More of my story

In 1961, when it was still legal, I began experimenting with LSD. I had just concluded a five-year appointment as Assistant Professor at a prestigious university and my initial drug use could be called genuine research. University colleagues and I obtained the drug from ethical laboratories in Switzerland administering it, initially, under controlled conditions. However, as history relates[i], things rapidly got out of hand.

Personally, the results were disastrous. I took other hallucinogens and graduated to opiates, barbiturates and large quantities of alcohol. During this period, 1961-76 my career moved into reverse although at each step downward I rationalised that I was experiencing more of the real world as opposed to the ivory tower. I finished up as “Educational Consultant” for a second-rate medical school in the Deep South. Despite the title, my job really consisted of ghost-writing exam questions for busy physicians. Through addicted hospital staff I got the supplies my habits demanded. In the finish, I lost even that job, spent nights in the drunk-tank of the City Jail where I amused others with stories about once being a professor.

A down-and-out psychologist could sometimes get a “clink-shrink” job in a prison, so in February 1976 I pulled myself together, bought a suit, and attended a correctional association meeting to look for work. Prison personnel were notorious boozers so the natural place to go was the cocktail lounge of the convention hotel. Just one hitch: if I went in, I would not come out in one piece.

While I was making up my mind, God performed two of the little miracles that attended my recovery and eventual salvation. A noted criminologist, Professor Alex Bassin, founder of several rehabilitation programs[ii], remembered my name from my better days. He asked the standard question, “Where are you now?” That was the first miracle.

The second miracle was even more impressive, I told the truth – not the whole truth and not nothing-but-the-truth – just enough truth to communicate to this compassionate man that I needed help. The help he offered was the only kind I could accept then: he invited me to address his criminology class. Of course I accepted: I had not been asked to lecture for years. My prestige and self-esteem were at F minus.

Somehow I managed to get to bed without taking a drink and when morning came I was at the classroom on time, showered, shaved and wearing my suit.

What happened next was recorded on TV tape (low-tech, black and white) otherwise I would be unable to remember it properly. I viewed the tape years later when I was invited back for a job interview at the same university. By then I had been sober long enough to appreciate the show.

Viewing the tape, I could then see how Professor Bassin made repeated connections between Alcoholics Anonymous and my own research. He announced to the class, “This morning our guest lecturer will speak for ten minutes and then I will speak for ten minutes and so on until the hour is up.” I had to go along with the idea whether I liked it or not: it was his class. After each of my ten-minute mini-lectures, he used his ten minutes to associate what I said to Alcoholics Anonymous concepts: “Charles’ last point is highly suggestive of an AA principle, namely…”

Although I drank again after that, I reached my epiphany hung over on the way home. I pulled the car to the shoulder and shed tears of grief. It was at this moment on the morning of March 3, 1976 that the thought, “Go to AA” came to mind. I have not had a drink or mind-altering drug since that day.

I never did get a job in the USA. Instead, I migrated to Australia. The State of Victoria advertised overseas to recruit employees for gaols and institutions. I received an immigration visa (like a US green card) and arrived in Melbourne in October 1976, seven months drug free.

All my drug-free years have been spent in Australia. When I had been sober long enough to hear God’s word, I got born-again in Melbourne Australia. In 1990, I became treasurer of a church in North Beach, Western Australia where I met my wife, Sue, in 1995. She and I now pastor a church in Green Head, Western Australia.

My overall recovery from drugs has been slow and painful at times. I have made many mistakes after quitting drugs. Nevertheless looking back on the last twenty-five years, I can certainly testify that, once I honestly surrendered to Jesus Christ, once I started to do His will, He began to lead me, step by step, to freedom.

On one trip back to the US, I visited with some old high-school chums. Amazed at my transformation, they said, “Australia has done you a world of good.” I told them Jesus Christ could do the same for them in New Jersey but they preferred to believe Australia responsible. One woman said, “We should send our husbands to Australia if it will do for them what it did for Charles.”

Two kinds of miracles

I tell this story is to illustrate two kinds of miracles in my recovery from drug addiction. The first kind is where God does what I want, or need. God corrects and rewards me, drawing me closer to Him. He also gives me test items, situations I can overcome with His help. These confirm whether I am headed right or not. Of course I must be alert to receive these messages, usually delivered through people. I must be careful not to isolate myself or be judgemental otherwise I will miss important miracles God wants to perform.

The second kind of miracle is rarer. This is the miracle where I do what God wants. Fear, ego (pride), self-pity and resentment prevent the miracle of my obedience. These four bug-a-boos result from lack of trust in Him. However, as long as I hang in there and don’t reject Him altogether, He continues to work away, in His wisdom, giving me what I need.

Some years ago, I was waiting for a Melbourne tram on a concrete island at Swanston and Flinders streets, one of the busiest intersections in Australia. Melbourne trams had been updated and the used cable cars they replaced sold as curios to the city of San Francisco but the platforms remained small. Traffic was whizzing at my backside when I felt a tug on my coattail. When I was able to turn around, I finally recognised a face I had not seen in years.

