One of the questions I get asked most at Workshops and Retreats is “If I’m powerless over using, how can I possibly stay away from the first drink (or hit) – at least without divine intervention?”

I was contacted recently by someone asking me about an article I had written. In the article, I wrote: “And for those who have come in and stayed sober without relapse, I tell them that it is not true for everyone that ‘relapse is part of recovery.’ It only will be if they make the conscious choice to slip.”

The subject of the article was about something else entirely and only tangentially touched on this topic. In reading that paragraph by itself, however, I can see how this might fall into the “aren’t we powerless over slipping?” argument.  My contention, however, is this:  there is a big difference between being powerless and being helpless.

In “More About Alcoholism,” the A.A. Big Book speaks of three examples about the insanity of addiction. I used to think these was just three iterations about the insanity of addiction.  They are not.  They each speak to a different time of insanity.

The first is the story about the man named Jim who put whiskey into milk, thinking it will be fine. We all laugh and think how absurd that thinking was.  Well, you know how else probably thought it was absurd?  Jim!  Just not until the next day.  How many of us have said to ourselves “What the hell was I thinking last  night?” 

The second is about the man addicted to jay-walking who keeps getting hit by cars.  It can be said that this is simply a metaphor to the old phrase “doing the same thing over and expecting a different result.”  To me, it isn't.  We don't want to get hit by the cars, we're just looking for the street where we can get to the other side without having to look both ways.

Both are powerful allegories about the insanity of the disease. The thirds was the story of Fred.  Here was a program member with a sincere commitment to staying sober.  And yet he drank.  He later says further: “I saw that will power and self-knowledge would not help in those strange mental blank spots.”

This might seem to leave us in a circular logic loop. We need some kind of spiritual awakening so as to achieve that “fit spiritual condition” so we will have some defense over these “blank spots.” At the same time, to get to this “fit spiritual condition,” we need to have put down the substance and begun working on our recovery through the Steps. Yet if those “blank spots” arise, we’re back in drinking and using and unable to move towards that “fit spiritual condition.” If we are powerless… see this logic loop?

In the middle of my relapse, my disease was firing out as many excuses to keep me drinking as was needed – this was one of them. “You’re powerless against those blank spots,” it would say. “That’s why you might as well get plastered. At some point, God will come down and use the magic wand, remove those blank spots, you’ll just want to stop, and there won’t be any cravings. It will be effortless. But for now… just keep drinking. Just for today.”

When I was in the middle of my relapse, my disease had one goal to meet every day – to get me to not put the booze down for another day. If this thinking “made the sale” for my disease – mission accomplished.

What I left out of that article was more of an explanation of my thinking and beliefs about how a Higher Power – or more accurately a hierarchy of Higher Powers – works to help me from picking up that first bite.

I believe my abstinence is a gift from my Higher Power. Why was I finally able to put the alcohol down one day, after trying just as hard in previous days? I believe it to be what more religious people would call “grace.”

I cannot guarantee I’ll ever get that grace again – something I could not understand during my slipping cycle. As a result, while I cannot “commit to staying sober,” I can commit to “going to any lengths” to not pick up that first drink. I can put as many impediments between me and that first drink as needed to make sure I am able to stay sober for another day.

I go back to what I was taught to me early in my recovery – that all of the theoretical and idealized concepts in the A.A. writings and teachings need to have a “real world” connection for them to work in my life. To that end, the concept of a “hierarchy of Higher Powers” has been a hallmark of my recovery.

Many people have a firm belief in a God of their understanding, while many others have something less or no belief at all. What most of us can agree on, however, is that chances are this Higher Power existed long before 1935. Before A.A., people diagnosed with alcoholism were doomed to death or institutionalization – unless they experienced a profound psychic change – which most of them did not. Among those dead were countless priests, ministers, and rabbis. If a conscious contact with a Higher Power alone were the answer – those clergymen would have been able to stop drinking.

That’s why I consider 12 Step programs to be “God’s gift to our time.” The key for me is to utilize them as they were meant to be utilized – as a rowboat to the shore of recovery. To that end, I need a real world “hierarchy” of Higher Powers which, besides my actual Higher Power, includes a sponsor,  and people I can communicate with at all hours, if the urge hits. These are all things I need as “obstructions” to place between myself and that first drink.

Just as we often hear “some of sicker than others,” I know for myself “sometimes I am sicker than other times.”

I so desperately wanted it to work, but my disease had too strong of a hold on me. It wasn’t until I was willing to surrender to that fact that I was able to move to another program that had a more strictly defined approach to recovery.

So if we have these “strange mental blanks spots,” what can we do about them? We can have various systems in place to help us avoid them – or to at least a system of “mirrors” strategically placed to help us look around “the blank spots.”

First and foremost is a sponsor with whom I talk every day. If I’m having trouble with cravings or my thinking, then alcohol should be the main topic of discussion. The last thing I need if I cannot put and keep the booze down is a sponsor who only wants to talk about the Steps and spiritual growth. Both of those things are important, but it’s like talking to the man having a heart attack about changing to a healthier lifestyle – instead of doing CPR. As they say in program “first things first.”

When I work with a new sponsee we try to understand where the “danger lines” are for their possible relapse. In other words, what behaviors or thinking should be setting off warning bells that they might be moving towards losing their sobriety. Finally, we work on a plan to have in place in case those warning bells are hitting the critical stage. I recommend the old-time AA trick I was taught:  have a list of people that can be talked to at all hours. That might mean knowing who can be called at the crack of dawn and who can be called in the wee hours of the night. The most important thing is to realize it isn’t the addict who wants to break their sobriety, it’s the disease at work. Laying the bulwark to “being willing to go to any lengths” to keep from picking up that first bite is the main defense against that cunning, baffling and powerful disease. It comes down to the old program slogan “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

Does this method always work? Not always, but a lot more often than not. It’s an attempt – as much as humanly possible – to shield one from those “strange mental blank spots.”

There are those who say the answer lies solely in asking for help from a Higher Power, and if that works for you that is great – don’t change a thing. In my experience though, that concept works much better in theory than in reality. My Higher Power expects me to “get in the rowboat.”

Obviously, the next step after not picking up that bite is to dive headlong into the Steps and recovery. The fact is that if I am spiritually fit, I can handle any situation life can throw at me. To get to that condition, however, means I need to work my recovery while at the same time staying out away from the booze.

While I can intellectually understand the concepts behind the stories in the Big Book of the whiskey in the milk and the jaywalker, a real world solution might also have been explored. If those guys had my sponsor, I’m pretty sure he would have recommended staying out of bars and away from dangerous streets. It might not have worked, but it would have been worth giving it a shot.