Jesus, Buddha, and Allah Walk into a Bar...

A friend who is not in recovery and not personally familiar with the 12 Steps asked me how the whole “God as we understand God” thing works. As in, Step 3: “We turned our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood [God] him.” How can a roomful of people meet regularly and discuss God (among other things) and not all be on the same page about who God even is? If one person defines God as Jesus, and the person to her left defines God as the Tao, and the person on her right isn't even yet sure he believes in God, how does that work?

It’s a good question. 

I don’t know that I have the definitive answer to the question, but I have my suspicions and my opinion as to how that works. And let me just say that I’m extremely grateful that it does indeed work as well as it does or I would have walked away many years ago… like, at the very beginning of the journey. Hey, wait, I did walk away several times - and it was largely because I thought “they” were telling me I had to believe in “their” God. I wasn’t interested in any group telling me what I had to believe about God. By the way, there truly is no “they” and no one has once told me that a) this is God and this is how you need to believe, or b) your belief in God is wrong. I find that incredibly amazing, given the fact that I’ve met thousands of recovering addicts and alcoholics in 12 Step programs, each with their own personal belief about God. Now, after the meeting, people gather with those who share similar concepts of God, I'm sure. But while in the meetings, for that hour, it doesn't matter.

There is a reading in Narcotics Anonymous called, “We Do Recover.” In the meeting I go to it is read at the end of each meeting. It goes like this: When at the end of the road we find that we can no longer function as a human being,  either with or without drugs, we all face the same dilemma:  What is there left to do? We can either go on to the bitter ends: Jails, institutions, or death, or, find a new way to live. In years gone by, very few addicts ever had this last choice. Today, we are more fortunate. For the first time in man’s entire history there is a simple way proving itself in the lives of many addicts. It is available to us all. This is a simple, spiritual – not religious – program known as Narcotics Anonymous.

That last line is the key. It is a spiritual program, not a religious program. There is a huge difference. Religions tend to dictate what you should believe, or at the very least, guide you toward a certain dogma or belief system. 12 Step programs do not do this. At all. In fact, the steps encourage every person to figure it out for themselves. That’s pretty much all the guidance you get: Figure it out. Well, and this: Step 2 says, “We came to believe in a Power Greater than ourselves who could restore us to sanity.” So one's concept of a Higher Power should be big enough for that. And there is this: Step 11 says, “We continued to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for the knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.” This reminds one of how important it is to maintain the spiritual connection that one has built. But that's it. Those are the instructions, those are the only 3 steps that mention God (or Higher Power) specifically (Steps 2, 3, and 11). The rest is up to the individual. I find that simplicity incredibly personal and altogether beautiful.

I’ve shared before that I tried using the God of my childhood, or the Higher Power of my parents, or the concept of God that someone else had formed, and it didn’t work. How could it, really? If I am going to rely on a Higher Power, on God, to keep me clean and fill the spiritual void that is left after I quit getting high – and probably the very void that I tried to fill in the first place once I started using drugs and alcohol – hadn’t I better believe in that concept of God that I'm going to be relying so heavily on? Hadn’t I better trust in that Higher Power? 

Since I kept hitting a wall as I came up on steps 2 and 3, the only thing I knew to do when I got clean this time around, since past attempts didn’t exactly work out for me, was to throw out every single thing I ever believed about God, every single thing I was ever taught about God, every single thing I thought I knew about God… and start from scratch. And that is what I did. In doing so, I discovered new concepts and theologies I had never been exposed to. I added back, slowly, over time, and with meticulous vetting, many things I was taught about God growing up, and I’ve left behind other things I once thought I believed, and I’ve left behind much of the new concepts and theologies I’ve learned along the way. It has been a long process, and it is a process that will never end. However, I am so very, very grateful that I found a safe place to do this because I don’t know that I would have had the courage or the determination to do it without the support and complete acceptance of others doing the same thing for themselves.

Most people in 12 Step meetings don’t talk in specifics when they talk about what they believe about God. What I mean by that is that most people don’t name their God when talking in meetings. They actually do share very specifically about what God means to them, what God does in their lives, how their Higher Power is evidenced in their recovery, and about the vital connection they have with God. But there is no need to give God another name, like Jesus, or Buddha, or Allah, or the Holy Spirit, or the Great Spirit, or the Tao. Naming God is not the point. Figuring out what I, as an individual, believe about God, is the point. And in the end – or for that matter, at the beginning and every step along the way from beginning to end - it all comes down to me and God, anyhow. 