“I just wanted you to know I am well,” explained Anne whom I recalled as a sickly newcomer in AA.

“You certainly are well!” I exclaimed over the traffic noise. She looked absolutely radiant.

“Yes, I’m fine – and so are you!” she said.

I agreed I was OK. And she agreed with my agreement. And so we who knew little else of each other stood in the middle of raging vehicular traffic, rhapsodising about how good we looked. “Yes, you’ve lost weight – it’s very becoming.” “And you must be exercising, jogging I’d think. You are certainly in the pink!” “Really miraculous!” “You too.” And so on.

Anybody watching could be pardoned for assuming we were mad or perhaps madly in love. Of course, we were neither in love nor insane; we were in AA, the only club in the world where such conversations go on constantly between strangers. All we really knew about each other was that we not had a drink or drug in the intervening years – a significant fact for two chronic addict/alcoholics.

“Anne,” I asked, “tell me, how did we ever possibly managed to stay sober? I mean in that sick meeting!” For some reason the only AA meeting at 5:00pm each weekday was “street-level” with many drunks notorious for untoward behaviour. Now and then the police were summoned. At times I feared for any woman who happened to walk in. Yet the time was critical: it met at cocktail hour, between work and the evening meal. To be sure not to wander into one of the pubs surrounding the suburban railway station, I had to go somewhere. Any AA was better than none.

“How did we ever stay sober?” was a rhetorical question and I expected a laugh from Anne. Or maybe a shrug: the ineffable grace of God. Whatever. But to my surprise, straining her voice above the traffic din, she began a careful explanation of how it had happened: the little miracles that led to the big miracle.

“Two things, “ she said. “First, God always put the right people in our lives at the time we needed them. That was the most important thing. Second, we never turned our backs on the whole thing. We may not have wanted to go to the meeting but still we went. When we got there, there was always something – maybe just a small thing – that, if we paid attention to it, would keep us sober another day.”

My tram arrived; we went our separate ways. I have not seen Anne since. I assume she’s still sober and looking great(ful). In subsequent years I have examined her two-point summary of my deliverance from every angle. I have found nothing better: many minor miracles from the Lord, people (like Anne) when I most needed them, and one major miracle from me – not rejecting the whole thing – staying on the tram, so to speak[iii].

How are you Really?

AA and other 12^th Step groups are known for focusing on the main point, so to speak, neglecting niceties. When, in the first instance, NA members ask each other, “How are you?” the meaning is, “Are you still drug-free?” It takes a second instance, a repeat of the question, to find out more.

Old-timer: (spots newcomer sitting on the steps outside a meeting hall, calls) Hi, Robert, good to see you. How’s it going?

Robert: (looks up from studying his shoes and says) Great! Just great, thanks!

Old-timer: (knows Robert has been clean about a month, leans down and whispers) How’s it really going?

Robert: Now that you ask, not so great…terrible headache…finding it hard… can’t pay attention…seriously thinking…go to the flat…lie down…

Old-timer: Lie down later. (Old-timer lifts Robert by the arm.) Come inside. So you’ve got the blues? I got them in the second month – when the fog lifts, you see too much reality. Reality hurts! My sponsor told me, “Take your headache into the meeting and leave it there.”

Robert: What makes it go away?

Old-timer: Sharing! Tell someone how you feel. Grab their ear. Give them your headache. You’ll soon feel better.

Robert: (laughs and takes his seat in the meeting.)

Faults, feelings and faith

All non-godly addictions prevent normal feelings emerging and taking their rightful place in the psyche. Alcohol, drugs, gambling, obsessive sex and the rest take away pain but, in the process, mitigate other sensations such as grief, joy, love, guilt and shame. Resentment, self-pity and fear may resist moderate self-medication but even these succumb eventually to frequent doses of large quantities.

Real problems occur in early recovery when, with no drug to suppress them, a veritable cascade of long-suppressed sensations and emotions threatens to flood our every minute of the day. This torrent of feelings can be an enormous problem in recovery – frequently leading to relapse. Once again, the Bible holds the answer but, once again, its language must be updated to reveal meaning.

The modern concept of “feelings” is not found in the Bible. The closest biblical idea is “spirits” but with an obvious difference. The feeling concept was adopted at a time when psychology relied on models of the brain and personality borrowed from physics and mechanics. As a result modern psychological terms like attitude[iv], emotion and feeling imply much greater self-control than a spirit. A spirit is something invisible that controls us not vice versa!

To psychologists before the computer age[v], any explanation invoking a mental process with a life of its own was seen as “anthropomorphic” and rejected as unscientific. Any concept related to “spirits” was immediately excluded from the vocabulary. Psychology then had enormous influence on popular language and thought. In this way our view of ourselves has been greatly restricted by models of the mind and brain based on mechanical concepts[vi].

