Honesty - especially with ourselves - is the condition of all spiritual work. In the context of the Twelve Steps, it's essential right from Step One: how can we admit we're powerless, and that our life has become unmanageable, unless we're able to be honest?
But our natural reaction is to deny both these facts. Me - powerless? Perish the thought! Why, I sold six widgets today/swept the floor/took the dog to the vet (delete or add as necessary). And as for my life being unmanageable, it's doing very nicely, thank you. OK, my kids barely speak to me, my spouse has gone AWOL and my boss is threatening to fire me, true, but I can cope. Another glass of wine, please, barman.
The AA Big Book stresses the need for honesty. It tells us that the only men and women who don't stand a chance of recovery from alcoholism are those who, for whatever reason, can't be honest with themselves. And obviously, if we can't find the honesty to admit that our life is a mess and that we can't control events or people, we're going to blind ourselves to reality. And if we are to be healed from the life-threatening illness of addiction to alcohol or drugs, first of all we have to admit that we're ill.
Yet that admission is so painful that denial usually steps in and cuts us off from seeing our true state. Only when we've reached our rock bottom can we no longer deny the truth. Everyone who want to recover must reach this state sooner or later.
My own personal lowest point was on coming round on the floor of my bathroom, after physically passing out at a party I'd held that night. Everyone else had left. I had no memory of anything that had happened after I'd drunk my third glass of Chardonnay, but there I was, desperately trying to slit my wrists open with a rusty kitchen knife, tears pouring down my cheeks. If I'd had a sharper knife, or been less drunk, I would surely have succeeded.
And what had made me so unhappy that I would rather die than continue with my life? I literally had no idea. But, that night, I had reached my lowest ebb. And I cried out for Someone or Something to help me, calling for that Being to "Help me!" in the first truly sincere prayer I'd uttered in years.
I've described this incident and its consequence in my memoir, "A Raging Thirst", which you can download for free on Kindle. I didn't write it to make money or to reach fame, but to help other suffering alcoholics and those who care for them. And in it, I constantly make the point that only honesty can save us.
Not only the first Step but all the rest depend on the honesty we bring to them. It takes honesty to write a really truthful moral inventory in Step Four; honesty and courage, too, to share it with our sponsor in Step Five; and more honesty to accept without flinching all the defects of our character that will have been revealed to us in these Steps. Only with that knowledge can we be ready to have all those defects removed by the God of our understanding, and only with honesty and courage can we "humbly ask Him to remove them", as the Steps demand.
Mercifully, we're shown only as much as we can take in at one time. Gradually, over the months and years in recovery, those of us who persevere are shown more and more of those defects, and each time we need to remember our own powerlessness, so that we can again turn to God and ask for His help. He doesn't take them away at one fell swoop. He does so gradually, so that we can develop spiritual muscles.
Each day, we need to be thoroughly honest with ourselves and monitor our own mental state. We're told specifically to look out for dishonesty, fear, and all forms of selfishness. To do this each night, or at intervals through the day, takes not only honesty but willingness to bear the pain of seeing our own flaws and our seeming inability to be without them.
Only through having faith and confidence that a Power great than ourselves (whom we may think of as God, as Jesus, as Allah or as the AA movement as a whole if unable to accept the idea of a deity) will give us the strength to face our faults. And to go on facing them, with that same honesty and willingness, every day of our lives.
For us alcoholics, it's not just a question of being good, of being moral people. Desirable though that is, it's not our chief motivation. What we are doing is nothing short of saving our own lives. Without that honesty, we'll be sure sooner or later to fall into a state of depression, fear, despair or resentment that leads us to think of taking a drink. In the past, that's what we did - and it nearly killed us. We can't afford to let it happen again, so in the interests of survival we have to continue to work the Steps, one day at a time.
As the Big Book says, we are never cured of our alcoholism or drug addiction. All we have is a daily reprieve conditional on maintaining a fit spiritual condition. And the first task of that maintenance is the honesty we've begun to practice.
Yes, honesty hurts, but it cleanses too. Catholics have confession, which is a great blessing. But everyone can learn to be painfully, searingly honest before God, the God of their understanding. And the help and encouragement given by an AA or NA sponsor is a priceless treasure.
Now you've read this, I suggest taking a moment to observe yourself. Did any painful, fearful I's come up for you while you were reading? Is there anything you need to confess to God, or to another human being, that's holding you back from finding true spiritual peace?
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