I’m also a recovering addict.

The point is well-taken…”what if”? And the seeds for The Program resonate through the story of Israel, the New Testament, and throughout ecclesial history.

Excluding the metaphorical hermeneutic of the relationship between God and Israel in what follows, but consider whether God could have ordered Hosea to marry in Gomer an addict/alcoholic….we know she was prostitute, and we know know a days that the underlying substance abuse problems with most people who sell their bodies. Did she relapse when she “went back out” only to be forgiven by Hosea and brought back home and into a loving relationship?

We know Paul’s exhortations on how the path gets narrow the further he travels, and how he knows what is wrong and yet continually does that same wrong thing.

Take Benedict’s “Rule” and his continual bullhorn of what happens when one allows themselves to be ruled by self-will, and how close one is to God is directly proportional to how much self-will is ruling one’s life.

But for someone with my disease, “what if’s” matter not to me personally. I’m blessed and grateful that programs such as Narcotics Anonymous (my fellowship) are around to show me the way. On a more theological level, I find myself continually frustrated at the level of “dis-ease” the local church has dealing the addict, the recovering addict, the family of addicts and those in recovery, and so forth.

That is slowly changing, and praise God for that. But currently there is still the very stark reality that I and many others who have done what addicts do in our addiction are, for all intensive purposes, Prodigal.

Only we’re not welcomed back home.

1) What if AA never started? The spiritual model of recovery (or temperance) had failed more than once with the Washingtonians and, eventually, with the Oxford groups. But for the simple insight that Bill Wilson had to alter his message or conversation with Bob Smith to include the medical (physical addiction) aspect of alcoholism along with the spiritual solution, Wilson may have gone on to minister to many but save but a few.

2) I think AA really started with Moses. God takes a murderer and equips him to deliver the Israelites, who were entirely incapable of helping themselves. That is the AA story told over and over.

“Some of the saints have called attention the safe-keeping of the mind; others, the guarding of the heart; yet others, sobriety… But all these names mean the same thing…

“Attention [or sobriety] is a sign of sincere repentance. Attention is the appeal of the soul to itself, hatred of the world and ascent toward God. Attention is renunciation of sin and acquisition of virtue. Attention is an undoubting certainty of the remission of sins. Attention is the beginning of contemplation, or rather, its necessary condition; for, through attention God comes close and reveals himself to the mind. Attention is serenity of the mind, or rather, its standing firmly planted and not wandering, through the gift of God’s mercy.” -Centering Prayer, pp. 45-46

Through sobriety, a gift of God, one is able to experience serenity and growth in relationship with God. Hmm… sounds familiar!