Insatiable Craving

In his early years of life, Venerable Matt Talbot craved drink, but from the moment of a turning point at the age of 28, his craving focused increasingly on God for the remaining 41 years of his life.

The Phenomenon of Craving

by Colin O'Brien

Feb 04, 2014

https://aleteia.org/2014/02/04/the-phenomenon-of-craving/

What is the meaning of insatiable craving? How does drunkenness seem to be an experience of the divine? How is it different? How can Catholicism make sense of the joys and sorrows of the drinking life? What, if anything, can an alcoholic in recovery offer to the Church?

The first three questions are addressed in the 2012 documentary film “Bill W.” about the life of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) co-founder, Bill Wilson. The film discusses Bill’s friendship with Fr. Ed Dowling – a non-alcoholic Jesuit priest and an early proponent of the fellowship of AA – who served as Bill’s spiritual director. It recounts a conversation that Bill and Fr. Dowling had once, in which Bill asked Father whether his thirst would ever be quenched. Father replied that, no, Bill’s thirst would never be quenched, because we are meant to thirst; what matters is where we aim what we thirst for. 

This understanding of a profound thirst, an emptiness sometimes described as a “God-sized hole,” is the beginning point of recovery for many. In the 12 Steps of AA, it is described as an admission of powerlessness and a recognition of unmanageability in one’s life. Though this is a good beginning, one needs more for recovery; one needs to “come to believe”, to encounter God and to begin to set aside self-will for God’s will. 

By our Catholic faith, we see that God has created us for happiness – for union with Him – and that He has instilled in us both a capacity and desire for Himself so that we might seek to do His will and to draw ever closer to Him. This desire and capacity seems to have two dimensions or aspects, which I call "unitive" on the one hand, and "infusive" on the other. The "unitive" aspect is one in which we desire and seek after unity or oneness with God, with other people, and with creation; it could be characterized as contemplative, peaceful, quiet, or restful. The "infusive" aspect, as I call it, is a desire to be filled with and transformed by the Holy Spirit; this aspect could be characterized as charismatic, active, or apostolic. This twofold capacity and desire for unity and for infusion I call the "mystical impulse."

Although this "mystical impulse" can be found in each one of us, the effects of sin and concupiscence often direct our desires away from God throughout our natural lives. Alcoholism – the habitual, chronic, and compulsive use of alcohol – is one of the ways in which we see sin express itself in the world. While alcoholism has been described in many ways, one of the most illuminating descriptions of it can be found in the beginning of "Alcoholics Anonymous": the so-called "Big Book," from which the name of the fellowship of AA is derived.

In the section entitled "The Doctor’s Opinion", written by addiction specialist Dr. William Silkworth in the late 1930s, one sees alcoholism described as the operation of a type of allergy to alcohol within the body of the alcoholic. Dr. Silkworth notes that the alcoholic experiences a "phenomenon of craving" that is triggered when he takes a drink. In addition to this physical craving, he experiences a mental obsession with drinking that defies reason or willpower. He seeks after a sense of "ease and comfort" that becomes ever more elusive over time, even in the face of a relentless and fatal progression. If he is fortunate, the alcoholic will come to discover that: a) once he takes the first drink, he is unable to stop, and b) that he has no effective mental defense against the first drink. So why does he do this? The best way to explain is for me to recount my own experience of drinking and recovery.

One of my earliest childhood memories is of my father showing me the coin he received upon his reaching 90 days of sobriety in a Minneapolis alcoholism treatment facility; I was perhaps 5 years old at the time. For as long as I can remember, I was aware of and obsessed with alcohol. On the one hand I was afraid of alcohol knowing that my father had problems with drinking and I did not want to end up in a hospital; on the other, I wanted to experience release from a painful self-consciousness and fear that mounted all throughout my childhood. I recall watching with rapt attention the TV commercials which depicted the Budweiser Clydesdales pulling their fully-laden coach through bucolic, snowy landscapes, wishing for their promised good cheer to break through the sad fog of familial strife that unfailingly settled over my house from mid-November to mid-January every year.

