“Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly
followed our path."
(Alcoholics
Anonymous, 4th ed., 26)
Dick B.’s Story
(November 25, 2013)
I was born in Stockton, California, in 1925. I was the only
child of two loving parents. My dad was a successful securities salesman. My
mother was a concert pianist and studied the Bible every day. My dad had quit
smoking before I was born, and neither parent gave evidence of any problem with
alcohol. I saw no reason to smoke, and I didn’t. I saw no reason to drink, and
I did not drink until I returned from the Army at age 21.
In school, I excelled. Top of my class in high school and
valedictorian at my graduation. At the University of California in Berkeley, I
was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in my Junior Year and was president of the Inter
Fraternity Scholastic Honor Society. At Stanford University, I was elected to
the board of Stanford Law Review, on the basis of grades, and became Case
Editor of the Stanford Law Review in my second year on the board.
I married a Stanford girl, and we had two sons. Neither she
nor the sons were or became alcoholics. Throughout our long marriage, we never prayed
together or read the Bible together. This, even though I became president of
the Mill Valley Community Church, and my
wife busied herself with church affairs. Unfortunately, six months after our
marriage, she had a major bipolar incident, the nature of which continued for
18 years. And, after a successful ten-year career as an attorney in a San
Francisco law firm, I opened my own law office in Corte Madera, California. I
had suffered from sleeping problems in law school and ever since. A
psychiatrist had been the first of many physicians who enabled me, step by
step, to become dependent upon and to abuse high-powered sedatives and such
mind-altering palliatives as valium, thorazine, and quide. Worse, I began
mixing them with drinks during the night; and soon I was passing out on the
kitchen floor each morning with an almost unbearable body discomfort I called
the “heeby jeebies”—not a shaking without, but certainly an unbelievable
trembling within. None of this had the slightest impact in deterring my
continued excessive drinking.
As success in my law practice increased, the time spent practicing
law decreased. The money poured in. The drinking accelerated to the point that
I was daily in an almost-drunken state by day’s end. I drank at service club
meetings, at chamber of commerce functions, at church meetings, at social
events, at the business quarters of a regular drinking buddy next door to my
office, and finally alone at home in the evenings. My wife wouldn’t even leave
the kitchen to join me despite appeals for her company. If someone had told me
I had a problem with alcohol and prescription drugs—and they did—my response
was that the problem was my wife, my sleep disorders, and occasionally the
number of “minor” auto accidents which occurred when I drank “just a little too
much.” Friends, colleagues, physicians, my minister, and other erring
commentators—including even some bartenders—began to tell me and others that I
was drinking too much. But that did not deter me at all. I had reached the
point where I didn’t care what they thought.
I quit drinking for almost two years, however, when my
doctor suggested I go on the Pritikin Diet to lose a considerable amount of
weight and also to eliminate liquor “for a while.” In this endeavor, I also
excelled, losing some 80 pounds, swimming daily, drinking soda water, and
following the Pritikin formula. Then I left my wife—cold turkey. The kids had
graduated from college and made new lives, and the joy in my marriage had long
since left. Or so I thought.
Armed with this new-found fighting trim, I believed that I
deserved to renew drinking. But alcohol and drugs had taken a toll I did not
recognize. They had removed inhibitions and restraints that had previously been
solid moral standards in my life. I began engaging in unethical and
irresponsible behavior with a “let them eat cake” attitude. And then I got
caught. A resentful relative of a client called the newspapers and the State
Bar. My name appeared repeatedly in the news, along with my picture. I became
severely depressed, anxious, ashamed, terrified, and guilt-ridden; my clients
vanished; and I drank with a vengeance I hadn’t imagined possible. Nothing
changed. In fact, everything seemed to get increasingly worse and
unbearable—the depression, the drinking, the sleeping pills, the troubles, and
the terror. Finally, I consulted a psychiatrist who recommended different
sleeping pills and anti-depressants. But I couldn’t wait. I went home, poured a
four-ounce glass of cheap gin, and went into an entire week’s blackout—a period
I can’t recall or describe even these 22 years later. And that incident, plus a
return to the psychiatrist, and the suggestion of my ex-wife, brought me to the
rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous two days sober and ready to conquer the world
without booze. But nobody in A.A. had told me about detoxing, seizures,
brain-damaged thinking, and bodily withdrawal misery.
