STRATEGIES TO QUIT
A Highly Unusual Approach to the Addiction Problem
The power of powerlessness.
Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, had finally gotten sober and wanted to pass on the gift of recovery that had been freely given to him.
As he said, ‘I spent the next three months trying to sober out drunks but without success.’
Eventually, he made the discovery that changed everything.
When Bill convinced addicts of the utter hopelessness of their condition, they quickly became sober, never taking a drink again.
Once they experienced the brutal truth of their tragic situation, their denial was removed, and they had a psyche change.
The Trillion Dollar Question
“Honesty is not found in revealing the truth, but in understanding how deeply afraid of it we are. To become honest is, in effect, to become fully and robustly incarnated into powerlessness.” ~ David Whyte.
Why do we relapse?
Why do we go back after all the promises, solemn oaths and daily hours of work to stay sober?
It’s not that we can’t stop once we start (that’s old news; after all, that’s what qualifies us as addicts).
For a chronic relapser, it’s why did we start in the first place?
Why do we continue to go back to using or acting out, knowing full well we will end up in that same old place called oblivion, only to be shaken awake by shame?
What’s happening to our common sense, good judgment, and reason?
No matter how long we’ve been clean or how much is at stake, why do we keep returning to something that clearly doesn’t work?
It’s this constant going back, regardless of yesterday’s remorse and disgust or tomorrow’s pain and consequence, that qualifies us as addicts who are powerless.
And it’s this same powerlessness that’s key to our freedom.
Bill’s Powerlessness
“The only thing you sometimes have control over is perspective. You don’t have control over your situation. But you have a choice about how you view it.” ~ Chris Pine.
Bill had tried everything to stop relapsing: willpower, doubling down on willpower, self-knowledge, burning desire and good old-fashioned fear, but nothing worked.
He’d been in and out of hospitals and sanitariums, participating in a host of treatments and medications, only to come out and start drinking wildly again.
Naturally, long bouts of sickness followed and later insanity until, finally, death loomed. The doctors warned Bill’s wife, Lois, that it was only a matter of time before he would be taken by the undertaker.
‘It would all end in heart failure during delirium tremens, or I would develop a wet brain, perhaps within a year.’ ~ Bill’s Story from the book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Washed out, defeated and stuck in a seemingly inescapable hole, Bill sank into the blackest of despairs.
Bill knew he had an incurable, progressive, fatal illness that compromised his mind and will and knew he was powerless against it.
So Bill did the only thing left he could do; he completely gave up.
When Willingness Meets Grace
“In his state of complete powerlessness the individual perceives the time he has left to live as a brief reprieve.” ~ Theodor W. Adorno.
Not long after Bill’s resignation to his alcoholism, an old drinking buddy named Ebby, who was now sober, paid him a visit. Ebby told Bill that he had a solution for his drink problem if he cared to have it. Bill was more than willing; after all, what choice did he have?
Shortly afterwards, whilst in the hospital again for his drinking, Bill had a life-changing spiritual experience.
He never drank again.
Genuine willingness only happens when you’re truly powerless and have no options left. And in many cases, when you literally only have your very life left.
When you’ve finally given up, you’ve let go of your old ideas. At this place, you are, in fact, honestly open to something else. You have nothing to lose.
If you still have some power around relapsing, you will not be willing to get out of the way. And why would you when you can do something about it yourself?
Actually, There’s No Power At All
“Radical acceptance rests on letting go of the illusion of control and a willingness to notice and accept things as they are right now.” ~ Marsha M. Linehan.
But regardless of whether you’re a chronic relapser or not, there is something else that makes every addict powerless — it’s called unmanageability.
All addicts have it.
It’s the reason why addicts got onto the addiction path in the first place, and it’s one of the best-kept secrets in recovery.
“Admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.” ~ Step one from the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.
In Step One, we see our addiction problem in the first part, and we also see our life problem in the second part.
When addicts maintain any kind of recovery, no longer numbed out from their addiction, they get the full range of their feelings back.
But that’s also the problem — those feelings are the very things that led them to go to addiction in the first place.
Living life on life’s terms becomes untenable, and untreated unmanageability leads straight back to the death grip of the relapse condition.
Absolute Powerlessness
In reality, because of the relapse condition and our unmanageability, we are powerless with or without our addiction. That’s why we are powerless absolute.
Even after Bill’s life-changing twenty-minute spiritual experience, six months later, after a failed business trip which left him unable to pay for his hotel, Bill nearly went back to drinking.
If we weren’t addicts, we could probably get by being bad-tempered, feeling victimized and thinking we’re the centre of the universe, but we’re not.
The book of Alcoholics Anonymous (Big Book) says the problem isn’t addiction; it’s the selfishness and self-centeredness that led to addiction. We want it our way!
If addicts are perpetually restless, irritable and discontented, they’ll slowly go back to addiction whether they want to or not.
This relapse condition never goes, but being in self is the human condition that we are born with. This is the addict’s powerlessness at depth.
All tools, techniques, and strategies do is give the addict an illusion of power but no actual power. In reality, they’re just forcing their will on the situation.
When you’re truly powerless, you have to stop running the show and quit playing God.
Working a twelve-step program is a daily act of acknowledging our powerlessness, not to keep sober and clean but to keep out of selfishness and self-centeredness.
A Clean Break
“The only real battle in life is between hanging on and letting go.” ~ Shannon L. Alder.
Why not embrace your powerlessness instead of pretending it’s not there, or worse, believing you are in complete control over everything?
Why not accept the facts of your situation and live in alignment with reality?
When you do, it’s a relief. All that energy focused on trying to stay sober and control your recovery can be redirected to a better use of your time.
Faulty beliefs that don’t work can begin to fall away. As you acknowledge your part in your past frustrations, long-held resentments can finally be released. The distorted lens through which you’ve been viewing the world can be removed.
This process creates a space, a vacuum, to let the spiritual experience come through you. Remember, nature abhors a vacuum. Nature always fills it.
Mentally and emotionally, you unblock, and life begins to flow. The peace and acceptance you were constantly looking for outside can now be found within.
Final Thought
“Self-reliance did not work. It led to a crushing self-imposed crisis.” ~ The Big Book, page
In the final analysis, it doesn’t matter what the actual approach is in recovery; all that matters is that you grow in your consciousness and awareness.
Remember, all twelve-step programs have the same solution: trust God, clean house, and help others.
But to trust in some power greater than you, you have to relinquish control. This is the essence of the path of powerlessness. A path that is based on acceptance and faith.
When we follow this path, we see our task is to awaken and live life on a spiritual basis, not an ego-based one.
The Big Book suggests focusing on getting out of self-centeredness by helping others and seeing how you can contribute to the world.
Our biggest nightmare of self-sufficiency, not working, and inability to handle life on life’s terms was and is our spiritual experience; it’s where our lives have led us.
Willingness to believe is all you need to effect conscious contact and build a practical spiritual life. Life has a role for you.
Absolute powerlessness is the highly unusual approach that gets you there, which is, in fact, the very same approach written in the Big Book.
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