It wasn’t until he started putting his shoes under the bed that he came to believe
I behaved my way into believing. When I came through the doors of my first AA meeting, I was desperate. I had already picked out a bridge abutment that I wanted to smash my car into. The hope was to make it look like an accident to spare my family another suicide of a family member. It was right before Labor Day weekend of 1979. I was 34 years old and had been drinking heavily for 13 years.
I remember the walls of the meeting room had lots of slogans written on them. My eye immediately went to the word GOD which seemed like it was written in neon and two feet high.
I was there because I was at the “jumping off point.” I had scared myself badly by trying to quit on my own and failing day after day for months. My family was very involved in religion and so was I. My relationship to God, however, was only intellectual. In AA, I mostly ignored all the God stuff and went to meetings just to listen. I was very surprised when I put together three days without a drink, something I had not been able to do for the last seven years.
Soon thereafter I became involved in a men’s AA group and was assigned a sponsor. He told me I had to find a Higher Power, and that I had to have a spiritual awakening. I told him I did not believe in God. He suggested that I “pretend” that I did believe.
I started to feel bewildered. I did not understand how I was not drinking. I had been a heavy drinker all my life. Events were happening to me that I could not explain. I was back in grad school and doing well. I was sleeping well every night; I was very willing to do what I was told. I got work, found friends. I called these things coincidences.
My sponsor wanted me to get down on my knees at bedtime and put my shoes under my bed, and while I was down there I was to thank God for another day sober. He also told me that in the morning when I went under my bed to get my shoes, I was to say, “Help me to stay sober another day.” I told him again I did not believe in God, and he told me he did not care what I did or did not believe. I just suggested that I put my shoes under the bed and say the words.
I thought this was nonsense, but all the arguments had been beaten out of me by alcohol and the consequences of my drinking. So I did what I was told. My prayers were like sending radio messages into outer space. “God I am not sure I believe in you, but if you are real, please help me.” I was told to do a lot of other things, and I did them. These men in AA explained to me that a spiritual awakening was a series of spiritual experiences. They pointed out that I had already had quite a few spiritual experiences—I had asked for help and come to AA and had not committed suicide with the help of the bridge abutment. I was going to meetings and I was doing what my sponsor and the group suggested I do.
Most of all, I had stopped drinking.
After about three months I began to feel different when I was on my knees. It somehow began to feel more real. It also became ridiculous to call of the things that were happening to me “coincidences.” I began to believe that something was happening to me and around me that I could not see and could not explain. I told my sponsor that I thought he was brainwashing me. He responded, “Don’t you think your brain needs a little washing?”
Looking back now after nearly 45 years of recovery in AA , I believe it was all those actions that I took when I didn’t believe them that led me to believe. I have worked hard to do more to help others and to become less self-centered. The more I have gotten on me knees, the more I have let go of the need to be in control.