It also allows 12-Steppers to avoid the contradiction, seldom noticed, in using God or some other spiritual personality as one’s Higher Power.
Clearly, the 12
th Tradition tells us to always place “principles over personalities.” Note that it doesn’t just say earthly or moral personalities, but personalities in general. If one is to apply this Tradition in a consistent and unbiased manner, it seems to urge that we turn our lives over to the guidance of the power in principles, rather than turning it over to any personalities. It does not say “except for an external Supreme Being or one’s own personal Savior,” or whatever. It says “principles over personalities,” period.
Now, an atheist or agnostic can wholeheartedly embrace the 12
th Tradition and turn his life over to the Higher Power that resides in the principles of the 12-Step program. The reason is that the principles of the 12-Step programs are based on the facts of reality and human nature, on the factual requirements of human spiritual and emotional health—rather than on anyone’s say-so, supernatural or otherwise.
It might be thought that those facts themselves, or Reality itself, can be one’s Higher Power. And in truth, they do operate, to one’s advantage or disadvantage, depending on whether one acts in accordance with them or against them. But as a point of reference for a 12-Step recovery program, it is not the facts themselves that serve as one’s Higher Power, but the facts as acknowledged or recognizedin the form of principles. To have a “conscious contact” with the facts of reality as one’s Higher Power—and not merely being constrained by those facts—one must deal with them in the form of principles.
Agnostics and atheists can do everything that their program brothers and sisters do—things like staying in touch with their Higher Power, “letting go and letting God,” being willing to have their Higher Power remove their character defects, etc.—but they do it in relation to the Higher Power in the principles of the program, a fully natural Higher Power, rather than a Higher Power residing in some other dimension.
Before going any further, I want to make one thing very clear to my religious friends: I am not arguing that Christians, Jews, etc. should abandon their faith in God. Their faith is none of my business. But the integrity and effectiveness of 12-Step programs is my business—and it should be the concern of everyone who wants to make sure that religion never becomes one of the Three Obstacles to Progress in Al-Anon, as one of our pieces of program literature refers to it.
The issue is: is it proper to set up a personality—albeit, a supernatural one—as one’s Higher Power in a 12-Step program? Is it proper to turn one’s life over to someone else, even if that Someone is All-Knowing, All-Powerful, and All-Good?
I believe that there is much danger in setting up God as one’s Higher Power as there is in allowing one’s sponsor or some other 12-Step program friend to serve in that way. The human weakness this plays into is the natural tendency for people who are emotionally and spiritually unhealthy to turn over responsibility for their lives to someone else. This is a very harmful policy. It encourages passivity, the attitude that you don’t have to do anything; someone else (in this case, your Higher Power) will take care of it for you.
In response to this, Christians and others in the Program point out that when you turn your life over to your Higher Power, you still have to provide the energy, the “footwork,” as it were. This is true, but they don’t follow it to its logical conclusion: what they really mean is that you are turning your life over to the guidance of “God’s will”—i.e., becoming willing to act according to (God’s) principles as expressed in the 12 Steps, 12 Traditions, etc.
So, here we are once again, back to the need to live according to principles, rather than self-will, hedonism, etc. Back to: “Principles over personalities.”
Can Christians and others accept the need to leave God at the doorstep, so to speak? Can they let go of the religious elements which now compromise the effectiveness of 12-Step programs? (Giving up the reciting of the Lord’s Prayer at the close of 12-Step meetings would be a good start.)
Even if they can’t go this far, surely they can agree with agnostics and atheists that the principles of the 12-Step recovery programs are a Higher Power than their own self-will. If promoting such a mutual understanding is all I am able to accomplish with this essay, I will have been very successful indeed. Let’s talk.
Example 5: Another Higher Power for 12-Steppers
Some people say the “God-of-your-understanding” can be the collective conscience of the recovery group, the group-as-a-relationship. The premise here is that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” that a principle of “synergy” operates that produces more healing and growth for everyone than they could have had apart form the group.
It is a common temptation for some group members, when seeing a group going “off course” in some way, to want to take over the group and try to make it better. But the group doesn’t need us to focus on it and try to cure its shortcomings or control it in some way, any more than any of its members need us to do this. You are not anyone else’s or anything else’s Higher Power. The only one you need to control and fix—the only one you really can control and fix—is yourself.
It’s true that a group conscience is a more complex Higher Power than any of the other examples presented so far. It depends upon the interaction of a number of individual people’s awareness, rather than the simple operation of one’s own internal awareness. Also, the general grasp of the 12-Step principles may be better or worse than your own individual grasp of them. Nevertheless, the overall pattern of relating to the group as one’s Higher Power is the same as in the other examples.
If you do what’s right for you, the group-as-a-relationship will carry you to where you need to be. If, of course, the group doesn’t have enough healthy parts—i.e., enough people who are actively fixing themselves or keeping themselves healthy—that fact will eventually become apparent to you. But in such a case, rather than trying to take over and fix the ailing group, acting as its Higher Power, so to speak, you are far better off simply to find another, healthier group.
