It doesn't work
Letting go absolutely
“First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn’t work.” -Alcoholics Anonymous p. 62
“Some of us had tried to hold onto our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.” -Alcoholics Anonymous p. 58
I can only help people who want the help. I can only receive help when I want the help. This has put me in a bit of quandary: a quandary of powerlessness.
Powerlessness is pretty much the most hopeless place to be when I am in either of my diseases: my own alcoholism or the effects of alcoholism in my life. I want so badly to live a decent life and drugs and alcohol just keep getting in the way. At first, they appear to be the answer for a stressed-out, overcommitted, over-indulged life. Drugs and alcohol kept me going for quite a few years. And this is the life I lived: a liar, a thief, a pig. Drugs and alcohol in a short period of time made me everything I feared becoming. When drugs and alcohol became the center of my life throughout my late twenties and my early thirties, all meaningful existence slipped away. I had zero morality, zero responsibility, and the harms I caused just seemed to increase exponentially. This is a life based on selfishness.
Later, when I get sober, I see that I still have this incredible need to manage and control everything in my life—but once again the needed power just isn’t there. I want to help. I want people to get better. I don’t really want to face myself, but I can help you with your problems. This is also self. The big book calls it self-will. It also calls it playing God.
There are two main problems with self-will. First, it takes the focus off of me and what I really need to do to get and stay sober. Not just dry—but actual sobriety. When I am so focused on what I think you need, I don’t have to work any steps and I don’t have to look in the mirror. I don’t have to look very deeply into myself at all. This is the Great Distraction of recovery, for both the alcoholic and the alanonic. In my experience over two decades, this is equally true in both programs. We start coming to meetings, we start to feel better, and then we can go out and conquer the world (which simply means we can spread this message of hope and recovery to the people whom we think really need it.)
In short, we start playing God. Now, we didn’t just start this when we got into program. No, most of us had been attempting to do this for years, and we just kept getting sicker and sicker by trying to force solutions onto people and circumstances that just couldn’t or wouldn’t change. It didn’t work. Playing God just didn’t work. When I reflect back on my own beginnings in recovery, getting sober didn’t work until it was my idea. The same applies for my Al-Anon program: I didn’t really start working an Al-Anon program until it was my idea.
The good news for us today is that we have a Higher Power who can give us everything we need to live sober, dignified lives. Lives that are good and purposeful. God gives us this life when we focus on his will and let go absolutely to all of our old ideas of what worked. For me, changing others never worked. I would constantly try to manipulate people and circumstances so my ego would feel better—so it could get that relief that you were finally doing it my way. But doing this never made me change, and it turns out that this is exactly what God did for me when I really started seeing my own selfishness in all of these circumstances. God changed me. God changed me when I kept the focus on me and my actions and attitudes. God gave me the needed power on a daily basis to see my ego when it popped up and to immediately save me from my old self.
For this change to be effective, I had to practice letting go absolutely. I had to be willing to let go of my old ideas each and every day. I still have to be willing to let go of my old ideas. While my personality has changed significantly since getting sober and then getting into Al-Anon, I still have a working mind that wants to kill me. My mind would love nothing better for me to fall into the trap of manipulation, rationalization, and justification of my own self-will.
This is exactly why I keep working a program today. I keep working with others, both practically and spiritually. I give rides. I lead meetings. I work on committees. I invite the newcomer into fellowship. I pray. I meditate. I work steps with others. I work steps with a sponsor. I journal. I inventory. I participate in my own recovery. Every day. Every single day.
The day I stop participating in my own recovery is the day self returns. And, after time, when I lose my entire program to my ego, I will go insane. When sanity leaves, I will certainly drink.
Today is the day I will quit playing God. Today is the day I will instead completely trust God with his plan and timing. Today is the day I will commit to my program.