What did happen was a series of events that has left me with
a continuing appreciation of the unique value of Alcoholics Anonymous to new
and still-suffering alcoholics. At early meetings, I had feared the opinions of
those who had seen my picture in the newspapers, who might discover some of the
things I had done, and who were not as crazy as I was becoming. But those items
were definitely unimportant to the mass of drunks I met. At every meeting I
attended, I was hugged, welcomed, given phone numbers to call, invited to join
other alcoholics after the meetings, given meeting schedules for later
meetings, told to “stick with the winners” and “keep coming back” because “it
works.” I used the phone numbers repeatedly, followed other recovered
alcoholics around, and went to meetings without ceasing. I began to participate
in A.A. service where given the opportunity. What these things did for me
inspired me to go and do likewise. And I still do. I never see a newcomer at a
meeting or a conference or even in a personal encounter without a focus on that
person’s story and needs and a possible opportunity to help.
Within the first nine days of sobriety, however, things
changed. I had three grand-mal seizures, the first at an A.A. meeting, the
second in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, and the third in the
Emergency Room. And these, in turn, took me to a 28-day treatment program—in
all cases, with no significant mention of the importance of turning to God for
help. Hence I didn’t. I put abstinence and A.A. first—just as they seemed to be
urging.
In no time at all, I faced the wreckage of the past—sober,
but stuck as well with a relentless District Attorney, State Bar
investigations, a series of ponderous tax audits and levies, divorce
outcroppings, loss of my Law License, lack of means of support other than that
remaining from my own earlier investments, and a terror and depression and
despair that far exceeded that in my drinking period. Without booze or sleeping
pills, I went sleepless for months and months. I felt like a zombie. I shook
for five years. They called me “Shaky Dick.” And my mind was seemingly only a
shadow of its former self—producing mostly forgetfulness, confusion,
bewilderment, incessant and irrelevant chatter, and tangential talk patterns.
Added to that was the unpleasant fact that I was wetting my pants regularly in
A.A. meetings.
By the end of the second month of my sobriety—the period
just after I was discharged from the treatment program—I couldn’t handle any of
these problems any longer; so I checked into a VA psychiatric ward in San
Francisco and there remained for two months. I wasn’t as looney as some of the
patients, but I was twice as jittery, anxious, and talkative as most of them. I
was diagnosed as having some form of “hypomania.” I now believe it was “fear”
mania!
But I had definitely caught the A.A. bug. I didn’t drink. I
didn’t take sleeping pills. I suffered miserably from fear and insomnia. I went
to A.A. meetings devotedly, called my sponsor regularly, and followed the
crowd. Very importantly, I was made to feel wanted. I sought A.A. companionship
in meetings and retreats and conferences and studies. I chased newcomers and
tried to help them—even dragging alcoholics from the VA psych ward with me to
A.A. meetings all over the San Francisco Area. But terror and despair still
plagued me at every turn.
I faced prison, financial ruin, a lost reputation,
unbearable physical consequences of delayed withdrawal, incredible mental
incapacity, insomnia, depression, uncontrolled anxiety, loneliness, and a
seemingly-hopeless state of fear. I briefly wanted to take my life—in sobriety!
Neither abstinence nor A.A. nor the psych ward were cutting it for me. And God was not part of the
A.A. program in which I was so eagerly involved in Marin County, California
But two factors dramatically changed both the circumstances
and my entire life at about eight months of sobriety. These came into play
while I was in the psychiatric ward in San Francisco. One of my sons kept
insisting that I needed to study the Bible and get back into what I had learned
about the availability of help from my Heavenly Father and the accomplishments
of His son Jesus Christ. He sent me tapes to which I began listening. And then,
almost every day, an elderly friend from our Bible fellowship kept calling me
long distance and listening to me wail. Finally, he asked why I didn’t stop
trying to program my life and instead let God guide it. He cited the story of
Peter’s walking on the water. When Peter believed, said this man, he walked.
When he became afraid, he sank. And it took Jesus to pull him out of the water.