As I entered adolescence, I became aware of a shyness and awkwardness with others that impeded me from forming relationships with my peers, and also of a mental obsession with alcohol and drinking. The knowledge of my father’s alcoholism, along with that of his father and other relatives, gave alcohol a dreadful power over my imagination. It is of little surprise that I experienced a thrill when, at the age of 14, I had my first drink; I experienced a release, an instance of what the American psychologist William James described as alcohol’s "power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour. It brings its votary from the chill periphery of things to the radiant core. It makes him, for the moment, one with truth." (James, William, The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York. Modern Library, 2002, p. 421.)

When I entered college, I immediately took to drinking; with a beer in hand, my self-consciousness and dissociation from others, particularly members of the opposite sex, melted away to reveal a convivial, affectionate and uninhibited young man who could easily and boisterously joke and talk with seemingly anyone. Seven years later, living in New York – where I was unencumbered by familial obligations and Midwestern business hours – I found a city made for drinking: the bars were open until 4 am (not counting the illegal "after-hours" clubs); the subways and taxis went anywhere at any time; the city was teeming with the lonely and the adventurous; and its citizens were remarkably tolerant of erratic and inappropriate behavior.

There I blossomed in misery; the very thing I consumed to allow me to escape loneliness – to overcome anxiety and self-consciousness – was also causing daily hangovers, nausea, vomiting, bad decisions, and "blackouts," such that I would wake up not knowing where I had been or what I had done the night before. The thing that had taken away the fear, trauma, and memories of non-contact childhood sexual abuse turned me into a voluptuous pleasure-seeker, unable to truly love the lonely and broken women I ended up with. Infused with false spirits and falsely united to friends and lovers, I chased after sensations without joy.
 

There I blossomed in misery; the very thing I consumed to allow me to escape loneliness – to overcome anxiety and self-consciousness – was also causing daily hangovers, nausea, vomiting, bad decisions, and "blackouts," such that I would wake up not knowing where I had been or what I had done the night before. The thing that had taken away the fear, trauma, and memories of non-contact childhood sexual abuse turned me into a voluptuous pleasure-seeker, unable to truly love the lonely and broken women I ended up with. Infused with false spirits and falsely united to friends and lovers, I chased after sensations without joy.

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the entire city seemed plunged into the darkness and despair that I had felt for about a year. The autumn and winter months were all a blur of smoke, ash, tears, heartaches, illness, and pubs filled with boisterous firefighters and cops in their dress uniforms hanging out after their colleagues’ funerals. And suddenly, on my 28th birthday the following August, I heard a voice say with an unfamiliar clarity and authority that I was about to have my last drink; the unreal and false began to give way to the Real and the True. I was suddenly imbued with a previously-unknown desire to stop drinking, and to believe the message I had heard.

That experience was precisely the type of spiritual experience that the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous describe as being at the heart of recovery from alcoholism. Bill Wilson saw in his own life, and in the lives of the alcoholics that he sought to help, that alcoholism was a mental, physical, and spiritual disease; recovery from alcoholism was dependent, not on medical or psychological treatments, not on moralistic arguments, but rather on an encounter with God. Why is this? Why does a spiritual program of recovery work in ways that incarceration, temperance movements, lobotomies, shock therapy, exercise regimens, and countless other approaches do not?

I would suggest, as Fr. Dowling did to Bill Wilson all those years ago, that we have a profound thirst that can only be satisfied by God. The alcoholic drinks in order to experience something of the divine, as William James discussed. This theme of thirst for God recurs throughout Sacred Scripture, such as in Psalm 42 (which begins, "As a hart longs/ for flowing streams,/ so longs my soul/ for thee, O God./ My soul thirsts for God,/ for the living God.") and Psalm 63 (where the Psalmist says, "I seek thee,/ my soul thirsts for thee,/ my flesh faints for thee,/ as in a dry and weary land where no water is."). Qoheleth, in the book of Ecclesiastes, recounts how he "kept from [his] heart no pleasure" and yet "all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun."  And yet, God did not create us to be unsatisfied; we see in the fullness of revelation that Jesus promises to give us living water: "whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:14).

