What behavior precedes a slip?
A deeper dive into "More About Alcoholism"
“The experiment went so well that I ordered another whiskey and poured it into milk. That didn’t bother me so I tried another.”
-Alcoholics Anonymous p. 36
As the story goes, “Thus started one more journey to the asylum for Jim.” Was Jim really so different than us? He now worked as a salesman for a car dealership he used to own. He had a resentment. It didn’t seem like huge resentment, but it was deep-seated. Another problem Jim had was that things were going pretty well for him. He got a job and he got his family back. The Big Book says that he “made a beginning”—meaning that he probably did some step work, maybe even an inventory.
Jim had full knowledge of his disease, and yet he drank again. Why? It’s a small line in the book, but a critical one: “…but he failed to enlarge his spiritual life” (Alcoholics Anonymous p. 35). This is the real reason Jim drank again. So much we see in AA is Jim’s story. People come in so desperate. They go to quite a few meetings, they get a sponsor, and they start working Steps 1-3. Then life gets good and they stop doing what works. Phone calls to the sponsor become fewer, meeting attendance becomes more sporadic, and the Big Book gathers dust on it.
Some may interpret the spiritual life as solely time in prayer and meditation. I have a much broader view of it. The spiritual life is actually everything we do in AA. By doing all of the things AA wants me to do, I am enlarging my spiritual life—one day at a time.
Today’s Prayer
God of my understanding, help me enlarge my spiritual life today by guiding me to work all parts of my AA program today.
Every writer has something they have written which they are the most proud of. For me, it is the daily readings from my book for July 11-14 from Ch. 3: More About Alcoholism from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. The above is the second reading from July 12 on Jim. I also explore the Retired Man, Jaywalker, and Fred (we would never want to forget Fred!).