CONSCIOUS CONTACT

Those in the 12 Step Recovery Program are familiar with a few well-worn terms.  One of them with which I recently took umbrage is “hitting bottom.”  I have always found that term both offensive and off the mark – offensive because of its inherent denigration, and off the mark because in the moment described, a person suffering from the effects of addiction empties himself of the pride and arrogance that come with the wonton exercise of free will, admits to his powerlessness, and recognizes and surrenders to a power greater than himself.  My term for that might be epiphany, or spiritual awakening.

I brought this puzzle to a woman whom I respect and admire, not only for her 24 years steeped in Program, but for her raw wisdom wrapped in sweet humility.  I’ll call her Joy.  Joy listened as I posed my concern about what I felt was a befuddling misuse of the term “hitting bottom.”  After a thoughtful pause to collect her thoughts, she gave me the following explanation.  Before I share it with you, I’ll admit that her response was so compelling that I followed by saying “all my thoughts on the matter, put together, are like costume jewelry to your pearls of wisdom!”

“When a person comes into his first meeting, he has absolutely no thought of God, or any Higher Power.  He is broken; his eyes are vacant; in his mind he has nothing to live for.  Yes, he has made the step that opens himself up to his Higher Power (I’ll call Him God).  But he cannot see that, nor can he feel it or experience it in any way.  He does not know where to turn.  He is desperate and feels alone.  And so we say, as we look back at that moment in our own recovery journey, it was at that moment that we had ‘hit bottom.’  Back to the newcomer… he will soon learn he has a disease, and that he is in a room of fellows who share that disease.  So he is not alone.  When he hears the First, Second and Third Steps read he will watch and hear these fellow travelers admit to their powerlessness, recognize that they have a Higher Power, and show their willingness to turn this disease and their lives over to that Higher Power.  And when he faces that decision himself, by starting to work the 12 Steps himself, he will be on his way AND able to look back at the moment that brought him into his first meeting as the moment when he “hit bottom.”

Upon further reflection on Joy’s words of wisdom, I am (as always, it seems) grateful for the anointed circumstance of that first meeting between Bill W. and Dr. Bob.  I consider the magnitude of their wisdom in formulating the 12 Steps as reflective of the very experience Joy had just laid out.  In sequence, the newcomer entering into the room for the first time experienced the “bottom,” then the shared experience, and finally the epiphany. 

After our conversation ended, I took some time to process the information Joy had so generously shared with me.  I began to think of how the epiphany played out for the newcomer.

At each 12 Step Meeting the members recite:

“I sought my soul,

But could not see,

I sought my God,

But He eluded me,

I sought my brothers and sisters,

and found all three.”

There it was.  At the point of “hitting bottom,” the addict’s soul had been lost.  Stepping into his first meeting, head down, unsure, he was the newcomer seeking to find his own lost soul. As time passed and he learned about the first three steps, he encountered God but found an understandably faulty connection given the shame and guilt he was inflicting on himself.  But finally, he looked up… he saw faces welcoming him, heard voices receiving him, and felt understanding enveloping him.  In those brothers and sisters he regained his soul and he found God.

One final point.  As if the first three steps weren’t profound enough in this healing sequence of the first chapter of recovery, more providential language exists – in Step 11.

It reads:

“Sought through prayer and meditation

to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us

and the power to carry that out.”

I’ve concluded that the newcomer’s “hitting bottom” and stepping into that first meeting was his “unconscious contact with God.”  It had all the characteristics of spiritual readiness, of emptiness of pride and arrogance, powerlessness, and surrender.  It gave God the necessary space to fill with His loving forgiveness.  But it is not until the newcomer (who by now may be a member with weeks or months of clean time and meeting attendance) encounters Step 11 that he comes in conscious contact with God.  

I discussed my thesis with one of my Program friends, who said it provided her with an “Aha moment.”  She recounted that when her husband was new to the Program, “he said he wasn’t sure he actually believed in God anymore, and after three decades together in agreement about our spiritual life it kind of freaked me out.”  But after our discussion she went on to say “he revisited the issue a few months into his recovery and was certain of his belief.”

He, like all the lucky ones in recovery, was more certain than he could ever have been without the joy-filled, joyful sequence of [what I will now acquiesce is appropriately called] “hitting bottom,” then stepping into his first meeting, seeking his soul, seeking his God, faltering, encountering his brothers and sisters and finding all that he’d sought, then working his Steps to first admit powerlessness, then recognizing and turning his disease and his life over to his Higher Power, and finally establishing what is so aptly called “conscious contact” with God through a powerful certainty that no other power could have brought him back to himself, his wife, and his community.

And so my exercise ends.  It began as an exercise questioning the use of a term with which I disagreed and for which I had little regard.  It has ended with a deeper understanding of many terms with which I am in total agreement and for which I have the highest regard.

Isn’t that what recovery is all about?