I quickly saw that I had a choice—to learn and believe what God had to offer,
or to yield my thinking to the seeming disasters the world was offering. I
chose the former. Already a born-again believer since my trip to the Holy Land
in 1979, I dived into the Bible. I believed. Peace came. And without a doubt, I
can say that my almost-instantaneous response to these events was to believe
that, no matter what might lie ahead, God had the answers to life; and that I
had better seek Him first. Later I was to learn that A.A. cofounder Dr. Bob had
stated clearly that the slogan “First Things First” came directly from Matthew
6:33 – Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added
unto you.
On weekend passes from the psych ward, I began attending my
elderly friend’s Bible fellowship. I stuck with A.A., I stuck with prayer to
God and the Bible, and I stuck with the Bible fellowship also. And I got well.
Quickly! Nurses noticed it. Family members noticed it. And even my attorney
announced that I was ready to bite the bullet—facing whatever the courts, the
State Bar, and the newspapers had to throw at me.
The result? I was
buttressed with solid sobriety, the A.A. program, and the Word of God. I had a
Big Book and a Bible. And my sponsor jokingly observed: Dick is armed, but not
dangerous. The fear vanished. I faced and dealt with court hearings,
imprisonment, financial problems, divorce problems, tax problems, and
reputation problems. I was released from the VA and began A.A. life in earnest.
I studied and learned A.A.’s Big Book. I studied, practiced, “took” the Steps,
and learned how to take others through, the Twelve Steps. I sponsored
newcomers. I served the Fellowship as a speaker, chairperson, secretary,
treasurer, General Service Representative, greeter, chair carrier, and floor
sweeper. I went to A.A. meetings, gatherings, retreats, conferences, birthday
parties, dances, and campouts. It was then time to grow in my relationship
with, understanding of, and fellowship with my Heavenly Father, and to change
my emphasis to serving and glorifying Him. But I hadn’t fully grasped the fact.
Nonetheless, I began bringing newcomers to Christ, and into
our Bible fellowship, while not in any way diminishing their participation in
and service to Alcoholics Anonymous. Today some of these newcomers are more
than 18 years sober, are married, have a family and a job, and are blessed with
strong believing. I thanked God daily for what He had done for me. I asked God
daily for His directions as to how to serve Him. I studied the Bible daily and
read Bible-based literature daily. I prayed to God daily for myself and others.
I affirmed the clear evidence that God could and would and did rescue me.
I began fellowshipping with like-minded believers—many of
whom had been completely cured of alcoholism and addiction without even having
heard of Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous. But I stuck to them, to
A.A., and to helping others in A.A. I still do. Today, however, I devote many
many hours to researching and reporting the Christian predecessors, Christian
upbringing, and Christian Fellowship of early A.A.
I had done all things without any knowledge of the fact that
my behavior much resembled the behavior of the pioneers in A.A., and of those in numerous movements that came
into existence before A.A., and even the actions of First Century Christians as
reported in Acts. And what had my
“predecessors” done?
Here is how I found out. I had been sober and very active in
A.A. for about four years. One night, a young man named John—now dead of
alcoholism—walked up to me in a Step Study meeting in San Rafael, California,
and asked if I knew that A.A. had come from the Bible. John was in the Bible
fellowship I was involved with and knew of my interest in Scripture. I
responded that I had been to hundreds and hundreds of meetings; that I had been
to many conferences; but that I had never heard such a thing. John suggested
that I read the A.A. General Service Conference-approved book, DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers (New York, NY:
Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1980). John said it would provide
details about the biblical roots of our A.A. Fellowship. He pointed out that
the Book of James had been so popular in early A.A. that members had wanted to
call their Society, “the James Club.” I jumped at the suggestion and began
reading as much A.A. historical material as I could find. There was actually relatively
little. Yet, sure enough, the Bible was mentioned frequently. Also the James
Club account. Also Dr. Bob’s statements that the basic ideas of A.A. had come
from the pioneers’ study of the Bible; that the old-timers believed the answers
to their problems were in the Bible; and that the Book of James, Jesus’ Sermon
on the Mount, and 1 Corinthians 13 were considered absolutely essential to the
program’s success. [See the A.A. General Service Conference-approved pamphlet,
The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous: Biographical Sketches; Their Last
Major Talks (New York, NY: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1972,
1975), 11-14, 18-20.] I was later to learn that most of the material in Dr.
