April 1 9 5 8

change the lower creatures almost roundings which we desire to at will. The animals and plants now change. most serviceable to man have been Samuel Taylor Coleridge was one

From AA’s Scrapbook tamed from wild types. Dogs are but reclaimed wolves and jackals. Grains, vegetables, fruits, and garof the saddest spectacles in history. A man of brilliant mind, literary gifts and creative ability, he was for den flowers are the cultivated off- years in the grip of the opium habit. Second Nature spring of wild forms. But when man turns to change himself, he is not He once wrote to a friend that for ten years the anguish of his spirit so successful. In fact, he has had had been inexpressible. He had such poor results in improving tho prayed for deliverance with d r o p human species, that many cynically of agony on his brow. He said: say that human nature cannot be “You bid me rouse myself. Better changed; that man, for instance, is go and bid a man paralyzed in both a fighting animal, always has been arms to rub them together and it and always will be, and therefore, will cure him. I pray-to be able wars are inevitable. to pray.” Can this human nature of ours be Now, if any person feels the grip THEEARLY AA SCRAPBOOKS ccntain, among the myriad routine news clip- changed? Or as Nicodemus put it of a habit like that, or suffers repings, an occasional nugget of pure gold. The article that follows is just centuries ago, “How can a man be morse for sins which he traces to such a treasure. It is malerid excerpted from a long sermon which Dr. born when he is old?” himself, then he really wants to be Sockman”de1ivered over a nationwide radio broadcast on December 5 , changed. First of all, let us say that a man But the trouble is that sinful 1943. The program, “National Radio Pulpit,” had an enormous audience. can be born only through the pangs habit so often is felt by us as a The reference to A A which Dr. Sockman made in this broadcast is the of birth. To be born of the flesh groove rather than a grip. A grip is first we have found in which a noted churchnun refers, on a national costs travail. Likewise we are born painful, but a groove is frequently communication medium, to the spiritual attributes of fhe A A program of of the spirit only out of travail. We just the opposite. I t is p l e t to recovery from alcoholism. Dr. Sockman has remained throughout the cannot change the pattern of our go along in a groove. The pain years one of AA’s most outspoken and ardent friends. He is Rector of : Christ Church in New York City, and a regular A A group has long bren a welcome termnt on meeting nights. lives, we cannot change the perver- comes when we try to get out. sity of our sinful natures, unless we Hence we slide along in a groove of want to do it most desperately. sin and become quite free from re- How CAN A MAN be born when he sorry for their vanity or have re- How many of us seriously want morse. Byron in “The Prisoner of is old? morse for their passions. Man, how- to change ourselves? Of course, Chillon” describes the contentment Man differs from all other living ever, is incurably self-conscious. He many of us desire to change the of the man adjusted to his imprisbeings in his deliberate desire to suffers remorse for what he has conditions of our living. We want oning condition: change himself. So far as we can been and is disturbed by dreams the world better. We want salvation M y very chains and I grew friends; tell, other animals do not mirror of what he wants to be. “He looks for ourselves and our loved ones. So much a long cornrnuniun tends But we can crave all this, and still To make us what we are:—even 1 themselves in their thoughts. They before and after and pines for what Regained my freedom with a sigh. may strut and pout and assume at- is not.” not really desire to change our own titudes that look human; but there lives. If we would be born again, Thus we can describe our adjust- And yet man, who struggles so is no evidence that they are ever the first thing to get clear is that it ment to the groove of bad habit in hard to make himself over, can is ourselves and not our mere sur- the poetic language of a Byron. Or

