When Alcoholics Anonymous first began, the founders believed that people had to hit bottom before they could find recovery. The reason for this is that few people had the desperation of the drowning to do what needed to be done before they had reached that place. But they learned that if someone was willing to surrender their will and lives to the care of God they could recover long before reaching that point of losing everything but life. Dr. Silkworth, the man who wrote the Doctor's Opinion, used before the main text of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, wrote an essay in the 1950s about how it was not necessary to hit bottom before recovery, and describing that bottoms varied. Founding members of the organization also acknowledged the ability to get off the ride earlier than at the lowest point.
Yet in the minds of many in recovery this idea that one must hit rock bottom persists. It didn't stay with AA, either. It has transferred along with the steps into other 12 Steps programs as well, and it has even been planted into the minds of the general public. Many who don't know much, if anything, about recovery and have never been to a 12 Step group of any kind will speak or joke about the need to hit bottom before getting help. I hit bottom. Many times. I didn't get help. At least not while I was at the bottom. And I have buried more than one friend who stayed in their addiction or relapsed and went right through the bottom to the grave.
That's the problem. If you're driving down the road to death at 200 mph and try to wait until the last possible second to hit the brakes before hitting the wall, you just might slide right through that stopping point. The bottom may be too late, or you may not be able to function well enough to even think about stopping once you get there. After all, what is rock bottom? Rock bottom is the lowest possible level, as low as you can go. It's that last level before the grave if you want to get clear and serious. Many have tried to help others by saying that everyone's bottom is different. There is this concept of a new bottom that means that getting a single reprimand from work may be one person's bottom while another may have to lose the job completely, and still another may have to lose job, family and even health.
But the truth is that those people who don't have one foot in the grave have not hit bottom. Saying the bottom varies is a way to try to make the truth conform to the lie. And the lie is that you have to or need to hit bottom before recovery. Because that lie is so widespread and believed people accept it as truth and then say your bottom doesn't have to be as bad as mine. But that is the definition of bottom. The lowest point. We don't need to change what bottom means and twist the truth to make it work in the presence of people's misunderstanding. Instead, we need to make it clear you don't have to wait until you're nearly dead and pretty sure death is coming for you. You don't have to wait until you've lost everything.
Why do I say I hit bottom? Am I messing around with the definition and acting like rock bottom is relative? No. I've been in ICU after overdose. I spent seven and a half years in prison and came out with nothing. I have been at that place where I was playing hide and seek with Death, and I was searcher. At those points, at those lowest moments, I never stopped. I hurt too much. I felt too afraid. Now others have. They get close enough to feel Death's breath on their necks and realized they don't want to die and quit. I wasn't like that. When I got too close to Death, I tended to try to give him a hug. But, grace of God, I didn't die.
Things cycle, and after being in the lowest parts for a while, things would sometimes get better. at least a little. That's when I thought about stopping the slide. I didn't want to fall back. I didn't quit using in prison. But I quit while I was on parole and hoping not to go back to prison. I'm not afraid of the ground while I am walking, but put me up on a roof looking down at that same ground, and I get a little nervous about it. That person who stops at the reprimand doesn't stop because the reprimand is the lowest possible point. It's that the reprimand gives them a look at the ground from a higher point, a point where the fall looks frightening and deadly.
And it is. There is a point when sky diving that is the lowest safe place to pull the chute. If you wit too long you're going to get hurt badly at best and die at worst. The chute simply won't have time to slow the fall before impact. Let me put it another way. You go to the doctor and the doctor says we found a mass, and it may be cancer. We're not sure though. If it is cancer, you're still in stage 1. So what we're going to do is wait and see what happens, and if it is cancer and gets to stage 4 we'll hit you with radiation and chemo and hope for the best. Now, is your reaction cool? If I get sick enough I'll start treatment? Of course not. It's a ridiculous idea. You fire that doctor, tell all your family and friends not to use his or her services, and then you go find someone who will do a biopsy and start treatment immediately.
Listen, our addictions, our habitual sin, our life living for self without relationship with our Creator is just as deadly as any cancer. It's a bad idea to wait for the remedy. This idea that we can run around and live for ourselves and have some death bed conversion at the last moment is a risk that even the most degenerate gambler would avoid if he stopped to think about it all. What happens if you don't get a death bed but instead have a heart attack and check out while checking out at Walmart? What if you don't get the cancer diagnosis that gives you time to get your affairs in order but have a car wreck? What if you're right and you have plenty of time? What if you have another 50 years or more and death will come slowly enough for you to do what you need to at the end? Do you want the next 50 years to be plagued by the pain and misery of spiritual cancer, or would you rather have a life worth living?
It's not about escaping death and hell. It's about not being miserable. It's about there being a point to being alive. I am still a hedonist. The most pleasure, the life worth living is still what I am after. And, as ironic as it may seem, it's not found in living for self and doing only what I want to do when I feel like doing it. If we only play and don't work, we have no home. What is truly hedonistic is not skipping work until there is no job and having to live on the street. It is doing the work so that you can relax in your favorite chair in your home after that work. And life worth living is not trying to find pleasure and comfort and security and cures for our spiritual sickness in places other than relationship with Daddy.
Don't wait for the bottom. Even if you navigate it safely and don't die, it hurts way worse down there in the shadow of the grave. Take a look at the ground from higher up. There is a life worth living. It is found in relationship with the One who made us and gave Himself for us and who loves us as we are, not as we should be. It is not found in anything else. And if you even suspect that something has control of you, instead of you having control of it, and it's dragging you toward bottom, don't wait to get close. Don't wait for stage 4 or even stage 2. Get to the the Master Physician and let Him cut it our. You can't cure it yourself, but He can give you freedom from the sickness that's holding you captive.
This site is free. If this blessed, helped and or informed you, the best thing you can do is pass it on via the social buttons below. And please subscribe or follow Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.
Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments, the weekly Unshackled Echo and or listens to the Audio Messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them on social media, commented on the blog or replied to an email subscription. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions and sermons to more people by sharing this? Hitting the share button or forwarding this to a friend will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.
No comments:
Post a Comment