So these days our thinking about our thinking is physical not spiritual, leaving us frustrated. We think we should be able to change our minds (or even change other people’s minds) like changing oil in our automobiles. We think we should be able to control our feelings when we can’t because our minds and brains are far more complicated than we realise. What we call “feelings” have lives of their own and might be better described as “spirits” in the sense that they have their own agendas and purposes over which we have little or no immediate (physical) control.

Unconsciously we admit this whenever we verbalise emotions. We say, “I know I shouldn’t be angry but…” or “I can’t help but feel sad about…” Most of the time when we say, “I feel…” we actually mean “I don’t want to but I can’t help myself.” In all such expressions, we acknowledge that we are not in control of emotions that we somehow should be able to control.

Before the mechanical age, people did not assume they could control their world by pushing buttons or control their emotions by issuing commands. The Bible teaches that, only when we have totally surrendered to God and are ruled by His Holy Spirit, can our spirits (emotions, attitudes, feelings, sentiments, obsessions, compulsions, importune thoughts, lusts and cravings) be ordered about according to His will.

Whereas this psychological self-control problem exists to some extent for all, it is particularly insidious in the case of addicts trying to come clean. What are we to do about all the unbridled emotions and feelings that inundate our waking hours? To act on them is irresponsible (we’d commit murder!); to deny them is impossible (they’re still there); to suppress them is inadvisable (we’d go mad); to avoid them unworkable (we’re not taking drugs, remember?) so what do we do?

The Bible answer is this: we share them. The actual Bible word is “confess” meaning “tell honestly”. James 4:16 says, “Confess to one another therefore your faults (your slips, your false steps, your offenses, your sins) and pray [also] for one another, that you may be healed and restored [to a spiritual tone of mind and heart].”[vii]

This must be done often. In early recovery addicts generally must spend an hour or so every day with others of the same ilk to “share feelings” released during abstinence. Non-addict Christians can easily view this exercise as self-indulgent, a crutch, or another addiction. Most Christians do not need to relive adolescence by discussing every stray emotion that rears its ugly head and are usually bored by having to listen to those who do! In my experience, the best people to tolerate the emotional ruminations of recovering addicts are other recovering addicts: we must listen to others while waiting our turn to speak.

Churches have other needs to meet! Although the record shows AA was principled on the Book of James[viii], practically speaking, twentieth-century churches have not been able to restructure themselves so that a tiny proportion of their congregations can fulfil James 4:16 on a daily basis. As a result, AA groups grew apart from the churches in which they were born. AA then acquired members by extending across denominational and eventually religious boundaries.[ix]

Today some Christians discourage addicts from attending “unchristian” 12^th Step programs even though the church itself is unable to supply the need for daily devotion to James 4:16 in sizeable numbers. The disastrous result is relapse on drugs or loss of Christian fellowship or both. In my experience, no Christian ever lost his or her salvation by attending 12^th Step groups although many addicts have relapsed on drugs by failure to meet regularly with others facing similar emotional problems.

The Golden Rule

A second need of addicts in early recovery is to serve others. In Matthew 7:12, Jesus says “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets”, and in Luke 6:31, “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise”. [x] This proposition known as “the golden rule” has universal application meaning, among other things, that when you give, you get[xi].

Overall drug abuse and other ungodly addictions make people selfish, self-centred and self-obsessed. To recover, we must serve others. Addicts need to be of service more than to receive services. Christians who try to assist recovering addicts must realise fully that the addict’s greatest need is to help rather than be helped, to give rather than to get.

Unfortunately, however, in early days we are not yet mature enough to be responsible for the kind of “good works” described in the Book of James or the unselfish love described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. Practice makes perfect. Where can we get practice?

The best place for newly clean addicts to practice unselfishness is in small groups of other recovering addicts. The Lord was very clear to me when He began to remove my compulsions. If I ceased to help others in similar circumstances, He would take His hand off me and let me go my own way.[xii]

Even though what I was doing was for my own salvation, if I put in the footwork to help others, the Lord blessed me: I remained clean even when those I was trying to help relapsed. For years I failed to influence a single addict to quit. When I asked the Lord “Why am I doing this?” He answered, “Keep doing. It’s working: you’re still clean.” [xiii]

However, by the grace of God, not all addicts are failed evangelists. Even after a short abstinence, some have a powerful anointing from the One Who Removes Compulsions to influence others to quit. Working together with non-addicts and “old-timers”, newly clean addicts can be often be marvellous evangelists to using addicts as well as effective role models to those with less clean time.

A word to Christian Drug Counsellors

Don’t discourage attendance to 12^th Step programs. While Christian recovery programs can be effective if they are led by ex-addicts and have a sufficient number of truly recovered members attending regularly. However, just because a program is called Christian or is sponsored by a church, does not make it effective.[xiv] The key is the presence of people who used to have the problem but now do not. Encourage all kinds of association with such persons. True, there are many non-Christians in 12^th Step groups but that just makes them a fertile ground for one-on-one Christian evangelism[xv]. The more we witness to others, the more likely we are to stay clean ourselves.