My wife loves getting flowers. A cluster of cut flowers is like a magician’s wand. She could be in a blue funk on a winter day, and a surprise bouquet will have her smiling from ear to ear.
For me, the effect is a puzzle. First, the change of attitude outweighs the flowers’ apparent value; the difference that an inexpensive bouquet triggers is enormous. Second, there is no apparent causal connection between her feeling better and cut flowers, but the reaction is very predictable.
Fortunately, I don’t have to understand it; I just have to do it.
Our AA Program is like this.
Firstly, when I compare the change, sobriety, to the effort, doing the Steps, the two are not proportionate. The Twelve Steps involve actions, but they are trivial when I consider the change. Doing the Steps and going to meetings takes a fraction of the time that drinking used to consume. And the change that occurs in an alcoholic’s life is gigantic; it is nothing less than relief from a seemingly hopeless condition. And it is a condition that defied all prior solutions.
Secondly, there is no logical connection between the Steps and long term, contented abstinence from our addiction. Counter-intuitively, some of the steps could increase the chance of drinking.
Meditation would seem to be a waste of time, but people who meditate are more productive than those who do not, and they stay sober. How does spending time doing nothing help keep me from a first drink? It seems to me that wasting that much time would result in procrastination and increased anxiety, and this, in turn, could lead to me reaching for a bottle.
A detailed moral inventory followed by assiduous work on removing defects seems to result in serene and sober living; how is this connected to dealing with a hopeless condition of mind and body? Writing out all my sins of omission and commission, then talking about them somehow relieves me of the desire for grog? I would think that dredging up all my past and confronting the consequences of my actions would drive me to drink, not stop me from drink.
Our Program of Twelve Steps causes changes that are greater than the apparent value of the Steps, and these changes don’t seem to have a rational connection to the Steps.
But I buy flowers for my wife and reap the benefits.
And I do the Steps and reap the benefits.
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