Not often, but occasionally, I have wished I was an alcoholic. I have spent hundreds of hours in AA meetings over the past 37 years. My first was in 1982 when my work as a new Chaplain Resident at the University of Mississippi Medical Center called for me to learn about alcoholism and AA. Eventually I became the director of an Employee Assistance Program responsible for working with the people whose alcoholism caused issues on the job. Friends at the Rutgers Summer School of Alcohol Studies that I attended in the 1990s persuaded me to attend at least 50 AA meetings to make sure I understood AA since I was handicapped for my work by not being an alcoholic myself. I did and it became a part of my routine to help some clients by sitting with them at their first AA meeting.

Being an alcoholic sucks, but being desperate for help and having a community to help you recover is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my life. Churches offer some experience of community and may help with spiritual direction but are not even in the game when it comes to dealing with the gut level dysfunctions of most people and certainly not the gut level dysfunctions of alcoholics. The 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and the help of a sponsor in “working the steps” have been transformative for so many people I have known, I have been jealous that it wasn’t available to me.

Aside from never being much of a drinker, I could never get past the first step of AA, “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable.” I manage my life very well, thank you. Have you seen my resume? Check my references. I admire what people motivated by the desperation of alcoholism manage to do with AA, but I’m not desperate. I have a good life. Ask my many admirers. And yet I feel… deep down… broken, defective… powerless.

Today I read Richard Beck’s reflections on The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (begun in 1308 and completed in 1320) and recognized that I am powerless over sin, especially pride. In ways subtle enough for me to ignore for many years, my life is unmanageable.

Thanks be to God! I now have the gift of desperation.

Richard’s reflections: http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-divine-comedy-week-13-casting-off.html