In his outstanding book chronicling the history of AA entitled ‘Not God’, the author Ernst Kurtz emphasizes key differences between the philosophy of the Oxford Group and the reality of what has taken place in AA. The Oxford Group promoted the Four Absolutes – Honesty, Purity, Unselfishness, and Love. Our co-founder Bill W. was very clear that the use of absolutes and perfectionism within AA was a great danger to the reality of who we are. And that to act as if we are in possession of these absolutes was to miss perhaps a key foundation of the whole AA movement; the clarity that we are ‘not God’ and there can only be an authentic spirituality in the inescapable reality of our imperfection. In fact, Dr. Kurtz was so convinced of this foundation that he gave his book on the history of AA the title ‘Not God’. What follows is an extract from this history of AA that, I believe, offers a lot of clarity about the dangers of absolutes and perfectionism … and why ‘progress not perfection’ is an important principle to keeping us ‘right sized’ and humble. Perhaps, the absence of absolutes and perfectionism help us practice the humility that is identified on page 70 of the Twelve & Twelve as “the foundation principle of each of AA’s Twelve Steps”. – Bruce M.
The fellowship’s early experience and awareness of its own history had taught it two relevant and related things: the problem with the specific term “absolute” and the special danger to alcoholics of the quest for perfection.
Wilson’s stress on alcoholics as “all or nothing people,” on “going broke on … trying to get too good by Thursday,” and on the need for “taking the middle course” infused and pervaded every response to any challenge concerning A.A.’ s omission of “absolutes. How this emphasis permeated and was lived out in Alcoholics Anonymous informs much about “not-God” as the fundamental message of the fellowship and its program. Appropriately, this emphasis is best explored by a study of the paradoxes of A.A. experience.
The core paradox confronted most newcomers to Alcoholics Anonymous at the first meeting at which they were sober enough really to listen. On the one hand, the key initial intuition of A.A.—quoted from the Big Book—proclaimed that “Selfishness—self-centeredness” lay at “the root of our troubles.” Yet, almost simultaneously, the newcomer heard emphasized an equally key A.A. slogan epigram: “This is a selfish program.”
In time, with increasing sobriety and deeper immersion into the A.A. program, the member attained awareness of the resolution of the apparent paradox. Like the “instincts” deftly analyzed in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, selfishness was recognized as a given of the human condition and so to be honestly accepted rather than dangerously denied. But also like the instincts, selfishness could be directed and tempered—applied to its proper object with the help of another of the program’s maxims: “First Things First.”
On several occasions, Bill Wilson labored to clarify and to drive home a necessary distinction in the alcoholic’s selfishness. “… It seems to me that the primary object of any human being is to grow, that being the nature of all living things. Therefore he is bound to have a huge self-interest.” Another correspondent complained directly that he had been “disturbed to hear some A.A. speakers say, ‘A.A. is a selfish program.’” The co-founder’s response was eventually published in The A.A. Way of Life:
I can see why you are disturbed.… The word “selfish” ordinarily implies that one is acquisitive, demanding, and thoughtless of the welfare of others. Of course, the A.A. way of life does not at all imply such undesirable traits. What do these speakers mean? Well, any theologian will tell you that the salvation of his own soul is the highest vocation that a man can have. Without salvation—however we may define this—he will have little or nothing. For us in A.A. there is even more urgency. If we cannot or will not achieve sobriety, then we become truly lost, right in the here and now. We are of no value to anyone, including ourselves, until we find salvation from alcohol. Therefore, our own recovery and spiritual growth have to come first—a right and necessary kind of self-concern
Implicitly, Wilson was distinguishing between self-centeredness and self-esteem. The key to the answer, insofar as “answer” could be given to “paradox,” lay not so much in the bare concept of growth, but in that emphasis’s necessary implication of continuing essential imperfection: there is always danger of becoming “truly lost.”
The fellowship’s continuing experience verified what its earliest consciousness had taught: “we alcoholics are all or nothing people;” “the drive for glory, … [having] to be perfect, outstanding,” remained the most treacherous trait of even the sober alcoholic’s “neurotic disease.” The suggestion of the A.A. program, then, as well as its promise, was “spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection”: “We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines.” This promise with its implicit admonition came at the conclusion of the Big Book’s listing of the “Twelve Steps suggested as a program of recovery.” And appropriately so: consistently and indeed inevitably, given the nature of their “disease,” anonymous alcoholics wrote to Wilson “Dear Bill” letters lamenting their inability to practice the A.A. program “perfectly.” As consistently and inevitably, given the nature of his insight, the co-founder fired back tempering responses.
The nature and style of these replies further clarify A.A.’ s resolution of the paradox inherent in the only absolute of “not-God” being absolute.