When he comes to drink of this living water, the sober alcoholic can show the world and the Church in a particularly dramatic way the transformative power of God’s love. Where once he sought joylessly and compulsively after a false and fleeting sense of ease and freedom in drinking alcohol, he can experience true peace, unity, and joy in Christ. To encounter Christ, and to be infused with the Holy Spirit, is after all, an intoxicating experience. The Apostles appeared to be drunk when the Spirit came upon them at Pentecost; the Heavenly Kingdom will be not, as many fear, a place filled with the grim, the self-righteous, and the moralistic, but rather an eternal wedding banquet, where the saints behold their Creator and where the wine will never run out.

Spiritual masters throughout the centuries have described the relationship with God as a type of intoxication: the Anima Christi prayer implores, "Blood of Christ, inebriate me"; Blessed Jordan of Saxony, St. Dominic’s successor as master of the Order of Preachers, likened the Lord to a friend who wants to sit down and have a drink with us, hoping that we become drunk on the "new wine" of the Gospel. In being filled with that new wine, one then begins to overflow, to share that new wine with others in the hope that they, too, might become intoxicated by it. 
 
Fr. Hermann Cohen – a 19th century Jew who became a Carmelite priest after years of drinking, gambling, promiscuity, and associating with the rich and famous – preached this very thing when he said, "I am overflowing with joy. Yes, I am so happy that I come to offer it to you. … Faith brings us to happiness in God and in Jesus Christ his Son. … [T]o find Jesus Christ, one must watch and pray. … So pray, ask, and you will receive this intoxicating wine of immortality which flows from the winepress of prayer." (Schoeman, Roy, "Honey from the Rock: Sixteen Jews Find the Sweetness of Christ." San Francisco. Ignatius Press, 2007, p. 52.)

In coming to know Christ and in becoming "drunk" on this new wine of the Gospel, the alcoholic comes not only to experience the unity and infusion that he has always sought, but he also is given the chance to testify in an explicit way to the truths of the faith that might otherwise seem too remote or abstract to be believable. An example that comes to mind for me is that of the resurrection and glorification of the body; in becoming sober, I was able to witness in a profound way the healing power of God’s love, and yet I can also see that my condition as an alcoholic abides with me. I can foresee, with hope and faith, a time when that ailment of mind, body, and spirit will be healed and I will be made new.

Beyond this, however, the alcoholic discovers that, in the light of sobriety and washed clean in Christ’s love, his entire life can serve to give hope and encouragement to others. Hermann Cohen preached about this when he baptized one of his Jewish friends, saying: "Do you believe, my brothers, that God converted us just for our own benefit? No – a thousand times no. It is for others as much as for ourselves, that they may avoid the reefs against which we were shipwrecked. Yes, He has nailed us as signposts before the gates of Hell to say, ‘Don’t go this way.’" (Schoeman, p. 53.)

This insight is taken up in the Big Book to good effect. The alcoholic comes to see, paradoxically, that his recovery is contingent upon his remembering the past and being "willing to turn the past to good account." In doing so, he can help bring encouragement and hope to all who suffer, be they alcoholics or not. One of the most hopeful passages of the Big Book describes the culmination of personal transformation resulting from the long-sought relationship with God: "Showing others who suffer how we were given help is the very thing which makes life seem so worthwhile to us now. Cling to the thought that, in God’s hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have – the key to life and happiness for others. With it, you can avert death and misery for them." (Alcoholics Anonymous. New York, 2002, p. 124.)

In laying down his life in such a way for the good of others, the alcoholic is given the grace to enter into a deeper unity with Jesus and with the Church by speaking from an abundance of the Spirit. In this, and in the Sacramental life of the Church, he finds the mystical impulse beginning to be fulfilled, filled with hope for a future at the wedding feast of the Lamb.

Colin O’Brien is currently works in the Communications Department of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and has previously worked as a litigation paralegal in New York City. He completed a six-week observership with the Trappist community at New Melleray Abbey near Dubuque, Iowa in spring 2013, and is affiliated with the monastery as a layman through its Monastic Center program. He periodically updates his personal blog, "Fallen Sparrow," and also sings in his parish choir.

Note:  Also see  http://venerablematttalbotresourcecenter.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-phenomenon-of-craving-based-on-big_2.html


 

Father Ed Dowling and Bill Wilson

Glenn F. Chesnut, who earned a doctorate in theology at Oxford University and has had a long career teaching religion and history at multiple American universities, has published Father Ed  Dowling: Bill Wilson’s Sponsor (iUniverse, July 2015). 

