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The pivotal recovery point for me in the outside/giving-centeredness called for in AA (as opposed to self-centeredness), is that I slowly get used to living in accordance with the Will of my Higher Power rather that my will. To me, Orthodoxy and Halacha are great tools for this - sounds like "asei retzono kirtzonecha - make His will like your will"...
It's basically all about the surrender of our greatest enemy in addiction: self-directed will - in the will especially - and less to do with the type of behavior itself. In some respect, we confuse ourselves with G-d, exemplified by the manipulation of others and our environment, self-pleasuring, and our typically hidden (but gargantuan) pride and fear. By the same token, the relevant/most important factor in my hiring of a sponsor is that he is not me. My sponsor taught me this based on the "12&12" (mainly spelled out in it's chapter on the 3rd and 4th steps) and I see the attitude in "AA" as well, over and over in the member stories (in the back of the Big Book).
A few Torah thoughts on this:
1) Why does Hashem give us lo sa-asei's? Shouldn't asei's be good enough? It's about the Solution, right? Not the Problem, for sure! To make matters worse, the first and only mitzvoh given to Adam and his wife was - a lo sa'asei! What the heck?!
It seems to me that negation of our will (the idea of a lo sa'asei, to me) is the ikkar of what Hashem wants, and all He really 'needed' from us to get the job done... It plants the seed for all good - His good. He would have made it all peachy for us humans (or whatever we really looked like back then) and we would have grown into whatever G-d-connected beings we "should" have become, it seems. And Shabbos is still mainly about shmirah (not doing, rather than doing)....hmmm...just an idea. Go with it wherever you like...
2) I firmly believe that the program ends where religion begins. Unfortunately, our recovery might end there, as well. That's why I stay in the program and try not to confuse the two. One makes me a man, the other makes me a Jew. Both a man and a Jew are servants of Hashem, whether they realize it or not. He has the right plan for me, in every respect. This idea does not make any sense to some people, and even upsets them, but nu, what can I do? I may not understand it, either! :)
3) "Hachno'oh". That is the Torah-word for exactly what the program talks about. I believe my program is about hachno'oh for hachno'oh's sake - while the Torah puts it somewhere and directs it. But no matter how you slice it, the ikkar (by far) for an addict is the hachno'oh. If he's got that, the odds are in his favor, for a change. And whenever it appears in davening (sfard elokai n'tzor, for example), I latch onto it as the ikkar of that entire piece, cuz I feel that it is what I need most. (Kind of like how refa'einu takes on 'new meaning' for someone who's got a disease, r"l). |
Still Clean