The very possibility of “progress” taught continuing imperfection, and caution against implying otherwise inspired Wilson’s every response. Many found the quandary incorporated into the very heart of the fellowship’s presentation of itself in its textbook, Alcoholics Anonymous. The very first word of the key Fifth Chapter of the Big Book—the chapter titled “How It Works,” the first part of which was read at the beginning of many meetings—encapsulated the problem: “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.” Often someone raised the question: “In light of the ‘thoroughly,’ why the ‘Rarely’?” The query was of course frequently carried to Wilson’s desk. In time, his answer became standardized but nevertheless revealing:
Concerning your comment about the use of the word “rarely” in Chapter Five of the Big Book. My recollection is that we did give this a considerable thought at the time of writing. I think the main reason for the use of the word rarely” was to avoid anything that would look like a claim of a 100% result.
To a member who had complained that since “a decision is a decision,” meetings that explored the Steps need not re-hash the first three, Wilson suggested a different understanding of “decision”—“Most A.A.’ s, I think, feel that decisions have to be repeatedly taken for the reason that we are apt to fall down on the original ones.” Another sober alcoholic offered a similar criticism concerning “surrender”: it was either present or not, so why keep talking about it, especially to sober A.A.s? Launching from his favorite images of “Pilgrim’s Progress” and “our Father’s many mansions,” Bill responded by summarizing his philosophical and psychological understandings in two brief sentences: “Such is the nature of the human being that I doubt any 100% conformity or surrender is possible—the only perfection is in God Himself. All the rest is relative.”
Because of Wilson’s charismatic status within their fellowship, many alcoholic members felt driven by their faith in A.A. to demand perfection of its co-founder. As had Dr. Bob in his “Last Major Talk,” Wilson reminded most who complained that although the Twelve Steps could be understood—“in their absolute sense”—as directing towards perfection, they were only “counsels of perfection that no one will ever attain—at least in this life.” Bill himself felt that many early failures in Alcoholics Anonymous had been due to his forgetfulness of precisely that fact. “In my early A.A. years I used to demand perfection or bust of myself and even more of those around me.” Accordingly, he resisted vigorously—whether the request for his own perfection came as demand or as counsel.
Faced with demand, Bill exposed his continuing vulnerability:
That you seem disillusioned with me personally may be a new and painful experience for you. But actually since the beginning of A.A. many members have had like experiences. Most of their pain has been caused, not only by my several shortcomings, but by their own insistence in placing me, a drunk trying to get along like other folks, upon a completely illusory pedestal—a station which no fallible person could possibly occupy.
I’m sure that a little inquiry can convince you that I have never held myself out to anybody, either as a saint nor a superman. I have repeatedly and truthfully said that A.A. is full of people who have made more spiritual progress than I ever have, or can; that in some areas of living I have made some gains, that in others I have stood still, and that in still other ways, I may even have retrograded.
Evaluating counsel, Wilson was more philosophical:
To me, Jim, your present advice seems to be of the absolute variety. It is actually a counsel of perfection. So far as it goes, that’s all to the good. But perfection is only one kind of reality. Perhaps you are overlooking the other kind—the relative reality of the world we live in. For any real progress, I think we have to keep a keen eye on both. That is why the Big Book emphasizes spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.
… As a practical matter, isn’t it a fact that we can go broke on perfectionism, just about as fast as we can on egotism?
Spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection” implied continuing spiritual imperfection. It also meant looking to effort rather than to results. The Third Step of the A.A. program expressed and accepted the Pauline vision that no matter who “watered,” it was God who gave the growth. As Wilson summarized this perception for two distraught correspondents: This guilt business is a sort of pride in reverse. So you simply accept yourself as you are and try to work for better things. Your success is not to be measured by the results of your effort, it is only measured by trying to do something.
You shouldn’t be disturbed that you can’t practice A.A. perfectly—who can! If you report progress that’s all you can expect of yourself and all that anyone can expect of you. So don’t worry about that so much—just keep trying.
“Don’t worry” is surely the most useless and often the most counterproductive advice possible. But to suggest exchanging as the object of concern results outside individual control for personal effort appropriate to the responsibility of not-God-ness over the years brought at least some peace to Bill Wilson’s correspondents … and to countless other members of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Thus whatever may be challenged in the abandonment of the quest for explicit absolutes by Alcoholics Anonymous, the significance of that apostasy becomes clear only in the context of Bill Wilson’s—and A.A.’ s—awareness of the history of both the fellowship and its program as lived by its individual members. Early on, the term had smacked too much of the Oxford Group and so was relinquished out of concern for “Catholic opinion.” Later, increasing experience with the pitfalls of even sobriety led to the conviction that the alcoholic’s inherent idealism and this trait’s correlative quest for personal perfection required essential emphasis on the uniqueness of “God” as absolute.