“This is the story of Father Ed Dowling, S.J., the (non-alcoholic) Jesuit priest who served for twenty years as sponsor and spiritual guide to Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.  Father Ed said that the graces he received from meeting Bill Wilson were as great as those he had received from his ordination as a priest, and Bill in turn described encountering the Jesuit as being like a second conversion experience, where he could feel the transcendent presence of God filling the entire room with grace...”

There is much information about the early years of Alcoholics Anonymous and includes Matt Talbot in Chapter 7, which can be read at https://books.google.com.pe/books?id=AthFCgAAQBAJ&dq=fr+ed+dowling&source=gbs_navlinks_s 

The entire text can be read at http://hindsfoot.org/dowtext.pdf, with Chapter 7 beginning on page 76.

Matt Talbot and self-punishment

Within Part 2 of a manuscript being readied for publication, historian Glenn Chesnut addresses the "The Problem of Pain and Suffering," focusing on:

 ”(1) Emmet Fox and New Thought: pain and suffering are caused by wrong thoughts. If we change the way we think, the pain and suffering will disappear. As can be seen, Fox preached many radical New Thought ideas, but he had been born in Ireland, was brought up as a Catholic, and had been trained by the Jesuits. God as Creative Intelligence and the power of Being Itself.

(2) Matt Talbot and self-punishment, the very different path taken by another Irish Catholic, a laboring man in Dublin. Wearing chains around his body, sleeping on a bare wooden plank, and so on. We must atone for our sin and guilt by deliberately inflicting pain and hardship on ourselves before God will forgive us. The self-torture game.

(3) In Ignatian spirituality: pain and suffering exist because life in this fallen world is a war. As a good soldier, you must continue to do your duty and fight for the good down to your last breath, even when surrounded on every side by death and horror. The central Ignatian teaching of the Two Standards (Las Dos Banderas), choosing which of these two battle flags you will follow in the war between the forces of Good and the forces of Evil. Choosing between the way of Pride and the way of Humility. St. Augustine and the two cities: the City of God vs. the Earthly City, surrender of my ego to God vs. trying to play God myself.”

The overall outline of this 247 page manuscript can be viewed at http://www.hindsfoot.org/inProgr.html and worth reading first.

The section that addresses Matt Talbot is found on pages 63-69 at  PDF file or as MS Word DOC file.

Matt Talbot Day of Remembrance

[For Roman Catholic websites that post a brief biography of a saint or holy person for a particular day of the year, we may find Venerable Matt Talbot listed for June 18 or June 19, such as the one below. (For a comment about these two dates, see Matt Talbot Remembrance Day Discrepancy)


The following narrative about Matt Talbot is from the Ministry with Persons with Disabilities at the Archdiocese of Atlanta, Georgia at http://www.archatl.com/ministries/disabilities/saints/saint_info.php?0=June+19&feast_date=June+19&1=Venerable+Matt+Talbot&full_nam e=Venerable+Matt+Talbot&2=Alcoholics&patronage=Alcoholics. Its writer, Mr, McCoy, states that “a Jesuit Father, Father Edward Dowling helped A.A. to formulate this 12 step program in 1935.” Please note that while Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith and the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, was published in 1939, Bill Wilson, its anonymous author, did not meet Fr. Dowling until 1940 when Bill learned of the similarity between the 12 steps of AA and the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. One source, among many, about this meeting can be found at http://www.barefootsworld.net/askbillw.html#24 and http://www.barefootsworld.net/askbillw.html#23]

“Venerable Matt Talbot

Feast day: June 19

(Patron of Struggling and Recovering Addicts and Alcoholics)

 

Matthew Talbot (1856 - 1925) was born in the poverty of Dublin's inner city. He took to drink when still a child, and was considered a hopeless alcoholic by age thirteen. When his wages were spent, he borrowed and scrounged for money. He pawned his clothes and boots to get money for alcohol. He became a thief, once even stealing the violin from a blind street entertainer. The violin was sold to pay for a "Drinks are on me!" pub bill. 