Bob’s talk was incorporated into the DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers book I had
previously read.
And success there had been for sure. The A.A. basic text,
Alcoholics Anonymous (also known as the Big Book), stated that, of those
alcoholics who really tried, 50% got sober and remained that way; and 25%
sobered up after some relapses. [See Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed. (New York,
NY: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 2001), xx.] It also said of the
A.A. members whose stories were included in the book: “Each individual, in the
personal stories, describes in his own language and from his own point of view
the way he established his relationship with God” (Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th
ed., 29). DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers
pointed out on page 261: “Records in Cleveland show that 93 percent of those
who came to us never had a drink again.” And the early Cleveland A.A.
fellowship used the same principles that had been used successfully in Akron,
together with the Big Book (first published in 1939), the Bible, the Twelve Steps, and the “Four Absolutes” of
the Oxford Group (absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute unselfishness,
and absolute love) as moral standards for testing behavior.
Wow!
Then came a further turning point—an event which was to
change my life pursuits, my interests, and my service to the Creator and His son
Jesus Christ. I had never heard anything significant about God, or Jesus
Christ, or the Bible in the many A.A. fellowship meetings I had attended. Yet
A.A.’s own General Service Conference-approved literature contained much to
suggest there was more to the picture than most knew. For example, I had read
that early AAs in Akron had called themselves a Christian fellowship. (See DR.
BOB and the Good Oldtimers, 118.) I had read that they stressed Bible study and
old-fashioned prayer meetings. I had read that Christian literature was
distributed to them by Dr. Bob for reading and study. And I had read that Dr.
Bob always insisted that newcomers in the hospital profess a belief in God and
surrender their lives to Christ. [See Dick B., The Akron Genesis of Alcoholics
Anonymous, 2d ed. (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc. 1998),
177-78, 181-86, 187, 188-215. And see also DR. BOB, 144, for the specifics of
what I later found.]
I still knew very, very little about what the A.A. pioneers
actually did, where they got their ideas, and why their program produced such a
high rate of success.
In almost every meeting I attended, there was incessant
chatter about some “higher power.” One man insisted his “higher power” was
Ralph. A scholar wrote that his higher power had been “Gertrude.” A newspaper
reporter in Akron said “it” could be a “radiator.” Many AAs insisted that “it”
was a rock. Another insisted that “it” was a chair. One pamphlet showed “it”
was called a “light bulb.” And still another AA in our Wednesday night meeting insisted
that “it” was the Big Dipper. These remarks were made regularly in meetings I
attended in Marin County, California. There was also bizarre talk about
“spirituality” that was foreign to my ears. Where, I thought, did such nonsense
come from? To make matters worse, my own friend and sponsor began telling me
that people who read the Bible got drunk. His sponsor convened a meeting where
he and my own sponsor “warned” me that I was getting ready to drink because I
had brought my sponsees to a Bible fellowship. But there was still more to be
experienced and endured. Not for long in Marin County, however. I moved to
Hawaii.
I myself have never been the slightest bit concerned about
the fact that many of my A.A. friends are Roman Catholics and Jews and that
they talk about their faith in meetings. But I began picking up at A.A. meetings
some A.A. General Service Conference-approved literature which seemed to
endorse, and even encourage, unbelief—the idea that you didn’t need to believe
in anything at all to get well. The following are but a few of many examples:
“A.A. is not a religious society, since it requires no
definite religious belief as a condition of membership. . . . Included in its
membership are Catholics, Protestants, Jews, members of other religious bodies,
agnostics, and atheists. . . . A.A. suggests that to achieve and maintain
sobriety, alcoholics need to accept and depend upon another Power recognized as
greater than themselves. Some alcoholics choose to consider the A.A. group
itself as the power greater than themselves; for many others, this power is
God—as they individually understand Him; still others rely upon entirely
different concepts of a Higher Power” [44 Questions, 19].
