Recovery Today / February 2011

I wish I had a nickel for all the hours I wasted thinking and worrying about Step Two.  Today I tell people if they’re spending more than a few minutes on this Step, they’re probably wasting their time and perhaps even delaying the start of their own recovery.  I have a feeling Dr. Bob and some of the early A.A. pioneers might agree.

 

One of those pioneers was Clarence Snyder, a young drunk from Cleveland, Ohio.  He recounts how very quickly Dr. Bob took him through this “Step” when he was a patient of his back in 1938.  Still laying in his detox bed there in Akron, Dr. Bob was concerned Clarence might be a little too young for recovery so he grilled him hard on his readiness to start the program.  Clarence recalled, “I was down to 135 pounds, no job, no clothes, and no money.  I didn’t know how much more ready I could be.  Still, I had to convince them I was ready.” (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, p. 144.) 

 

Having passed muster on what was later to become Step One, Bob immediately proceeded to introduce Clarence to the question that Wilson later codified into Step Two.  

“’Do you believe in God, young fella?’ (He always called me ‘young fella.’  When he called me Clarence I knew I was in trouble.) 

‘What does that have to do with it?’

‘Everything,’ he said.

‘I guess I do.’

‘Guess nothing! Either you do or you don’t.’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘That’s fine,’ Dr. Bob replied. ‘Now we’re getting someplace. All right, get out of bed and on your knees. We’re going to pray.’” 

Dr. Bob and his newest recruit had just completed Step Two and together they were now on their knees to share Step Three, all in under a minute and a half! 

 

In moving newcomers through the Step Two process so rapidly, Dr. Bob was practicing the program of action that had been passed on to him through the members of the Oxford Group.  It was called “the experiment of faith.”  To begin the experiment it wasn’t necessary to believe in God – it was only necessary to believe that the existence of God was at least “a theoretical possibility” - and that if God did in fact exist, then God had the power to remove “the obsession of the mind,”  “the “insanity,” “the unmanageability” that doomed alcoholics to return to drinking in spite of the awful consequences they experienced.  Then, just as a scientist would proceed to test his theory in a laboratory, the alcoholic was to test the theory of this new spiritual approach to recovery by following a course of action (namely, completing the next several Steps). 

 

If I had landed in the alcoholic ward of St. Thomas Hospital in Akron, Ohio back when Dr. Bob was the physician in charge, I can now imagine how he might have introduced me to “the experiment of faith.”  Maybe half way through my detox, when the fog was barely lifting and the pain of my last drunk still stung deep, he'd stop by my bed and ask, "Now are you ready to try this spiritual approach to solving your drinking problem?”

 

A quick review of my drinking history along with some honest sharing from the good doctor about his own battles with alcohol would help me understand what the “powerless” part of the illness was all about.  He'd talk about my “powerlessness” as if it were a physical allergy.  An allergic reaction triggered by the first drink that made me crave more, and more, and more alcohol. "It's really pretty simple," he'd say.

 

Then he'd start in on “the unmanageability” part of my illness.  "If the stuff's causing you all these problems, why haven't you been able to quit and stay quit on your own?"  He'd lead me through a short and painful review of my own “quitting history” along with some more honest sharing about all the times he'd tried to quit but had never found the needed Power to stay quit – not until now.  "Hopeless," is what he'd call it. "If you're anything like me," he'd say, "you're absolutely hopeless - - - short of a miracle that is; but this is your lucky day, Son, cause miracles are what I see happen here every day."  And that's when he'd invite me to test out “the experiment of faith” for myself. 

 

"It's really very simple," he'd say.  "Do you believe, or are you even willing to believe that there might be a God?"  "You don't have to be sure there's a God, you don't have to know it; you just have to admit to the possibility.  That's all you need to begin.”

 

“Now just one more question and we'll be done.  This God who you admit might exist, does he have the power to relieve your alcoholism?  I'm not saying that he would, mind you, only that if he existed could he do that?"

"Yes, of course," you'd hear me say, "If there's a God, he could certainly do that. " 

"Congratulations," the old man would say, "That's all there is to it.  There might be a God and, if there is, God might help you.  Really pretty simple, isn't it?  Now let’s kneel down here and let me hear you say an honest prayer and ask this God who might exist for help, cause without it, kid, you’re sunk!”

 

When Bill Wilson wrote the 12 Steps he said he learned the ideas he formulated into Steps 2 through 11 directly from Sam Shoemaker, an Episcopal priest and leader of the Oxford Group in the United States.  Shoemaker had written, “Religion is a risk.  The romance of religion is the romance of a risk…. Faith is not sight: It is a high gamble.  There are only two alternatives here. God is, or He isn’t.  You leap one way or the other.  It is a risk to take to bet everything you have on God.  So is it a risk not to.” (Shoemaker, Confident Faith, p. 187.)  He also wrote that “[A]ny honest person can begin the spiritual experiment by surrendering as much of himself as he can, to as much of Christ as he understands” (Shoemaker, Extraordinary Living for Ordinary Men, p. 76) 

 

And so, when Bill Wilson landed in detox for the fourth time, he too joined in the Oxford Group experiment.  Finding himself in the depth of depression and despair, he got out of his bed and prayed, “If there is a God, let Him show Himself! I am ready to do anything, anything!”  The rest, as they say, is A.A. history.

 

 

Fr. Bill Wigmore is Chaplain at Austin Recovery. 

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Judy Haney /Austin Recovery / 8402 Cross Park Dr. / Austin, Texas 78754