In the preceding chapters you have learned something of alcoholism. We hope we have made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the nonalcoholic. If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic. If that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer.
To one who feels he is an atheist or agnostic such an experience seems impossible, but to continue as he is means disaster, especially if he is an alcoholic of the hopeless variety. To be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face. - Alcoholics Anonymous - p.44
A conversion experience is not for me: I'm an obstinate Vermonter. Besides, I can't buy it. People say to me, 'Have faith.' And I believe I'd have faith if I could have it but I can't. - Bill W. in his Guest House talk.I made a casual decision around the age thirteen that would have profound effects on my life. In the soaring arrogance that only an adolescent can muster, I determined that there was no God. This was a decision of convenience because the life of self-centeredness I was planning for myself didn't really allow for any authority outside of myself, God being chief among them. In this I was profoundly unoriginal. Imagine that, a rebellious teenager!
Now as Bill will point out later, that decision was really an act of faith. I was gambling that life was best lived in the basis of "self determination" to put a nicer spin on it. Of course I didn't see it that way and I carefully insulated myself from anyone who might put a rational wedge in my smug self-assurance.
As life became more and more unlivable I began to find myself surrounded by people whose lives were attractive. These were people who seemed to have the ability to live life on its own terms, to be generous and humble, and most of all to know joy. I would have gladly given up all my misery to be like them except for one insurmountable issue: they all believed in God and lived Christian lives. I wanted faith, but had become so entrenched in my irrational atheism that it seemed beyond me. It was as if someone were trying to convince me that life would take on new meaning if I could just bring myself to believe in the Tooth Fairy.
One Sunday morning I was by myself at work in the basement of a phone company building. I was there on Sunday because I had to make up the work I hadn't done the day before while I was detoxing. I had an appointment at the bank Monday morning to get a loan to cover the balloon payment on our little dump in Roseville and I thought it would be bad form to show up drunk at 9:00 am. So I went cold turkey on Friday knowing that it would be a couple of days before I would stop shaking. I also had another little problem: I had written a bunch of checks that I had to cover on Monday as well, and my car, such as it was, was not dependable enough to take me to Puritan and Greenfield where the Credit Union was. This was not a neighborhood where you wanted to break down.
So there I was, swimming in self-loathing and maudlin self-pity and all I could think about was the people who had God in their lives and how much I yearned for that simple peace. It was then that a very remarkable thing happened. For a brief moment I became ever so slightly open minded about this God stuff and wondered if I might have gotten it just a wee bit wrong. I suddenly realized that I had been living my entire life based on a decision made by a thirteen-year-old brat. I was thirty three at that time and the results of my atheism experiment were in: not working out too good.
What I did next was as simple as it was profound: I made a decision, not one whit more rational than the one I made at thirteen, that I would begin living on the assumption that God existed even if there were no concrete evidence of it. At that moment, I was instantly freed from the cares and anxiety that had been dominating me and I felt that I was surrounded by infinite love, and that everything was going to be okay. Needless to say, when I read Bill's account of his experience in Towns Hospital I was flabbergasted at just how much it paralleled mine.
I went home and got my brother's bible and flipped to a random page. (This is not a very practical way to study Scripture.) It opened to the parable of the prodigal son. If I had any doubts about the validity of my experience that pretty much quashed it. I must assure you that this is not typical of the spiritual life but it does seem to happen to us more often in those first "pink cloud" days.
The twenty years of my life lived on the assumption of God's non-existence were followed by twenty more based on the opposite assumption. I needn't tell you that the latter was indescribably better. I won't say that this proves the existence of God but it does prove one thing: that faith in God is beneficial in the extreme. Whether or not God exists I may never know. But I know no other way to live.
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