Gresham's Law and Alcoholics Anonymous 8
The second unhealthy trend movement-wise is not backed by figures, but it is clear enough to any careful observer of the AA scene. As the fellowship grows older in time, its class of old-timers, alcoholics sober ten years and longer, grows. And the question of the staying power of an AA recovery looms even larger. It is an unhappy fact that growing numbers of these old-timers find the joy going out of their sobriety, that many of them search around frantically for ways to recapture the old zest for booze-free living, often ending up in such blind alleys as lunatic religions, dangerous pop psychological fads, or chemical alternatives like acid, pot, tranquilizers, and mood elevators. And far too many end up either back drinking or, what is almost as sad, sunk in despondency, hostility, bizarre acting-out patterns of one sort or another, or just plain, devastating boredom.
All of this is unnecessary. The gradually shrinking recovery rate and the old-timer blues do not require a complex or an innovative solution. The answer lies in a return to original, strong AA. The men who wrote the Big Book were, as it turns out, right after all. There is no easier, softer way. The extra work and commitment required by the full program approach pay enormous dividends. They make sobriety fun because they do not make sobriety an end in itself. Mere non-drinking is a very negative kind of life goal. Even the power of a worldscale society of non-drinkers can be in and of itself only a temporary and limited deterrent for most alcoholics.
The majority of those who become addicted are people with a mystical streak, an appetite for inexhaustible bliss. We sought in bottles what can only be found in spiritual experience. AA worked in the first place because its Twelve Steps were a workable set of guidelines to spiritual experience. Growth of the movement made possible for a time a kind of parasitism in which partial practitioners and non-practitioners of the spiritual principles were able to feed off the strength of those who had undergone real spiritual experiences. But at this point in time, the parasites have already drained the host organism of a considerable portion of its life force.
It is late in the day to be sounding a call for a return to the original way, the way of faithful practice of the full program. Still, a great deal of life is left in the fellowship, and a major revival is possible if enough of us see our dangerous situation, personally and as a fellowship, in time. What we need to do is clear enough. It is spelled out in the first seven chapters of the Big Book. What it all boils down to - especially for us old-timers - is a willingness to continue practicing all the principles in all our affairs today, rather than resting on our laurels, taking our stand on what we did way back when, in our first weeks and months of sobriety.
But we must not fail to face squarely the need for change, the need for re-dedication. Complacency, smugness in our record of success, is our greatest enemy. If we, as a recovered-addict society, are unwilling to reverse our present course, the outlook Is clear enough. We stand to recapitulate in less than a century what the Christian church has spent the last two thousand years demonstrating: that even the best of human institutions tend to deteriorate in time; and that size in spiritual organizations is all too often achieved at the expense of compromise of basic principles and the progressive abandonment of original goals and practices.
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