Sixteen years later at age 28, he decided to "kick the habit". His remaining forty-one dry years were lived heroically, attending daily Mass, praying constantly, helping the poor and living the ascetic life-style of Celtic spirituality. A Jesuit priest helped him, giving him a rehabilitation program, which providentially incorporated what was to become the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. This is not really surprising when one remembers that a Jesuit Father, Father Edward Dowling helped A.A. to formulate this program in 1935. The steps have basis in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits. The priest also gave him a chain to wear wrapped around his waist beneath his clothing. It was a very light but somewhat long chain, much like a clock chain. He wore it as a self-reminder of the fact that he was once enslaved by alcohol, and of his pledge to the Sacred Heart to keep on fighting "the demon". 

Matt also became a Third Order Franciscan in 1890. "Never be too hard on the man who can't give up drink." He told his sister. "It's as hard to give up the drink as it is to raise the dead to life again. But... both are possible and even easy for Our Lord. We have only to depend on him."

Matt Talbot worked in the lumber yards on the docks of Dublin. He was always very poor, partly because he was so generous to people in need. To his neighbors and his fellow workers, he was a cheerful, happy friend. He gave away most of his wages every week to the poor at home and in the Catholic missions abroad. He lived a life of prayer, fasting, and service, trying to model himself on the sixth century Irish Monks. He read Scripture, lives of saints, and -considering his meager schooling- an astounding assortment of books: The Confessions of St. Augustine; writings of St. Francis de Sales, St. Teresa of Avila, and Blessed John Cardinal Newman; papal encyclicals, world history, and social policy. Word by word, he deciphered what they said. What he couldn't understand, Matt laboriously copied onto scraps of paper, and then handed it to a sometimes astonished priest for explanation the next time he went to Confession.

After a life of heroic perseverance, Matt died suddenly while walking to Mass, June 7, 1925. Venerable Matt Talbot's remains were moved to Our Lady of Lourdes church on Sean McDermott Street, Dublin, Ireland in 1972. The tomb has glass panels through which the coffin may be seen. He was declared Venerable by Pope Paul VI in 1975. Addiction treatment programs, retreats, and centers throughout the world now bear his name.

Saint's Prayer

Gentle Matt, I turn to you in my present needs and ask for the help of your prayers. Trusting in you, I am confident your charitable and understanding heart will make my petitions your own. I believe that you are truly powerful in the presence of Divine Mercy. If it be for the glory of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the honor of Mary, our Mother and Queen and the deepening of my relationship with them, show that your goodness towards me, in my daily struggles, equals your influence with the Holy Spirit, who is hidden and at home in my Heart. Friend of pity, friend of power, hear, oh hear me in this hour. Gentle Matt, please pray for me. Amen

Special Thanks to: Thanks to The Life of Matt Talbot: A Dublin Laborer by Sir Joseph Glynn and Book of Saints by the Monks of Ramsgate for the basis of this narrative. 

The national Matt Talbot Shrine for the United States is located in Manorville, Long Island.

Data entered by: Ed McCoy on 2011-12-14”

The 12 Steps and Catholicism

Earlier this week we posted a letter by Fr. John Bonavitacola about a statue of Matt Talbot as an image of liberty placed on the grounds of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in Tempe, Arizona, (http://venerablematttalbotresourcecenter.blogspot.com/2011/01/matt-talbot-as-image-of-liberty.html). In the letter that follows, Fr. John notes that there need not be a conflict between the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and Catholicism. (We have previously noted on this resource center site that Fr. Morgan Costelloe, former Vice-Postulator for the Cause of Matt Talbot, has discussed in his book, Matt Talbot: Hope for Addicts (2001, Veritas Publications), Matt's recovery journey in light of the twelve steps, decades before AA was founded. (JB)

Letters from the Pastor
Fr. John Bonavitacola
January 2, 2011
Dear Friends,


Our Annual Mass of Gratitude for the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous takes place Saturday, January 8 at 9am followed by a Pancake Breakfast in the Hall. Come join with those who have been blessed with recovery from addiction with the help of the 12 Steps and their families and friends. Addiction and compulsive behaviors have made the life of many a person and their loved ones unmanageable to varying degrees. Gratefully we live at a moment when recovery is possible in ways that weren't prior to the program that was started by Alcoholics Anonymous.