“The majority of A.A. members believe that we have found the
solution to our drinking problem not through individual willpower, but through
a power greater than ourselves. However, everyone defines this power as he or
she wishes. Many people call it God, others think it is the A.A. group, still
others don’t believe in it at all. There is room in A.A. for people of all
shades of belief and nonbelief” [A Newcomer Asks . . .].
“While some members prefer to call this Power ‘God,’ we were
told that this was purely a matter of personal interpretation; we could
conceive of the Power in any terms we thought fit” [This is AA: An Introduction
to the A.A. Recovery Program, 15].
“Many people in A.A. talk about ‘God’ or a ‘Higher Power,’
but A.A. is not connected with any religion. A.A. is a spiritual program, not a
religious one. Faith is a personal thing and it is not necessary to believe in
God or in any form of religion to be a member of A.A. . . . Atheists,
agnostics, and believers of all religions have a place in A.A.—provided they
wish to stay away from the first drink.” [AA and the Gay/Lesbian Alcoholic,
16].
The foregoing statements were not consistent with A.A.’s Big
Book text as I read it. A.A.’s Steps said it was about “coming to believe.”
(See Step Two.) Neither were those statements consistent with Bill Wilson’s
message that the Lord had cured him of his terrible disease (Alcoholics Anonymous,
4th ed., 191). Neither were they consistent with Dr. Bob’s statement that he
felt sorry for the atheist and the agnostic because “Your Heavenly Father will
never let you down” [Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., 181]. Nor were they
consistent with Dr. Bob’s insistence that newcomers profess a belief in God
before they were released from Akron City Hospital (DR. BOB and the Good
Oldtimers, 144). Granted, such statements are not today considered mandatory,
any more than opening the parachute is when you jump out of an airplane. But
they represented to me the wisdom of the winners—our founders. In fact, my son
and I recently published a title “Stick With the Winners” which shows
specifically how many times “God” and descriptions of Him are used in today’s
Conference-approved A.A. literature.
I didn’t have a problem with the diversity and varieties of
believers and unbelievers I met in the rooms of A.A. But I had a big problem
with the ever-increasing vocalizing by a few “bleeding deacons” (as some call
them) who said that you could not mention the Bible or God or Jesus Christ in a
meeting; that the Bible and other religious literature were not
“Conference-approved” and therefore could not be brought to a meeting; or that
it was a violation of the Twelve Traditions of A.A. for a person to share his
or her own experience about how he or she established his or her relationship
with God. And the “official,” “A.A. General Service Conference-approved
literature” quoted above, combined with the vociferous and
seemingly-irrepressible outbursts of some at meetings, seemed to me to be at
great variance with the program I entered, the program I had learned from the
Big Book, and the encouragement I had received from A.A. members and meetings
when I needed it most—even when I talked much about looking to God for help in
my life.
I wondered how one could reject God in a program which spoke
so much about God. Stewart C., has shown that the word “God”—when considered
together with synonyms and pronouns referring to Him--can be found more than
400 times in A.A.’s Big Book. [Stewart C., A Reference Guide to the Big Book of
Alcoholics Anonymous (Seattle, WA: Recovery Press, 1986), 115-16)]. So I
resolved to go to the Seattle International Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous
in 1990 in order to try to find out what role, if any, the Bible had really
played in the founding, development, program, and successes of Alcoholics
Anonymous. There I met Frank Mauser, the General Service Archivist from New York.
But I was able to discover very little about the role of the Bible in early
A.A. And upon my return, my older son and I had a discussion about launching a
real effort to discover what role, if any, God, Jesus Christ, and the Bible had
played in the tremendous successes of early A.A.
With encouragement from Frank Mauser, Dr. Bob’s children
(Sue Smith Windows and Robert R. Smith), Ray G. (archivist at Dr. Bob’s Home in
Akron), and later Ozzie and Bonnie L.
