October 23, 1939 Cleveland Plain Dealer
Alcoholics Anonymous Makes Its Stand Here
By ELRICK B. DAVIS
“In
a previous installment, Mr. Davis outlined the plan of Alcoholics
Anonymous, an organization of former drinkers who have found a
solution to liquor in association for mutual aid. This is the second
of a series.
Religion
There is no blinking the fact that Alcoholics Anonymous, the amazing society of ex-drunks who have cured each other of an incurable disease, is religious. Its members have cured each other frankly with the help of God. Every cured member of the Cleveland Fellowship of the society, like every cured member of the other chapters now established in Akron, New York, and elsewhere in the country, is cured with the admission that he submitted his plight wholeheartedly to a Power Greater than Himself.
He
has admitted his conviction that science cannot cure him, that he
cannot control his pathological craving for alcohol himself, and that
he cannot be cured by the prayers, threats, or pleas of his family,
employers, or friends. His cure is a religious experience. He had
to have God's aid. He had to submit to a spiritual housecleaning.
Alcoholics
Anonymous is a completely informal society, wholly latitudinarian in
every respect but one. It prescribes a simple spiritual discipline,
which must be followed rigidly every day. The discipline is
fully explained in a book published by the society.
Discipline
That
is what makes the notion of the cure hard for the usual alcoholic to
take, at first glance, no matter how complete his despair. He
wants to join no cult. He has lost faith, if he ever had it, in
the power of religion to help him. But each of the cures accomplished
by Alcoholics Anonymous is a spiritual awakening. The ex-drunk has
adopted what the society calls "a spiritual way of life."
How,
then, does Alcoholics Anonymous differ from the other great religious
movements which have changed social history in America? Wherein does
the yielding to God that saves a member of this society from his
fatal disease, differ from that which brought the Great Awakening
that Jonathan Edwards preached, or the New Light revival of a century
ago, or the flowering of Christian Science, or the campmeeting
evangelism of the old Kentucky-Ohio frontier, or the Oxford Group
successes nowadays?
Every
member of Alcoholics Anonymous may define God to suit himself.
God to him may be the Christian God defined by the Thomism of the
Roman Catholic Church. Or the stern Father of the Calvinist. Or the
Great Manitou of the American Indian. Or the Implicit Good assumed in
the logical morality of Confucius. Or Allah, or Buddha, or the
Jehovah of the Jews. Or Christ the Scientist. Or no more than the
Kindly Spirit implicitly assumed in the "atheism" of a
Col. Robert Ingersoll.
Aid
If
the alcoholic who comes to the fellowship for help believes in God,
in the specific way of any religion or sect, the job of cure is
easier. But if all that the pathological drunk can do is to say, with
honesty, in his heart: "Supreme Something, I am done for without
more-than-human help," that is enough for Alcoholics Anonymous
to work on. The noble prayers, the great literatures, and the
time-proved disciplines of the established religions are a great
help. But as far as the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous is
concerned, a pathological drunk can call God "It" if he
wants to, and is willing to accept Its aid. If he'll do that, he
can be cured.
Poll
of "incurable" alcoholics who now, cured, are members of
the Cleveland Fellowship of the society, shows that this has made
literally life-saving religious experience possible to men and women
who, otherwise, could not have accepted spiritual help. Poll shows
also that collectively their religious experience has covered every
variety known to religious psychology. Some have had an experience as
blindingly bright as that which struck down Saul on the road to
Damascus. Some are not even yet intellectually convinced except to
the degree that they see that living their lives on a spiritual basis
has cured them of a fatal disease. Drunk for years because they
couldn't help it, now it never occurs to them to want a drink.
Whatever accounts for that, they are willing to call "God."
Some
find more help in formal religion than do others. A good many of the
Akron chapter find help in the practices of the Oxford Group. The
Cleveland chapter includes a number of Catholics and several Jews,
and at least one man to whom "God" is "Nature."
Some practice family devotions. Some simply cogitate about "It"
in the silence of their minds. But that the Great Healer cured them
with only the help of their fellow ex-drunks, they all admit.”
(our emphases)
Comment: Well that clears up the 'AA is/is not religious' issue doesn't it – NOT! Confused? You should be! No
wonder the rest of the world don't get what we're about if we don't
ourselves! Again the distinction between “religious” and
“spiritual” is fudged to such an extent that no one's left any the
wiser. Perhaps we might try this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirituality
and in particular the following:
“Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality;[1] an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.”[2] Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop an individual's inner life; spiritual experience includes that of connectedness with a larger reality, yielding a more comprehensive self; with other individuals or the human community; with nature or the cosmos; or with the divine realm.[3] Spirituality is often experienced as a source of inspiration or orientation in life.[4] It can encompass belief in immaterial realities or experiences of the immanent or transcendent nature of the world.”
None of the above definitions come into conflict with AA's traditions and taken together form an inclusive approach which avoids altogether any problems of affiliation (religious or otherwise)."
Cheerio
The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)
PS Buddha wasn't God. He was a man who through his own efforts transcended phenomenal existence. No divine intervention required!
and in particular the following:
“Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality;[1] an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.”[2] Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop an individual's inner life; spiritual experience includes that of connectedness with a larger reality, yielding a more comprehensive self; with other individuals or the human community; with nature or the cosmos; or with the divine realm.[3] Spirituality is often experienced as a source of inspiration or orientation in life.[4] It can encompass belief in immaterial realities or experiences of the immanent or transcendent nature of the world.”
None of the above definitions come into conflict with AA's traditions and taken together form an inclusive approach which avoids altogether any problems of affiliation (religious or otherwise)."
Cheerio
The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)
PS Buddha wasn't God. He was a man who through his own efforts transcended phenomenal existence. No divine intervention required!
