you believe in God?”
Well, now I’m getting scared that they’re not going to fix me, so I come up with: “Well, I guess I do.” Doc almost shouts: “There’s no guessing about it — you do or you don’t.” So finally I say, “Well, yes I do believe in God.” And Doc says, “Well, now then, that’s fine, young fellow; now we can get somewhere.”
And then he says, “Get down out of that bed and get on your knees.” Well, I remember that he’s a rectal surgeon, so I say; “For what?” And Doc says: “You’re going to pray;” and I say, “Who’s going to pray?” and he says, “You’re going to pray.”
Well! I tell him: “I don’t know anything about praying;” and he says, “I don’t suppose you do, but you get down there, and I’ll pray, and you can repeat it after me — that’ll do for this time.”
And so Clarence, “on that cold, concrete floor, in my shortie nightgown,” got down on his knees and got the A.A. program a year before it was first called by that name.
It is in this context that the continuing significance of Clarence S. in the history of Alcoholics Anonymous seems best grasped. “No one does anything,” Clarence states with emphasis, “unless he hurts pretty badly. But then, you have to take a stand: because if you don’t take a stand, you’re liable to fall for anything.”
The emphasis that Clarence and others like him place on “absolute honesty” and on the words “entirely” and “all” in A.A.’s Twelve Steps thus in no way implies rejection of “not-God” as the central theme of Alcoholics Anonymous. As has been explored in Chapter Eight, the first step of surrender — so essential to the Pietist process — is the rejection of any claim to an absolute in oneself. The one absolute of admitting absolutely “I am not God” may be a mysterious paradox in the acceptance of not-God-ness, but it appears a contradiction only to those whose claim to absolute relativism seems itself at least as great a contradiction. 15
----
The apparent challenge to “not-God” posed by the Survivors Program promulgated by The Church of The Way is substantially similar but historically different. Exploring this viewpoint in context should clarify and deepen both appreciation of the centrality of the theme of the wholeness of accepted limitation to Alcoholics Anonymous itself and the special threat that is posed for Alcoholics Anonymous by pulls from the religious “right” even if not by the Survivors Program itself. 16
This program — “The Way” — consists of “The Twelve Steps,” which are the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous with the words “over alcohol” omitted from the First, and in the Twelfth, “other alcoholics” changed to “others,” and “The Four Absolutes”:
1. Absolute honesty — non-lying to oneself or others; fidelity to the truth in thought, word, and actions.
2. Absolute purity — purity of mind, purity of body, purity of the emotions, purity of heart, sexual purity.
3. Absolute Unselfishness — seeking what is right and true in every situation above what I want.
4. Absolute love — loving God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength, and your neighbor as yourself. 17
It is of interest and significance that A.A. members who are adherents of the Church of The Way and its Survivors Program and the most extreme critics of Alcoholics Anonymous from the religious “right,” virtually echo the critique leveled against A.A. by Synanon. Synanon, while perhaps in the categories of some sociologists itself a glaring expression of “religious” righteousness, understands itself and has been culturally regarded as a manifestation of therapeutic radicalism. The founder of Synanon, Charles E. Dederick, in 1958 turned his incorporated A.A. club, which he “found limiting,” into what would become that confrontational creation of slurred speech, Synanon.
“We were building something new and
Well, now I’m getting scared that they’re not going to fix me, so I come up with: “Well, I guess I do.” Doc almost shouts: “There’s no guessing about it — you do or you don’t.” So finally I say, “Well, yes I do believe in God.” And Doc says, “Well, now then, that’s fine, young fellow; now we can get somewhere.”
And then he says, “Get down out of that bed and get on your knees.” Well, I remember that he’s a rectal surgeon, so I say; “For what?” And Doc says: “You’re going to pray;” and I say, “Who’s going to pray?” and he says, “You’re going to pray.”
Well! I tell him: “I don’t know anything about praying;” and he says, “I don’t suppose you do, but you get down there, and I’ll pray, and you can repeat it after me — that’ll do for this time.”
And so Clarence, “on that cold, concrete floor, in my shortie nightgown,” got down on his knees and got the A.A. program a year before it was first called by that name.
It is in this context that the continuing significance of Clarence S. in the history of Alcoholics Anonymous seems best grasped. “No one does anything,” Clarence states with emphasis, “unless he hurts pretty badly. But then, you have to take a stand: because if you don’t take a stand, you’re liable to fall for anything.”
The emphasis that Clarence and others like him place on “absolute honesty” and on the words “entirely” and “all” in A.A.’s Twelve Steps thus in no way implies rejection of “not-God” as the central theme of Alcoholics Anonymous. As has been explored in Chapter Eight, the first step of surrender — so essential to the Pietist process — is the rejection of any claim to an absolute in oneself. The one absolute of admitting absolutely “I am not God” may be a mysterious paradox in the acceptance of not-God-ness, but it appears a contradiction only to those whose claim to absolute relativism seems itself at least as great a contradiction. 15
----
The apparent challenge to “not-God” posed by the Survivors Program promulgated by The Church of The Way is substantially similar but historically different. Exploring this viewpoint in context should clarify and deepen both appreciation of the centrality of the theme of the wholeness of accepted limitation to Alcoholics Anonymous itself and the special threat that is posed for Alcoholics Anonymous by pulls from the religious “right” even if not by the Survivors Program itself. 16
This program — “The Way” — consists of “The Twelve Steps,” which are the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous with the words “over alcohol” omitted from the First, and in the Twelfth, “other alcoholics” changed to “others,” and “The Four Absolutes”:
1. Absolute honesty — non-lying to oneself or others; fidelity to the truth in thought, word, and actions.
2. Absolute purity — purity of mind, purity of body, purity of the emotions, purity of heart, sexual purity.
3. Absolute Unselfishness — seeking what is right and true in every situation above what I want.
4. Absolute love — loving God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength, and your neighbor as yourself. 17
It is of interest and significance that A.A. members who are adherents of the Church of The Way and its Survivors Program and the most extreme critics of Alcoholics Anonymous from the religious “right,” virtually echo the critique leveled against A.A. by Synanon. Synanon, while perhaps in the categories of some sociologists itself a glaring expression of “religious” righteousness, understands itself and has been culturally regarded as a manifestation of therapeutic radicalism. The founder of Synanon, Charles E. Dederick, in 1958 turned his incorporated A.A. club, which he “found limiting,” into what would become that confrontational creation of slurred speech, Synanon.
“We were building something new and
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