(the managers of the Wilson House where Bill Wilson was born in East Dorset,
Vermont)—I devoted the next 24 years to learning details about A.A.’s use of
the Bible. I investigated what its early program really did; where the reliance
of members on God really fit in; what proof there was of the early success
rates; and what institutions, principles, practices, and Bible studies had
impacted on early A.A., on the Big Book and Twelve Steps, and ultimately on the
literature of today. I’ll let those who would like to know more about what I
have discovered so far learn the details from my 46 published titles and over
1600 articles on the subject. (See http://www.dickb.com/titles.shtml.) But, to
say the least, there is far more to A.A., its roots, its successes, and its
early reliance on the Creator for healing and help than virtually anyone
involved in present-day treatment, therapy, professional groups, 12-Step
groups, or religious fellowships knows.
Simmered to its essence, the program’s strength really rests
on the method the first three AAs used to get sober before there were any Big
Books, Twelve Steps, Twelve Traditions, War Stories, or meetings as we know
them today. The elements were simple. They had been used by the Salvation Army,
the Rescue Missions, the YMCA, the evangelists like Moody, and
Congregationalism. They were: (1) Renounce liquor for life after admitting you
are licked. (2) Turn to God for help. (3) Help others get well the same way.
Today I believe there is “A New Way Out” of the wilderness.
“A New Way Out” for children of the living Creator who are awash and adrift in
the sea of gossip, speculation, and unbelief that exists in most of today’s
recovery scene. What wilderness? It is a wilderness that A.A. “cofounder” Rev.
Sam Shoemaker called “self-made religion” and “absurd names for God.” A
wilderness of outright idolatrous thinking and amateur psychological
introspection. Let me illustrate “A New Way Out” with my own experiences.
The alcoholic: The “wilderness” I am speaking about concerns
the alcoholic’s own plight—not the nature or shortcomings of A.A., of N.A., or
of other 12-Step or recovery-oriented fellowships. As I have told above, I had
become a full-fledged drunk and sleeping pill addict by the time of my entry
into A.A. Smitten by a seemingly-uncontrollable intention to drink too much
regardless of the consequences. Driven by a desire to return to the mire again
and again, despite the known and predictable self-destructive disasters. Bill
Wilson wrote: “Many do not comprehend that the alcoholic is a very sick person”
[Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., xiii]. I was! The Bible called the sickness a
sin. The Bible did clearly command “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is
excess; . . .” (Ephesians 5:18a, KJV). But I did just that! Later, in sobriety,
I came to see what I had actually been doing. I drank. I got drunk. I produced
disaster. Yet I returned to that same pattern over and over—always seeing the
disasters get worse. Many have called this “lunacy.” Perhaps the Apostle Peter
best described the behavior when he spoke of the proverb, “The dog is returned
to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the
mire.” (2 Peter 2:21, KJV). But I got tired of hearing in A.A. that I was
“powerless” over alcohol, even over “people, places, and things.” Such doleful “acceptance” didn’t sit right
with what I knew was my own need for responsibility, believing, control, and
accountability. In fact, however, Dr. Bob’s wife Anne made plain in her journal
that a stronger power than mine was needed achieve victory. (See Dick B., Anne
Smith’s Journal, 1933-1939; http://dickb.com/annesm.shtml.)
And when--as a child of the one, true, living God--I utilized that power and
did what God commanded in the Bible, I neither drank again, nor wanted to.
There remained, however, a very real and destructive condition and illness still
to be dealt with—brain damage, withdrawal, fear, anxiety, guilt, shame,
despair, legal troubles, imprisonment, hospitalization, confusion,
forgetfulness, sleeplessness, bewilderment. I didn’t want to drink. I just
wanted it all to go away—immediately! I just wanted out. But I found for myself
that God provided the power, the strength, the healing, the forgiveness, the
guidance, and the rescue. I could and did face the multiple problems believing
the truths in biblical promises like these:
I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou
shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye. (Psa 32:8, KJV)
I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from
all my fears. (Psa 34:4, KJV)
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in
trouble. (Psa 46:1, KJV)
In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man
can do unto me. (Psa 56:11, KJV)
In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust: let me never be put to
confusion. (Psa 71:2, KJV)
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:
Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth
thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender
mercies. (Psa 103:2-4, KJV)
Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto
thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct
thy paths. (Pro 3:5-6, KJV)
The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his
trust in the LORD shall be safe.” (Pro 29:25, KJV)
To me, these were not simply quaint or catchy sayings. They
were promises of God. And, true to His promises, God produced the results when
I put the words in my mind and consistently repeated and believed them. That, I
believe, is what the Bible assures us.