That’s the difference between spirituality and religion, in my opinion. In religion, it usually matters very much what you believe and what I believe and in those similarities. In spirituality, unencumbered by any particular religion, neither the similarities nor the differences are going to influence me, demand anything of me, cause disagreement or tension, drive me away, or turn me off, because they just don’t come into the conversation during that safe, sacred hour during a 12 Step meeting. 

And for this reason, it works... it really does work.

I’m Maze and I’m an addict.

Step 11: Conscious Contact

Step Eleven
“We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood God, praying only for the knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.”
(Spiritual principle associated with this step: Awareness, Connectivity)

On the surface, this step seems to be the most "religious." When I first read it I thought, "I'm never doing that one; I've had enough religion in my lifetime." By the time I worked steps one through ten, I had a different understanding of step eleven.

For me, this step has been about deepening my awareness to that which makes me feel most connected. By connected, I mean 'spiritually connected.' It is that thing you feel when you drive in the mountains or stand on the shore at the ocean, when you don't think about what you're seeing, but you experience it. When you're standing there in front of the ocean or in the valley surrounded by mountains, it is that knowing you experience, that absolute and all-encompassing knowledge that you are nothing in comparison to the universe, and at the same time, you are very much an integral part of it.

'Spiritually connected' means knowing I have a place in the universe even if I can't find that place. It means knowing there is purpose and meaning even when I have no idea what that purpose or meaning is.

'Spiritually connected' means conscious contact with a god of my own understanding. Everyone has their own way to improve their conscious contact, their spiritual connectivity. The longer I live, the more ways I discover to deepen my conscious contact. I find it in music and art. I find it when I walk alone along the river or through the woods. I find it in conversations with children. I find it in what I read and what I write. I find it when I paint. I find it in conversation and in silence. I find it in intimate relationships, some sexually intimate relationships and all emotionally intimate relationships. I find it in recovery meetings and sometimes in churches. A couple months ago I discovered I find it ten feet under the water at the pool where I'm engulfed in silence and very connected to my non-breathing self. Now when I go to the pool, I can't stop going under water. I love discovering new ways of improving and deepening my conscious contact, my spiritual connectivity.

The rest of the step falls into place when I can deepen that conscious contact. The praying for the knowledge of God's will and the power to carry that outpart of this step occurs naturally for me if I'm developing that awareness and deepening that conscious contact. See, when I'm doing that, when I am connected to the moment, in the now and nowhere else, that in itself is my prayer for knowledge and power. Just being, that in itself is the only true way I know to pray.

Many Narcotics Anonymous groups use a 'reading' (as part of their meeting format) called, We Do Recover. It is one of my favorite readings: When at the end of the road we find we can no longer function, either with or without drugs, we all face the same dilemma. What is there left to do? There seems to be this alternative: either go on as best we can to the bitter ends - jails, institutions, or death - or find a new way to live. In years gone by, very few addicts ever had this last choice. Those who are addicted today are more fortunate. For the first time in man's entire history, a simple way has been proving itself in the lives of many addicts. It is available to us all. This is a simple, spiritual - not religious - program known as Narcotics Anonymous.

I especially like the last line. I am put off by organized religion, but I crave spirituality. I confused the two - religion and spirituality - for most of my life. I think I got a glimpse of the difference when I watched my mother lose her fight to cancer. I always thought of her as religious - and perhaps she was - but in her final years of life, and especially in the the final months of her life, I saw her spirit as I never had before. I saw her spirtuality beyond her religion. Dogma and doctrine took a backseat to love and connecting with the people she loved and the beauty of the world around her that she so loved. The closer she came to death, more and more of her spirit-in-the-raw came through. It was an amazing thing to see, one I will never forget, and the pivotal point for me in my own spiritual journey...

... which brings me to a spiritual truth (for me) that has, in essence, become my Higher Power, my Truth with a capital T: Everything that happens, every, single, individual thing that happens has a purpose within it. I often miss the lesson, don't find a purpose, even deny that there is reason within the things that happen in my life, but nevertheless, deep down, at the center of my spirit, in my core... I know there is purpose in and around all things. Using my mother's death as an example of purpose: My mother didn't die so that I could learn a spiritual lesson, but because she died I had the opportunity to learn a spiritual lesson - probably several. There is a difference there and that difference is the foundation of my concept of spirituality.

And within this concept I nurture my spiritual conscious contact, thereby carrying out what some deem as "God's will," but what I prefer to call "living the Tao."

I’m Maze. I’m an addict.