we can put it more simply in the with that of Saul’s which was more twine which we have been winding. n clear-cut break with the old bad naive prayer of a little boy who of the mental type-Augustine’s. habits is a common cause of defeat. In that single fall, more twine is unprayed: “0Lord, make me a better With Paul it was a new birth out of In Stevenson’s familiar story of wound than many turns will wind boy if you can; but if you can’t, a mental state; with Augustine it “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” Dr. UP. don’t mind it too much, for I am was a new birth out of a moral hell Jekyll was always smitten with re- Again, Scripture clearly stresses getting along pretty well as is.” So –but both these new births came morse when he recovered from a this truth. A man once started to many of us are not taking this mat- out of travail, longing, anguished debauch, but he never destroyed follow Jesus, and then came asking ter of being born again too seri- desire. Do I hear someone say, the vicious potion by which he that he might return home to bury ously, for we feel we are “getting “Yes, but I never had a new birth, could change himself into Mr. his father. The reply he got was, along pretty well as is.” and I am not sure that I need it. Hyde. That was his fatal error. “Let the dead bury the dead.” That The question is, do we really want Isn’t it enough if I grow gradually Strongly emphasized in the New was only a sharpsurgically sharp to be changed? To be born of the from good to better?” Well, we all Testament is this principle of mak- -way of saying, “Beware of makspirit requires the travail of strug- have different temperaments, but ing a clean break: “No man having ing exception to good resolutions.” . gling desire, the anguish of heart- we must each beware lest we take ‘l’he third rule which William put his hand to the plow and lookfelt longing. Out of such irxubation the whole matter too easily and ing back is fit for the Kingdom of James gave for getting away from comes conversion like that of Saul smoothly. There are growing pains God.” And the cryptic injunction, bad habits is this: Seize the very of Tarsus. Saul had been brooding as well as birth pangs. And if we “Remember Lot’s wife.” However first opportunity to act on every over the new Christian sect which have no times when our spirits are you interpret the story of Lot’s good resolution you make. The best he felt to be undermining the faith in travail, no times when we strugwife, the point of it is that she was way to clinch a conviction is to act of his fathers. But he was deeply gle to deliver ourselves from d e looking longingly back to the place upon it. We often say that the way troubled in his mind with the irre- structive habits and states of mind she was leaving instead of looking to do good is to be good. That is pressible,feeling that maybe these . -then let us look out. . . ahead to the place she was meant true, but it is equally true that the Christians were right. He had seen And now let us say a second to go. Yes, the first rule is, launch way to be good is to do good. Stephen stoned to death and he had thing. We enter into this new life Consider this principle in the difout from the state you are trying to beheld on the dying martyr’s face not only through travaii, but leave with all the force and clear- ficult realm of breaking “the drink a beatific smile. Whence came the through effort. Here I am going to cut decisiveness at your command. habit.” One of the most successful faith of these Christians which adopt for our guidance the rules The second rule is this: Never movements in the treatment of almuld make them live so. joyously given by William James, America’s suffer an exception to occur until coholism is Alcoholics Anonymous. and die so gaily? Saul tried to sup- premier psychologist of the last genthe new habit is securely rooted in One of the “rules” of the organizapress these questionings, but on the eration. Professor James laid these your life. I n J o Jefferson’s play, tion is that as soon as the addict Damascus Road his subconscious down as the rules for breaking a “Rip Van Winkle,” the tippling Rip starts “the cure,” he begins working mind experienced a volcanic erup- habit. a t each indulgence of his thirst to help someone else through the tion and out of the depths of his The first one is this: Launch would say, “I’ll not count this one.” same struggle. When we give an soul a voice sounded, saying “Saul, yourself on the new course with as Well, Rip may not have kept count, arm to help another, it strengthens Saul, why persecutest thou me?’ strong an initiative as possible. but his nerve cells took note of it; our own arm. Unable to endure the inner conflict When Julius Caesar crossed the Ru- That is the principle on which and the next time his temptation longer, Saul surrendered his rebel- bicon to start his march on the Re- came that cell added its appeal to Jesus worked: quite early in his lious reason and found “the peace public at Rome, he d e c l d dra- the craving of his appetite, and he ministry he sent out seventy of his of God which passeth all under- matically, “The die is cast” But he was by so much the weaker man. followers two by two to teach and standing.” did more. He burned the pontoons When we make an exception to the heal. They were not fully prepared. Another historic conversion came behind him. He cut off the incen- good resolution we have formed, it They made mistakes. But they out of a moral conflict, in contrast tive of retreat. The failure to make is like the dropping of a ball of learned by doing. And by their ef-

forts in service they prevented “the you by a little gratuitous exercise return of the evil spirits.” In the every day. We may think that in words of a famous parable, when a view of life’s many demands on us house has been cleared of its evil it is foolish to talk about giving spirits and then is left empty, the ourselves extra effort in good exerdevils return worse than before. cises, but our natures are like our This principle of clinching good muscles. Some parts of oumelves resolutions with action applies to get plenty of exercise while others all human endeavor, personal and are neglected. We need to watch public. The important thing is to and stretch the neglected parts of start, on whatever program for im- our natures, both spiritual and provement we are resolved. Imper- physical. We need to force ourselves fect those programs may be at first. to some little extra deeds of dis- Nevertheless we must start. Remem- cipline and self-denial each day. ber how the Sermon on the Mpunt Only thus can we keep spiritually closes. … After all those blessed fit. counsels come these words: “Every- Let us stop debating whrtht~wta one that heareth these words of shall do some things which wc3 mine and doeth them not, shall be ought to take for granted. By taklikened unto a foolish man, which ing some practices over into the

k built his ouse upon the sand; and the rain escended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat realm of automatic habit, we shall free ourselves for the handling of our more baffling problems. upon that house, and it fell; and In the language of our old copygreat was the fall thereof.” book maxims: “Sow an act and you And now just a word about the reap a habit; sow a habit and you fourth rule for changing. habits: reap a character; sow a character Keep the faculty of effort alive in and you reap a destiny.”