November 1 9 8 2

From A A Today (1960)

AA Steps for the Underprivileged Non-AA by Edward J. Dowling, S.J.

mous, Crime Prevention, Recovery, Inc., Divorcdes Anonymous, Divor- success with this type of gluttony gluttony, but also for the larger class c k s Unanimous, WANA, Adiposics opens new hope for the better-known of body compulsions of which glut- Anonymous, the Mattachine Society, gluttony which is killing many people tony is a species. Gluttony is a species Average People, Nicotinic Nobodies, – respectfully autopsied as obesity of sensuality or inordinate body Daughters of Bilitis, Gamblers Anon- or overweight. drives. Unarrested alcoholism is senymous, Check Writers Anonymous, My 240-pound gluttony gave me suality. Sensuality covers such situa- Security Cloister, Politicians Anon- two heart attacks. An alcoholic doc- tions as too many cancer-threatening ymous, and other self-help groups in tor got me down toward 180 when he cigarettes and qualitativeor quantitaareas of varying degrees of serious- advised a total AA abstinence from tive sex problems. I have seen a comness and helplessness. starch, butter, salt, and sugar. He pulsive infatuation (with its sensual .. Definitions of Twelfth Step words said these four foods were probably concomitants and addiction) yield to in the Twelve Steps suggest the extent my “alcohol.” Abstinence was so the AA Steps. Some ten years ago, I of the applicati~nof these Steps to much easier than temperance. The arrested my own nicotine addiction

M ORE INFLUENTIAL on history than the Nile or the Mississippi is another river – the Gulf nonalcoholics. “Sanity” in the Second Step agrees with psychiatrists’ classification of “balanced” diet often prescribed was loaded with these four “cravingcreating appetizers.” I was like a lush with the help of the AA Steps. In moving their therapy from the expensive clinical couch to the low- Stream. Without it, the British Isles alcoholism as a psychosis. If these tapering off on ‘martinis. Only after cost coffee bar, from the inexperiwould be as bleak as Labrador or Steps can arrest one psychosis, why the discovery of the AA approach to enced professional to the amateur Siberia. not other psychoses and neuroses? At craving-creating intake did I realize expert, AA has democratized sanity. AA is like a Gulf Stream in the least two groups, Security Cloister that the Jesuit Ignatius’ first rule for As Columbus, Marquette, and ocean of today’s life. It is indistin- and Average People, use AA’s diet in his Spiritual Exercises was to Lewis and Clark pushed forward the guishable from its banks – but its Twelve Steps as a filter for spiritual’ go easy on craving-creating food and terminals of our frontier, so AA has winds, like burnt incense, whisper and religious helps in arresting drink. advanced the frontiers of hope even hope and life to human Siberias. neuroses and psychoses. AA’s success with liquid gluttony in situations otherwise “powerless.” “It’s like AA” has been the pass- Alcohol is a narcotic. Narcotics opens up a hope, not only for solid The psychiatrist has alerted the port to acceptance among the Anonymous members use the Twelve dignosclerotic (hardening of the Steps. dignity) for such stigma-pilloried Alcoholism is, when unchecked, movements as Narcotics Anony- gluttony for alcoholic drink. AA’s ” ..

nonpsychiatric doctor to the psychic that resulted has salvaged many ergs dimension of somatic disorders. AA of wasted effort. alerted both to a third dimension, the Sometimes, non-AA members of spiritual or religious, and pioneered an AA family are quicker to underan ethical-psychosomatic therapy. stand the Twelfth Step application of That means that the cure for the these principles to all our affairs than shakes is via the shaker’s belief in is the AA, who is transfuted in the ab- God. sorbing contemplation of his new Psychiatrists alerted the clergy to sanity, social life, and psychiatricthe “cause and cure significance” of sacerdotal role. Possibly, if the AA the spiritual or psychic. AA helped spent less time and energy in the them even more by demonstrating the breadth dimension of spreading AA “cause and cure significance” of and more in the length and depth religion. The agnostic smog of urban dimensions, the breadth of its spread materialism had corroded religious might not be limited to such a low heirlooms of many spiritually impov- percentage of the world’s alc0holics. erished people. Yet it was in the The length dimension means the ap sophisticated urban saloons that plication of these Steps to all our those religious values were recovered affairs – sedatives, tensions, cornby many. Roger Babson’s dictum pulsions, and so on. The depth di- “The greatest of our undeveloped mension is suggested by the Eleventh resources is faith” suggests the pro- Step, “Sought through prayer and found contribution that the AA meditation. . .for knowledge of His Second Step has made to many. The will for us and the power to w r y that dramatic ethical focus in many lives out.”