One of my purposes in making this an annual celebration is to make clear the connection between religion and spirituality that is often severed because of a faulty understanding of 12 Step Programs. I also want to show that you can be in recovery and still be a very good Catholic. In other words there is no conflict between the 12 Steps and Catholicism.

The founders of AA knew that they would fail if they tried to promote their new found success with traditional marketing or advertising. The reason for this was that they understood that anything that would pump up the ego of the alcoholic was extremely dangerous to his sobriety as alcoholics find sobriety only through a process of deflating their overly swollen egos. Humility is essential to recovery. But the problem they faced was how could they manage to have AA accepted as a legitimate moral program and not be seen as some fringe or cult-like group if they refused to promote it?


After publishing the book Alcoholics Anonymous, a Jesuit priest named Fr. Ed Dowling happened to get a copy and he marveled at the similarity between the 12 Steps and the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Fr. Dowling managed to track down Bill W, the cofounder of AA, which was not so easy since AA at that time was very strict about the anonymity of its members. He knocked on Bill W’s door on a very windy New York evening and Bill’s first thought after seeing the disheveled priest was that this was another drunk looking for help! Fr. Dowling wanted to know where Bill had gotten these 12 Steps and if he used any of St. Ignatius works. Bill, a bit confused by the question admitted he had no idea what the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius were. At that point both men began to realize that God was doing something big in the history of spirituality. All AA did was arrange the spiritual principles that the ages had handed on down in a new way that enabled alcoholics to recover. Fr. Dowling, and many other clergymen endorsed the program of AA giving it the needed nod from organized religion.

Bill W continued a friendship with Fr. Ed and often consulted many other clergymen so as to make sure the new program of AA was on solid spiritual grounds. Bill also would frequently stress that AA was not a substitute for religion and that AA would be forever in debt to the religious men and women who nurtured AA at its beginning. And in the book, "Alcoholics Anonymous,"  members are encouraged to return to their places of worship where they will find “new avenues of usefulness and pleasure” and where they and their families can be “bright spots” in their congregations. In other words the recovered person and their recovered family can offer much to those who sit in the pews with them and still suffer because of alcoholism or addiction. Thank you to the many, many recovered members of our parish and their families who have so generously shared their “experience, strength and hope” of pain and healing with those who still suffer in our parish. Remember you never know when you will be needed to help another, but you can’t help another if you are not there to pass it on!


And to the families whose loved ones have died as a direct result of alcoholism or addiction or who are still wounded by the scars of this disease please come and pray with us for your loved ones. Together let us continue to “trudge the road of happy destiny”. Until January 8 may God bless you and keep you!


"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever in the next."
Amen. -- Reinhold Niebuhr


Source: 2011, Jan 2, 2011 - Annual Mass of Gratitude 

Note: The prayer at the end of this letter is known as "The Serenity Prayer" in its "long- form."

Catholic Asceticism and the Twelve Steps

Although Matt Talbot is not mentioned in this article, the word "ascetic" is frequently used in describing Matt, and he may have been exposed to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius since his spiritual advisor was a Jesuit. And as noted by Fr. Morgan Costello, former Vice-Postulator of the Cause of Matt Talbot and author of Matt Talbot: Hope for Addicts (2001), Matt's conversion and recovery from alcoholism incorporated the twelve steps half a century before the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous.

The non-alcoholic author of the following article was a close friend and spiritual advisor to Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. (JB)

Catholic Asceticism and the Twelve Steps
N.C.C.A. "BLUE BOOK" AN ANTHOLOGY

Reverend Edward Dowling, S.J.
The Queen's Work, St. Louis, Missouri
Brooklyn, 1953

I think that if our positions were reversed, you would feel as I do -- grateful to be the focus of good will. I think that is true of anybody who speaks at an A.A. gathering, or about A.A.

I am sensible, as you are, of God's closeness to human humility. I am sensible, also, of how close human humility can come to humiliation, and I know how close that can come to an alcoholic. I think that in addition to my confidence in the closeness of God to one suffering from alcoholism, I would like to invoke our Lord's promise that where two or three gather together in His Name, there He will be in their midst.

