“I’ve tried everything, man. I’ve tried counseling, acupuncture, hypnosis, therapy, and everything. And then I tried drinking again — and that worked for about a week.”— Jim Carrey, 1990s stand-up
When we first came to AA, some people kept talking about God. We hadn’t yet figured out how drinking and God connected, all though we kept an open mind to what they were talking about. We thought AA was about quitting booze, not sorting out theology.
We tried to handle our drinking problem on our own in the past. We used willpower, promises, and plans. It worked for a while, and then we would eventually pick up again. Each time, it got worse. Never better.
In meetings, we listened to people talk about a “Power greater than ourselves.” We had a hard time connecting those dots, but they said it worked for them — so we started to wonder how it might work for us.
The truth is, we weren’t rejecting God; we were rejecting the version we’d made up in our own heads.
Looking back, a lot of AAs can laugh at how complicated we were making it. We did believe in something — and that turned out to be enough to get started and stay sober. What held us back were old ideas that clouded that belief, and we needed help clearing them out.
What’s some old ideas about God that might still be blocking us from seeing things more clearly?
