Staying Saved (part 3)

I continue to reflect on my recent experience with M—trying to learn about the battle we are in and how we must protect ourselves and one another.    

As an addict, M has always insisted that his relationship with other addicts is a key element in his ongoing recovery.  For him, that was fleshed out in his participation in the “4^th and 5^th Step Group.”  This is where he initially found sobriety and began a more focused search for God in his life.  It seems that this group (like many 12-step groups) acknowledges the role of a Supreme Being.  This group seems to be more explicit in their acknowledgment that the Supreme Being is the God of the Bible.  Yet, the group exists for recovery from addictions.  It is still recovery-centered and not mainly God/Christ centered.  Anyway… 

A couple of years back, in the context of his recovery and experience with his group, M began a serious search for God…reading his Bible regularly…praying…seeking answers.  During this time, God brought our paths together.  My family and I began helping M to grow as a disciple of Jesus Christ.  We helped he and his family envision simple discipleship and the formation of a Christ community based in their home and family.  We confirmed him in his desire to remain connected to his recovery group…to continue to see this as a key element of his community…perhaps a place where he can continue to minister incarnationally to others with a similar past.  This seemed to work for him. 

However, with time, M began to be drawn to a group within the larger recovery group.  This smaller group (5-7 of them) shared a desire to follow Jesus, study the Bible together, etc.  I’m not sure all that happened but this smaller group became increasingly desirous of forming a more “Christ-centered” recovery group.  They were bothered by some of the practices of the larger group.  There were some strong personalities in this group and there may have also been some underlying conflicts that contributed to all of this.  Anyway, they began meeting separately—met two or three times weekly to discuss their ongoing recovery and once each week for a more specific time of Bible study.  One of their primary goals was to rethink the monthly Experiencia (outreach event) that the 4^th and 5^th Step groups do.  They wanted to continue doing this…but do it in a more Christ-centered way.  This conversation and shift began back in January.   

I live a couple of hours away and was listening in on the conversation, traveling out to be with M’s family a time or two each month—mainly providing spiritual support and coaching for this simple faith community in formation.  I interpreted this new, Christ-centered recovery group as perhaps a next step development in the life of the growing church—I listened to M talk of this and encouraged him and prayed for he and his companions.  I had some contact with the others, but mainly focused my attention on M and his family.   

Anyway…the months passed without M and his new group actually having a monthly outreach Experiencia.  Every month they were studying and working on it…but they never felt “prepared” enough to have it.  “Maybe next month” they would say.  One of M’s friends, F had taken a leading role in this new group.  F has a Pastor friend from a local Christian church.  They just were not prepared enough yet to do the outreaches F believed.  The group followed his lead.   

I could tell M was concerned about this.  He didn’t understand why the group didn’t feel “prepared” enough to go ahead and experiment with the events.  But he kept submitting to the group decision.  I had a bad feeling about the new recovery group’s failure to not involve themselves in the “mission” that had been so key to their recovery.  I voiced that to M.  He agreed but the months continued to pass.   

In June, M began to show signs of unhealthiness.  He had further conflict with one of the key members of the group.  Soon he drank.   

As I reflect on this, I am struck by the relationship between our involvement in “mission” and our ongoing spiritual well-being.  Helping others is key for our “recovery.”  If we stop telling our story and helping others enter into the story then the story tends to get fuzzy and we forget…and we stop living it.   

I’m also struck by a common lie of the Enemy:  You aren’t quite ready to help others.  You aren’t prepared enough.  Take another class.  Read another book.  Get another degree.  Then you’ll know enough to help others.   

One of the main ways we prepare to help others is by helping others…learning as we go.  Noticing what we are learning…trying to do it better next time.   

I guess this is what I’m trying to do here!  

Staying Saved (part 2)

A few days back I was sitting with my friend M.  As we were praying together and sharing recent struggles and victories, the conversation moved to the last few months and M’s recaida into drugs and alcohol—to his recent (5 weeks ago) escape again into the world of the living.   

When asked to reflect on all of this, M is quick to insist that the responsibility was his…that no one else is to blame.  He speaks easily and in a balanced way about his understanding of the spiritual battle going on between the Kingdom of God and the dominion of Satan, his full acceptance of his own responsibility and the consequences of his choices, and the reality that he has a disease called alcoholism.  He is transparent about terrible experiences that he had earlier in his life—yet he doesn’t have a “victim” mentality.  His gratitude to God and his resolve to live soberly are obvious.   

Yet, M and his wife are working on it.  They want to learn from this experience—we all do.  M’s reflection on his experience with his recovery group seems important in all of this.   

As an addict, M has been in and out of dozens of groups over the past couple of decades.  Though the personalities and specifics vary, all of these groups work through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.  M didn’t get really serious about this until 2 or 3 years ago.  Though he believes God was the real power, M found the road to sobriety through a group that emphasizes the 4^th and 5^th Steps—they work all the steps but they call themselves, “Groups of 4^th and 5^th Steps.”  One of their distinctive characteristics is a commitment to have regular (usually monthly) retreat experiences.  At these weekend experiencias newcomers (alcoholics, addicts, and some codependents) are guided through a rigorous treatment of the 4^th and 5^th steps by the experienced members of the group.  In the 4^th step they go through an extensive inventory of their past discovering the roots of their addictions.  In the 5^th step they share their discovery with one of the experienced members who then serves as their sponsor.  This monthly event serves as the door for newcomers looking for sobriety.  It serves as the tangible “mission outreach” of the group.  It also allows each addict to stay connected to their own recovery by sharing testimony and helping to facilitate the recovery of others.   Everyone participates.  M and his wife have been very involved in the experiencias over the past few years—very important for their ongoing recovery.   

However, while this group and their “mission experience” was so key to M’s initial and ongoing recovery, it seems to have also played into his fall back into drugs and alcohol.   What do I mean? 

In their discovery of really good principles and methods for helping one another, the “4^th and 5^th Step” groups developed a serious case of elitism and exclusivity.  I sensed this from early on in my experience with them—M has talked about it a lot lately.  They take great pride in their way of doing the program.  There is a lot of mystery here—you can’t really know what happens until you go as a newcomer.  Then you have to promise not to tell details to outsiders.  This breeds a sense of secrecy and exclusivism into the DNA of the group.  The elitism is also evident in the groups’ stance towards other “12 Steps” groups.  Any other group is 2^nd rate and both subtly and publicly are criticized.  Again, this bothered me early on as I began to have contact with this group—but I’m not an alcoholic and the group seemed to be so important to my brother M.   

Ultimately, the elitist attitude of the group contributed to M’s fall (and come to find out many, many others over the years).  Because M had bought into the belief that only “4^th and 5^th Step” groups were acceptable for good recovery, any other recovery group (AA, 12-Step, etc.) was not an option.  Satan worked to cause problems relationally and philosophically between M and some of the other members of the group.  M became increasingly uncomfortable there.  But, because of the subtle belief that no other recovery group could help him (because they were flawed philosophically and/or methodologically), he dropped out of all recovery groups.  Satan had him.  He soon took a drink.   

In the last few weeks, M has visited many other recovery groups.  He has found many who tell the same story as his…that the elitist group ultimately contributed to unhealthy beliefs and a fall from sobriety.   

Somehow this sounds familiar to me.  Exclusive, legalistic beliefs and methods have negative long-term effects on sincere and usually well-intentioned people.  We get caught without even knowing it.   

Could this be a truth even outside the world of recovery groups?!!!