Quitting the Power Struggle

by Paul D.

When Jesus told his followers, "Resist not evil," I imagine they were as puzzled as we are. Surely we ought to use every bit of our power to stand up for the good, to combat the sins and afflictions that prevent us from doing God's will? Yet Jesus spoke of another way, a path that chooses meekness, non-resistance --- "and the last shall be first."

My own experience reveals a dramatic example of what Christ may have meant. In 1981, at the age of 27, I'd been addicted to alcohol and drugs for 10 years. My "drunkalogue" would take pages to relate, but I can sum it up: Life revolved around the next drink or drug. I was unemployable, unloving and unlovable. I no longer dreamed of "feeling good" --- the goal was simply to avoid feeling miserable. As my health deteriorated, even that modest goal eluded me.

Last Choice

There aren't many choices open to a person in that fix, and I thank God I made the right one: I joined Alcoholics Anonymous and was able, one day at a time, to stop using any addictive substances. What happened to me is a completely familiar story to millions of recovered addicts in AA and other 12-step programs. Many, perhaps most, recovered alcoholics and addicts believe in a Higher Power but are otherwise unchurched. As a Christian, though, I think I see how the Lord may have worked to guide me through the fellowship of AA.

The first of the 12 steps says, "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol --- that our lives had become unmanageable." This statement invites the addict to view his or her relationship to alcohol in a totally new light. Nearly all practicing alcoholics view their dilemma as a power struggle: some days the addict appears to have more power, and can stay sober; other days the addiction wins. This paradigm almost never results in lasting sobriety.

When I "took" the 1st step, I opted out of the power paradigm entirely. I said, in effect, "Okay, addiction, you win. I will never succeed in being more powerful than you. As of this moment, I'm going to stop tying. I will no longer match my power against yours, since that's doomed to failure."

You'd think that the result of this admission would be despair and uncontrolled substance abuse. Yet for me, and for so many other addicts, the opposite result occurred. One day at a time, often painfully, always disbelievingly, we stopped drinking and drugging. Why?

False Worship

I think it's because the truth set me free. I had finally managed to take the measure of my own false worship. The addict who fights his addiction, matching power with power, is buying into a false picture of himself. As long as I "tried to stop drinking," I implicitly believed I could somehow find the power to defeat this enemy. But using the insight of the 1st step, I saw the truth: I was powerless, and as long as I accepted the choice of weapons offered by my addiction, I would always be defeated.

In a word, the 1st step invites me to humility. And just as Jesus taught, "He who humbles himself shall be exalted," something of immense spiritual significance happened to me when I proclaimed my powerlessness. I was now able, for the first time in my addictive life, to stop doing what my self-will told me would work, and instead take the recommendations of others who had recovered. Humility is essential to follow such advice because on the surface it made no sense at all. I was told that if l wanted to stay sober, day by day, I only had to do three things: go to an AA meeting every day, talk to another recovering addict when I felt the desire to drink, and "ask for help." I was told that many folks in AA used prayer to ask for help, but if I wasn't religious, I could use the meetings or personal talks with others in recovery.

Paradox

To the best of my ability, I did these three things, and they began to work. At the time I didn't believe in prayer, so I used other sober alcoholics as my "help." I now understand that I was adding another spiritual dimension to my newfound humility: community. Each of those three suggestions forced me into community with others who had the same problem.

Here I encounter a mystery, and I think it's the same mystery that Jesus confronted. I like to believe that the human Jesus --- the Jesus who could be terrified and confused by the work his Parent was doing through him --- spent his life seeking the source of his divinity. I think he knew it had something to do with community and discipleship, with the complete submission of self-will to God's will. When he said, "Where two or three are gathered together for my sake, there am I," he was close to the mystery he sought.

As for me, the story of my recovering from addiction seems to exhibit all those paradoxes we associate with Jesus' teachings about non-resistance. I broke free because I could not break free. I've stayed sober because "I" can't stay sober. But we can.