee. What is known in ment. It was one of the first things roof off many a house and destroy confidence should be kept in con- I had to do after my decision. You entirely some human relations. We fidence until or unless the person see, we want to get clear, to begin must hold nothing back through de- involved gives us permission to anew, to start life all over again. ceit or pride; we may need to hold speak of it. our successes, even when we at- This Step calls for definiteness, and something back by discretion and 10. Continued to take personal tribute them to God, unless we it calls for willingness: “made a consideration of others. Take a inventory and when we were wrong keep open to facing oufselves afresh list,” and “became willing.” How thing like infidelity in marriage: promptly admitted it. and making things right where they many strained and broken human sometimes this must be disclosed to This is one of the hardest steps in have gone wrong. relationships drag on through years, wife or husband in all candor. the Twelve. Many of us get steamed 11. Sought through Prayer and unresolved, unhealed, unmended. Sometimes, as in the case of some- up to be completely honest with meditation to improve Our conscious Nobody will make the break and one with a bad heart, or terribly God, ourselves and some other per- contact kith God as we umferstood say the two great words of renewal, sensitive or innocent of nature, “tell- son at the outset: this points the Him, praying only for knowledge of “I’m sorry.” We are willing to tell ing all” may be almost a self-indul- wisdom of continuing this all the His will for us and the Power to God, we are not willing to tell man, gence for ourselves. The people we rest of the way. We like to think we carry that out. of our repentance and desire for have hurt may be dead, in which have grown past this and are well After we see daylight on the connew life. This can hold us back at case prayer to God to let them on the road, but none of us ever quest of such a clear-cut problem as the first;and it can trip us way know our repentance may be all we gets finally past it. We shall find that alcohol–or fear, or resentment, or – down the line. The laws governing can do. Or there may be facts in the when we seek God’s help and guid- pride-and feel we are at least human relations are as iron-clad as situation which would help clear the ance on some problem, we may making progress, we need ‘a great, those that uphold the stars. In- relation, but they involve telling need to be open first to conviction over-all purpose and motivation dividualize the persons whom we what we know about someone else’s of sin-then direction. This is part upon which to center our growthhave wronged, and those who have sins. This is allowable under only of what keeps the whole thing fresh Prayer, we shall increasingly find, is wronged us. Don’t forget the wise the rarest circumstances: usually it and contemporary and alive. I am not asking God for something we adage, that “it is harder to forgive spreads the evil and does more convinced that pride is the root-sin. want, it is really asking Him for those whom we have wronged than harm than good. If in order to clear It is not only, in moral theology, something He wants. The best of those who have wronged us.” Get our own souls we must damage the the first of the “seven deadly sins,” all prayers is, “Lord, what wilt thou willing to go to them in honesty and reputation of another, it is an ex- it is by so much the most serious of have me do?” (Acts 22: 10). Prayer humility. It may be the hardest thing tremely dubious practice. Those them that it is as if it stood apart does not seek to change God’s will, you ever did in your life, but it will who deal much with human souls- from the rest as being of a different but to find it. ‘ be one of the most rewarding. We priests, psychiatrists, lay-folk like quality. Pride gets right into our 12. Having had a spiritual awakshall need to do it in the beginning AAs-must learn the secret of. a spiritual victories. It insinuates it- ening as the result of these Steps, of our new life; we shall have to do tight lip, or we shall do damage and self into all our achievements, all we tried to carry this Message to al-

coholics, and to practice these prin- dom and health. We have had to ciples in all our aflairs. look deep within, probe, burrow, This principle applies to all who struggle, and in a sense this never have known a great before-and- stops. But .now we must begin to after experience of spiritual rebirth. look wide without, concern our- Two things are involved in the selves with individuals, causes, com- Twelfth Step: the spread of the munities and the wider world. Here awakening to others, and the deep- is the secret of growth and of spread ening and continuation of the -not for alcoholics only,. but for awakening in ourselves. This was all. surely the secret of the Twelve I often say and shall always say Apostles and all the early Christian that the Twelve Steps are one of the disciples. J. B. Phillips says they very great summaries and organic kept to their main purpose of bring- collections of spiritual truth known ing people to God through Christ, to history. They have an almost and “were not permitted to en- universal relevance (not a relevance joy any fascinating side-tracks.” I alone for alcoholics). They will ofshould say unhesitatingly that the fer a “way out” for many a person success of AA lies in the readiness who knows nothing personally of of its members to go to any trouble alcoholism. They will point up “the to help other alcoholics, and that way” for those who have known it when this readiness cools, it is a and lost it. Thank God for the danger signal. There was an old Twelve Steps and for a man wise phrase that used to be curreflt and enough and open enough to God which contains a great g e m of and to the observation of human spiritual truth: Out of Self into God experience to receive these truths, into Others. Herein is spiritual wis- and transmit them to the world!