First of all, asceticism comes from the Greek word meaning the same as exercise, or better, to practice gymnastics. The concept of exercise is to loosen up the muscles to prepare them for vigorous activity. Applied to spiritual matters, it means to loosen up the faculties of the mind or soul, to prepare them for better activity. Physical exercise is gymnastics, setting-up exercises, preparing me to take steps. In the same way, asceticism is preliminary, a preparation for me to use the powers of my soul.

Christian asceticism is contained, of course, in the Gospel. All the teachings of Our Lord boil down to the cardinal ideas; one negative, the denial of self; the other positive, the imitation of and union with Christ.

One of the many different systematized forms of Christian exercises is the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. There are many others, and all are efforts to apply to one's life those two principal ideas of denial of self and an affirmation of Christ. "Spiritual Exercises" indicate, of course, that the thing to be exercised is the spirit. The word "exercise" indicates a releasing of the faculties or powers of the soul.

St. Ignatius starts with a presumption that our power of faculties are bound by sinful tendencies and addictions to the wrong things. The Spiritual Exercises, therefore, work on the soul in both a negative and positive way. The first section, the consideration of my sins and of their effects in hell, is the negative part. It aims by self-denial to release our wills from our binding addictions, to enable the will to desire and to choose rationally.

The second part of the Spiritual Exercises, start in with a consideration of the Incarnation and going through the Passion and Resurrection, is an effort to see how Christ would handle various situations.

A priest alcoholic, who has written with discernment on the Spiritual Exercises, first pointed out to me the similarity between them and the twelve steps of A.A. Bill, the founder of A.A. recognized that those twelve steps are pretty much the releasing of myself from the things that prevent my will's choosing God as I understand Him.

Twelve Steps and the Spiritual Exercises

The first seven or eight steps of A.A. are quite specific as to what should be done in order to release the will from addiction to evil. On the positive side, the twelve steps are very general. Bill once stated: "It is a firm principal with us that, so far as A.A. goes, each member has the absolute right to seek God as he will." On another occasion he declared that A.A. was not concerned about the particular way a man works out his dependence on God. That depends on him and on God, mostly on God. The alcoholic's business, as expressed in the eleventh step, is to find out what God wants and to ask for strength to carry that out.

Like the Spiritual Exercises, like Christian asceticism in general, the twelve steps are not speculative ideas. They are practical steps. May I suggest some of the parallels between the Spiritual Exercises and the twelve steps.

The Foundation

The first three of the twelve steps correspond roughly with the foundation of the Spiritual Exercises. In the foundation we see man as creature. It recognizes the dependence of man on God because of the rather abstract, relatively unknown fact, creation. A.A. bases dependence on a rather concrete specific type of experience, drunkenness. The Ignatian foundation indicates that everything else shall be chosen or rejected in the light of the purpose that grows out of this dependence, i.e., sharing Him for all eternity by doing His will on earth.

The A.A. third step directs that one's life and one's will be directed by the influence of God. In it the alcoholic determines to turn his life and his will over to the care of God as he understands Him. This emphasis on the will indicates that the alcoholic should direct himself by his will rather than by the feelings that have enmeshed him. The focal importance of the will is a characteristic of the Spiritual Exercises.

Moral Inventory - Confession

In the Spiritual Exercises, the next thing is the contemplation of sin; sin in the angels, in our first parents, in others, in myself, and sin in its effects. And of course, right along the line there you have the fourth step of A.A., a fearless, thorough moral inventory of one's sins. The parallelism is rather striking.

To a priest who asked Bill how long it took him to write those twelve steps he said that it took twenty minutes. If it were twenty weeks, you could suspect improvisation. Twenty minutes sounds reasonable under the theory of divine help.

After a moral inventory of one's life, all spiritual exercises, Catholic anyway, demand the confession of sins. It is specifically required in the Spiritual Exercises. In the A.A. fifth step, you have that general confession admitting my sins to myself, to God, and to another human being.

Reatus Culpae and Reatus Poenae

There are two liabilities when we commit a sin: one, reatus culpae, the guilt of the sin; the other reatus poenae, the obligation of restitution. The A.A. sixth and seventh steps cover the guilt of the sin, and the eighth and ninth steps the obligation of restitution.

