About 35 years ago, I was driving a clunker of a car. One day I hit a pothole in my city, and my car started making a lot of noise. I thought the noise might be my muffler, so I drove to the muffler shop. I told the mechanic that I thought I had a muffler problem. He lifted my car up on the jack, took one look at the underside of my car, and said “the problem is that you no longer have a muffler”.
I have a friend who likes to ask “What’s the problem?” when he hears people complaining. What he means is that he wants to know what the root cause is. Until he understands what the problem is, he can’t possibly know what the solution is.
When I first realized that I had a problem with alcohol and drugs, I decided that I was going to quit. That seemed like a reasonable solution. I thought that the problem was alcohol and drugs, and that the solution was quitting.
So I quit (“once and for all, I swear I mean it this time!”). I quit “once and for all” four different times in the last 18 months of my active alcoholism. I did not understand why I kept relapsing after I had quit with the best of intentions. After all, hadn’t I quit forever?
At my home group, I sometimes share that “the problem isn’t alcohol”. That seems like a provocative thing to say at an AA meeting. I believe it to be true.
I believe it to be true for several reasons. The first reason is that that is consistent with what is in the book “Alcoholics Anonymous”. On page 103, it says “our bottles were only a symbol” (of our problems). On page 64, it says “our liquor was but a symptom”.
I also believe that alcohol isn’t the problem because I quit “once and for all” four different times. If alcohol was the problem, then quitting would have been the solution.
Lastly, I can share with you that my life actually got worse early on in AA. I was abstinent for 90 days in AA, but I was in so much pain that I finally asked my sponsor for help. If alcohol had been the problem, shouldn’t I have gotten much better after 90 days of not drinking?
So as my friend likes to ask- What’s The Problem?
I believe that the problem is that I do not know how to live my own life. That is a difficult thing to admit. In my culture, and my upbringing, I was taught to show self-confidence, and never admit problems publicly. Admitting problems would not be consistent with “keeping up with the Joneses”.
But in AA, after working through the Twelve Steps, I finally had to admit that I had made quite a mess of my life. Only with the help of AA, my sponsor, and the Twelve Steps, have I been able to reconstruct my life and rebuild trust with my family and friends.
So I ask you-if you are struggling to stay sober, or if you are struggling with some major life problems- what’s the problem? The problem may not be what you think it is.
With Love,
The Recovering Urchin
