Sex, Drugs, AA and the Work

Aha! Thought that title would get you!

Seriously, though, it's important to know where both AA and the Work stand on these subjects, whether you want to follow the Twelve Steps or to work on yourself as a student of Gurdjieff - perhaps both, as I do.

Drugs first.

Don't.

Just don't.

In AA, we avoid drugs because they spoil our sobriety. You might not think you have a problem with pot, for example, but if you want to stop drinking you need to avoid any substance which skews your thought processes. You can't recover from any addiction as long as you are using a mind-altering drug; only prescription medications are allowed.

In the Work, I've known one or two people who smoked pot at weekends, but they usually didn't last very long as Work students. Here, too, we seek for absolute clarity of mind, at even greater depth than is needed for the Twelve Steps.

In the early days of the Work, we read that G sometimes administered drugs to students, with their full consent, as he believed that doing so could give them and their fellow pupils a glimpse into Essence and enable them to experience Higher Centres. But such experiments were strictly monitored, and very rare. Today I don't know of any Work group or teacher currently carrying out such a procedure. There's no call for it, anyway. Almost everyone interested in mysticism these days will have tried some sort of psychedelic drug, and realized that it was a dead end.

All cultures use mind-altering drugs of some sort, including alcohol. Higher hydrogens exist in plants, and can be extracted for various reasons. But dependence on drugs is extremely dangerous, as we all know, and there's no certain way of knowing who will turn out to be an addict before the drug is used.

Moreover, although drugs such as LSD and peyote do open Higher Centres, the experience is short-lived and uses up the body's own store of higher hydrogens in the process. Long-term damage may result, even death. This is why deep depression - sometimes insurmountable and leading to suicide - is not uncommon among drug users and alcoholics.

As for one's sexual conduct, there are very few general guidelines. Everything depends on the needs of the individual. If someone is a sex addict, clearly they have to become abstinent in order to recover. On the other hand, there are many AA members and Work students who live fulfilling sex lives, and this is fine, as long as nobody is being coerced or exploited.

Neither the Work nor AA asks followers to be celibate. But both advocate conducting one's sex life in a responsible manner, not simply using another person's body to fulfil one's own desires.

Those who wrote the AA Big Book certainly had a sense of humour, for the section concerned with sex begins on page 69! And then, if you turn to page 96 and read it as a continuation, there's a very interesting and funny juxtaposition ... at least, that's the case in the original Big Book. I don't know whether it applies to more recent editions, but knowing how clever and creative alcoholics are, it probably does.

Both AA and the Work advocate moderation, but each person has to live their relationships, including those of a sexual nature, according to their personal needs and those of their partner.

Nothing must be done to another person without their consent, and as sex stirs deep emotions we have a responsibility to our spouses or partners to honour their feelings as well as our own.

This is true for the Twelve Steps and for the Work. I have known Work students to be thrown out of their group for acting irresponsibly towards other members in this way. One man in my teacher's senior group attempted to sleep with all the female members, one by one, and was told in no uncertain terms to leave.

But the Work is not puritanical. It can encompass all sorts of relationships, which to others might seem irregular, as long as those relationships are conducted lovingly and responsibly.

AA says something very similar: it asks members to think of the well-being of the spouse or partner in a sexual relationship, and to put it before our own. If we do that, we will be living according to our conscience, and will have nothing for which we need reproach ourselves.

Living by the standards of Real Conscience is one of the chief aims of Work students, of course, and by conducting every relationship, whether sexual or not, in its light, we will be acting according to our highest standards.

And it's good to remind ourselves that the Work teaches that every sexual encounter, because it's so deeply physical, is a meeting of Essences.

What's more, our society is so fraught with sexual anxiety, fed by advertising and exacerbated by constantly comparing ourselves to others, that it's good to remember that absolutely no harm ever came to anyone by living a celibate life - if that is your circumstance.