There were more pertinent verses. They were specifically
addressed to the born-again believer, and based on what Jesus Christ had come
to do and make available. I learned, believed, and saw that his work and
sacrifice had made me free. I had to claim that freedom. Some of the Bible
verses that helped me include the following:
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God:
Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood
to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through
the forbearance of God. (Rom 3:23-25, KJV)
There is therefore no condemnation to them which are in
Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (Rom 8:1,
KJV)
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or
sword? . . . . Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him
that loved us. (Rom 8:35, 37, KJV)
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,
and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou
shalt be saved. (Rom 10:9, KJV)
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by
the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable,
and perfect will of God. (Rom 12:2, KJV)
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old
things are passed away; behold all things are become new. (2 Cor 5:17, KJV)
And God is able to make all grace abound toward you: that
ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.
(2 Cor 9:8, KJV)
Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth
itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought
to the obedience of Christ. (2 Cor 10:5, KJV)
Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph
in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of Christ in them that are saved, and
in them that perish. (2 Cor 2:14, KJV)
Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above
all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us. (Eph 3:20,
KJV)
Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be
partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Who hath delivered us from
the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.
(Col 1:3, KJV)
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power,
and of love, and of a sound mind. (2 Tim 1:7, KJV)
My experience, then, was that—by reading these and many
other verses over and over and over; by putting them in my mind (renewing my
mind with them) as frequently as possible and whenever negative claims were
made over me; and by believing them—my release, my deliverance, and the peace
of God came into my life. The accomplishments of God’s own son had delivered me
from the wilderness, not merely of being an alcoholic (sick and sinful with
excess), but from the status of a beaten-down child of God filled with guilt,
shame, anxiety, despair, fear, bodily maladies, and a sense of hopelessness.
And I know that, as one of God’s kids, I still am and can be rescued.
When sober and instructed, the choice is mine. And I try to
tell others that--through becoming a child of God, through learning the truth
about Him and His will, and through walking in fellowship with Him and His son
Jesus Christ--they too can be delivered from their drinking problem and from
much, much more as well. Service to and glorifying God by helping others is a
sine qua non. That is my testimony.
The message: There is a simple message that I carry today to
those willing to listen and who want my help. It is this: God wants all men to
be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim 2:4). We can be
saved—born again of the Spirit of God—by confessing Jesus as Lord and believing
that God raised Jesus from the dead (Rom 10:9; John 3:1-16). When God’s kids
then seek Him out by studying His Word and communicating with Him, they can
walk from darkness to light as and when they walk in fellowship with Him and
His son, and keep His word (1 John 1:1-10; 2:1-6).
Still “A New Way Out” today: For centuries, believers have
pointed to the way out and rescue for those who wanted help. These laboring
believers have included workers in the YMCA, in Christian Endeavor Society, in
the Salvation Army, in Gospel Rescue Missions, and in revivals. Even workers in
the Oxford Group with which Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob were briefly associated.
Whatever their particular technique, their message was salvation and a new life
in Christ. There was the additional stipulation that the message be carried to
others. The founder of the YMCA took young men off the streets of London and
into his basement, brought them to Christ, and held Bible studies—rescuing them
from destruction. Evangelists in and out of the YMCA followed suit. Christian
Endeavor Societies formed young people’s groups in the churches themselves and
taught them confession of Christ, Bible study, prayer, Quiet Hour, obedience,
and the principles of love and service. Salvation Army workers dove into the
slums of London and brought the wretched to Christ and into God’s Army to help
others. Gospel Rescue Missions furnished food, shelter, and brotherhood, but
their unswerving objective was to bring men to the altar, a decision for
Christ, and a changed Christian life. So too the old-time revivals and tent
meetings. And so too the Oxford Group people who were focused on changing lives
through surrender to God. This was the way alcoholics were helped in the early
days of A.A. as well.
Once informed of God’s way, suffering souls flocked to the
rescue, confessed belief in God, accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior,
fellowshipped together, and grew through Bible study, prayer meetings, and
Quiet Times. Love and service to others was the only demand made of them.
