There are many gifts that Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) can offer someone who seeks its fellowship. But there is only one gift that it gave me which transformed my life permanently for the better and that is a relationship to a Higher Power.
As a kid, the only relationship I had to any Higher Power was the one I was introduced to through the church my family went to and the prayers I said to that Higher Power there or at meals and bedtime. All of it was part of daily routines and none of it held any real connection to my heart. In fact, I never really liked doing any of it, especially going to church. I had to wear my dress up clothes on Sunday mornings and go to another version of school after sitting through a small amount of time listening to the pastor drone on about things that never made much sense. All of those prayers I said there or at home were just formulaic and felt purposeless. The only image of a Higher Power I had back then was of a man with a very long beard who sat on some golden throne. And I was taught back then that this Higher Power didn’t like sinful behavior and would get angry if I didn’t obey all the rules. So I began to fear and avoid this Higher Power instead.
By the time I left home at the age of eighteen to head off to college, I only talked to that Higher Power in those 911 situations or the ones where that Higher Power became my genie. In the 911 calls to that Higher Power, I’d say things such as “Please get me out of this jam!” or “Please fix this mess for me!” As for being a genie, I’d call upon that Higher Power and wish for things such as “Will you help me get an A on the final exam I have tomorrow?” or “Can you make so and so like me more romantically?” But never was there any Higher Power or God at that time in my life who I prayed sincerely towards in the hopes to become a better, more kind, and loving person on this planet.
Even after I quit drinking and drugging in June of 1995, I continued this life of self-will run riot. During the next ten years of my life, I lost both my father and mother tragically and became very angry with this Higher Power for letting their deaths happen. I didn’t understand how bad things could happen under that Higher Power’s watch with all the infiniteness power I was told that Higher Power had. I grew angrier and angrier which in turn caused me to distance myself from people that were healthy. My addictions grew stronger and the miles between that Higher power and I became greater. Except for a brief few months here and there over the years when I had some spiritual experiences through meditation, I rarely had any relationship to that Higher Power.
In September of 2007, all of that began to change when I hit an even lower rock bottom than I had on the day I first got sober some twelve years earlier. Without feeling I had any where else to turn, I walked into one of the rooms of AA on a Friday night and reached out for help. There I got a sponsor who began to teach me that their Higher Power loved me just as I was, had always loved me, and had long ago forgiven me for all those things I had done that were so selfish and self-centered. I had a hard time believing that and how AA could even help me when nothing else ever did. That sponsor told me to “believe that they believed” that AA could help me and that it would help me find a close relationship to my own Higher Power. So I started my journey in AA by believing that my sponsor believed and began doing my work in the 12 Steps accordingly.
I can honestly say that somewhere along the way, as I began to turn my entire will over to this Higher Power that my sponsor told me existed, something started to change within me. Whether it was my thinking being expanded or my heart softening, or possibly something altogether different than both, the day did come when AA and the 12 Steps helped me to discover my own Higher Power who has since become my best friend, my true Father and Mother, and my teacher of unconditional love.
Today, I refer to this Higher Power as God. And while all the other measures I took in my life to find happiness and joy failed miserably, the God that I have in my life now has not. Each day, the God that I found through my hard work in AA has kept me going, even in the hardest of times, even in the darkest of times, and somehow, someway, I know there will come a day when I will be able to thank God in person for saving me from the life of hell I lived for way too long. That, to me, is the best gift that AA has ever given me.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson