"We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition."
The problem with A.A. is that it works. Finally beaten into a state of reasonableness, we come in tore up from the floor up and get busy. We take suggestions, hit meetings, read the book, pray, and help other people. Before long, life starts getting better. Then it gets good. Then it gets really good. Jobs come our way, families are reunited, relationships are repaired, and we become contributing citizens again.
And that's where the danger can creep in. With all the responsibilities we have now, recovery can slowly take a back seat. We hit meetings when we feel like it. We let somebody else work with the newcomer. The Big Book becomes more of a souvenir than a tool. Nothing dramatic happens. We just slowly drift.
Then, little by little, that old character-defect life starts slipping back in. Fear returns. Control returns. Irritability returns. Before we know it, we're standing in the middle of the broad highway wondering what happened. The drink may not have returned yet, but we're white-knuckling our sobriety again, trying to manage life on our own power and wondering why everything feels so heavy.
Maybe recovery didn't stop working. Maybe we stopped doing the things that connected us to the solution in the first place. The good news is that the way back is usually the same way we came in. A little honesty. A little prayer. A little service. God will provide the necessary balance if we seek it.
Have you ever found yourself white-knuckling sobriety without picking up a drink?