I think the sixth step is the one which divides the men from the boys in A.A. It is love of the cross. The sixth step says that one is not almost, but entirely ready, not merely willing, but ready. The difference is between wanting and willing to have God remove all these defects of character. You have here, if you look into it, not the willingness of Simon Cyrene to suffer, but the great desire or love, similar to what Chesterton calls "Christ's love affair with the cross."

The seventh step implements that desire by humbly asking God to remove these defects. The alcoholic sees one defect go as a bottle of beer is taken away. And so, that continuing detachment which goes along in any ascetical life holds true in A.A. As one grows in A.A., the problems seem to get bigger, the strength bigger, and the dividends greater.

Then comes the reatus poenae, the obligation of restitution or penance. God's forgiveness is sought in the sixth and seventh steps. In the eight and ninth steps one makes restitution. In the eighth step the alcoholic makes a list of those people he has offended and whose bills he hasn't paid. In the ninth step he pays off these obligations, if he can do so without hurting people more.

The Positive Side

The eleventh and twelfth steps give a rather limited parallel to the positive asceticism of Christianity. The eleventh step bids one by prayer and meditation to study to improve his conscious grasp of God, asking Him only for two things, knowledge of His will and the power to carry it out. Now, that is a true and accurate description of the positive aspects of Christian asceticism as well as of the second, third, and forth weeks of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius.

Then, the twelfth step. Having had a spiritual exercise or awakening as a result of these steps, we carry this message to other alcoholics and practice these principles in all our other affairs. In our apostolic work we should be an instrument in God's hands. The A.A. steps before this twelfth step are to improve by instrumental contact with God this dependence of work for others on my growth toward Christ-like sanity and sanctity has significance to an alcoholic priest. Often such a one will say, "If I could only get a little work, I feel that I could stay sober." Gradually he finds out that if he approaches sobriety through work, the work isn't going to come and the sobriety may not come either. But, as soon as he says, "Once I become sober, work will come," the hope of success is much greater.

No Humility Without Humiliation

A.A. has helped me as a person and as a priest. A.A. has made my optimism greater. My hopelessness starts much later. Like anyone who has watched A.A. achieve its goals, I have seen dreams walk. You and I know that in the depths of humiliation we are in a natural area, and, rightly handled, especially is the inner spirit of that sixth step, I think we can almost expect the automatic fulfillment of God's promise to assist the humble. Where there is good will, there is almost an iron connection between humiliation and humility and God's help.

A.A. helps the priest in other matters than alcoholism, as the twelfth step indicates. I had a little exercise which will illustrate this point. It is a very small thing in itself, but I feel that it is a clear example of how A.A. work can help personally even a non-alcoholic priest.

Learning Not To Think About It

To obtain a greatly needed help which prayer alone didn't seem to bring, I thought of giving up smoking. I had failed to give it up, even though in retreat after retreat I had tried various plans to break off the habit. None of them seemed to work for long.

Then, thinking of A.A., I realized that I had seen men in that same boat who couldn't give up drinking. I realized that A.A. does not directly cause a man to quit drinking, but rather it causes him to quit thinking about drinking. Well, it seemed easier to give up thinking about smoking; but I didn't think I could do even that. I thought of A.A. novices saying, "I can't do it all my life. I can't do it all day. I can do it for maybe ten minutes." Inspired by the humble example of A.A. men, I said at that point to myself, "I won't try to quit smoking but I will, with God's help, postpone the thought of smoking for three minutes." That is a humiliating admission for a priest who tells others to give up much harder things.

From A.A. I learned to respect the little suffering of denying self the thought of a smoke and to pool that suffering with the sufferings of Christ, in the spirit of the sixth step. At that moment, like a breath of fresh air, came the thought of the widow and her mite and the importance which love can give to unimportant things. With humiliation came humility, and with humility came God's promised help. It is three or four years since I thought of myself smoking, and I have learned that you can't smoke if you don't think about smoking.

That is a little instance from among hundreds of the applications of A.A. principles. I have watched the most difficult personal situations which a priest faces yield to the A.A. twelve steps approach, even though no alcoholism was involved. Of course, Christ and His Passion came in encouragingly through the third and eleventh steps.

The remainder of this article (that addresses "Priest Membership in AA") can be found at http://silkworth.net/religion_clergy/01038.html