Why do clergymen so often fail with
alcoholics, when A.A. so often succeeds? Is
it possible that the grace of A.A. is
superior to that of the Church?
Answer
No clergyman, because he does not happen to
be a channel of grace to alcoholics, should
ever feel that his Church is lacking in
grace. No real question of grace is involved
at all - it is just a question of who can
best transmit God's abundance. It so happens
that we who have suffered alcoholism, we,
who can identify so deeply with other
sufferers, are the ones usually best suited
for this particular work. Certainly no
clergyman ought to feel any inferiority just
because he himself is not an alcoholic. (N.C.C.A.,
'Blue Book,' Vol.12,(1960).
Another Answer
I thought the answer to be very simple. The
Church has the spirituality, but in the case
of drunks, it didn't have the communication
to pave the way, one alcoholic to the next,
for the Grace to descend. So you have the
spirituality, of which we have borrowed, and
we have the communication. Therefore we are
in no competition at all; we can do together
that which we cannot do in separation.
(Transcribed from tape. G.S.C. 1960)
Question & Answer # 36b
-Another question, same topic.
What can ministers do to co-operate
with A.A.?
Answer
The approach to the alcoholic is everything.
I think the preacher could do well if he
does as we do. First find out all you can
about the case, how the man reacts, whether
he wants to get over his drinking or not.
You see, it is very difficult to make an
impression on a man who still wants to
drink. At some point in their drinking
career most alcoholics get punished enough
so that they want to stop, but then it's far
too late to do it alone.
Sometimes, if the alcoholic can be impressed
with the fact that he is a sick man, or a
potentially sick man, then, in effect, you
raise the bottom up to him instead of
allowing him to drop down those extra hard
years to reach it. I don't know of any
substitute for sympathy and understanding,
as much as the outsider can have. No
preaching, no moralizing, but the emphasis
on the idea that the alcoholic is a sick
man.
In other words, the minister might first say
to the alcoholic, "Well, all my life I've
misunderstood you people, I've taken you
people to be immoral by choice and perverse
and weak, but now I realize that even if
there had been such factors, they really no
longer count, now you're a sick man." You
might win over the patient by not placing
yourself up on a hilltop and looking down on
him, but by getting down to some level of
understanding that he gets, or partially
gets. Then if you can present this thing as
a fatal and progressive malady and you can
present our group as a group of people who
are not seeking to do anything against his
will - we merely want to help if he wants to
be helped - then sometimes you've laid the
groundwork.
I think that clergymen can often do a great
deal with the family. You see, we alcoholics
are prone to talk too much about ourselves
without sufficiently considering the
collateral effects. For example, any family,
wife and children, who have had to live with
an alcoholic 10 or 15 years, are bound to be
rather neurotic and distorted themselves.
They just can't help it. After all when you
expect the old gent to come home on a
shutter every night, it's wearing. Children
get a distorted point of view; so does the
wife. Well, if they constantly hear it
emphasized that this fellow is a terrible
sinner, that he's a rotter, that he's in
disgrace, and all that sort of thing, you're
not improving the condition of the family at
all because, as they become persuaded of it,
they get highly intolerant of the alcoholic
and that merely generates more intolerance
in him. Therefore, the gulf which must be
bridged is widened, and that is why
moralizing pushes people, who might have
something to offer, further away from the
alcoholic. You may say that it shouldn't be
so, but it's one of those things that is so.
(Yale Summer School of Alcohol Studies, June
1945).