Today, when someone in an A.A. meeting tells a person, as
they did me, that people get drunk if they read the Bible, I feel disappointed
that they know so little about the real Way out. When someone tells a person in
A.A. or some recovery fellowship that they can’t mention or study the Bible in
A.A., I feel equally disappointed that hurting souls may soon be deprived of
what the early solution was. When someone says that the Bible and religious
literature cannot be read because they are not “Conference-approved,” I wonder
how many newcomers are being driven away from a relationship with and reliance
upon God. When someone talks of some nonsense god that God can be a tree, a
radiator, a light bulb, or a group, I think of the clear-cut descriptive
language in Psalm 115 about the impotence of false gods. And I regret that a
newcomer is hearing that he can pray to a light bulb and get well. I’ve yet to
see that happen.
For me, it is about telling my story, reporting the facts
about the role our Creator has played in the YMCA, in Christian Endeavor, in
the Salvation Army, in Gospel Rescue Missions, in the Oxford Group, and in the
early Akron A.A.’s Christian Fellowship. There are other ways, of course. But
the one with unquestioned success is the Way, Jesus Christ (John 14:6). With
increasing fervor, I try to tell people how God’s liberation, power, and
guidance worked in my life, how it worked in the lives of others, and what an
appealing alternative it is to the way of idolatry, apathy, acceptance, and
institutionalized meeting attendance. I point out that eternal life and the
abundant life do not lie in meeting attendance. See John 3:16 and John 10:10.
They spring from a relationship with God and His son Jesus Christ.
An answer today: I believe there is “A New Way Out”—a way
out of the wretchedness of alcoholism and addiction, out of the bondage of
worldly wisdom and opinion and condemnation, out of the prisons of the mind
that come from depression, fear, physical illness, anxiety, guilt, shame,
anger, and resentment. There is “A New Way Out” for people—not just for people
attending Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step fellowships—but for those who are
homeless, imprisoned, physically disabled, mentally impaired, at risk, cowering
in fear and self-loathing, drinking and drugging to excess, and encountering
major barriers and defeat at every turn. Those people should not be herded into
“centers for self-centeredness” where they keep confessing how sick and hurting
they are. “A New Way Out” is not a way out of A.A., or 12 Step fellowships, or
therapy, or meetings, or groups, or churches, or psychiatric wards. It starts
with a decision by an individual to stop his or her self-destructive
behavior(s).
The path starts with a determination to “stay stopped,” to
change, to abstain. It starts with a discipline that guarantees change for
those who go to any length to bring it about. For those in deep holes, as I
was, it may take time. But the way out starts by looking up from the hole--not
out or down. The way out begins by believing that “with God nothing shall be
impossible” when God gives the revelation. (See Luke 1:37.) The way out begins
by recognizing that God wants children and enables people to become His
children by acknowledging what Jesus Christ did to make that new birth
possible. (See 1 Peter 1:23.) The way out—the path to deliverance and
freedom—continues when a child of God sets his or her mind, thoughts, and
outpouring words on what God reveals—not on what the world says. (See 1
Corinthians 2:1-16.) The way out—the path assuring deliverance and freedom—is
followed by walking in the light of God’s Word and the revelation He chooses to
give His family members. The way out is assured by obeying God, talking with
Him, and staying in fellowship with Him, His son Jesus Christ, and other
believers. And that way out is just as available today as it was when Peter
urged, after the miracle at Pentecost:
. . . Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name
of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the
Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that
are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. (Acts 2:38-39)
This, and the messages from other messengers in the Book of
Acts, changed the lives of millions and millions of those who believed
throughout the following centuries.
I continue to find it a joy and a privilege to introduce
myself to a newcomer, wherever he or she may be. Then to ask if that person
would like to become a child of God. I
invite the new person simply to confess with his or her mouth that Jesus is
Lord and to believe in his or her heart that God raised Jesus from the dead.
(See Romans 10:9.) And I’m seldom turned down. Then, with them, as it did with
me, the healing and growth can begin. Freedom is certain to follow for those
who walk in fellowship with our Heavenly Father. It did for me. That’s my story.
Gloria Deo
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