Cunning, Baffling, and Powerful

The AA "Big Book” calls alcohol “cunning, baffling, and powerful.” It also says that “without help it (meaning alcohol) is too much for us.” The “Big” Big Book (the Bible) says in Romans 7:15-18: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.”

When I began drinking regularly at age 16 I simply liked the “feeling” alcohol gave me. This is the “cunning” part of alcohol - because long after I lost the peace alcohol had once given me, I continued to think the next time I drank I would have that peace again. Alcohol was “baffling” in that even after a drunk driving car wreck my freshman year in college, multiple blackouts, another drunk driving wreck as a car passenger, an arrest for public intoxication, and other incidents (things much worse than mentioned here, but I’m not ready to put them in a blog) I still thought “I can control my use of alcohol!” And finally it is “powerful.” I would tell myself “I am not drinking today” and I would later that day find myself drinking again. I once quit drinking for 42 days and as soon as I had the next “first drink” I was quickly back to drinking like I had before. I even quit for six months at age 22, I thought I had alcohol beat, but as soon as I drank again it was if I had been drinking all along and not long after I had one of my worst blackout episodes.

It wasn’t until six more years passed, at age 28, that I had my last drink (one day at a time) and have not had a drink in over 16 years. The difference between the last time I drank and all of the times before was that previously I had tried to stop with my willpower instead of using the power of God. Earlier in this entry I quoted Romans 7:15-18. This scripture reminds me that while there may be a part of me that wants to quit using alcohol there will always be another part of me that wants to do what I hate to do. Therefore my will power will never be enough because sin lives in me. It doesn’t matter what hurt, hang up, or habit I have, as long as I live I will always have a sinful nature. It is this knowledge of self that makes Romans 8:1-5 so incredible!

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. Those who live according to the sinful nature have their mind set on what nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their mind set on what the Spirit desires.”

Every day when I wake up I am an untreated alcoholic/sinner and every day I get on my knees and seek His will because I deal with an addiction that is cunning, baffling, and powerful and because I have a sinful nature that invites me to do what I don’t want to do. It is comforting to know that all I need to do every minute and every day is to be willing to submit to his power instead of my own and I am free. There is no special key needed to unlock this power it is a simple decision that I make. There is no special intelligence needed only the humility to let God be in control and for me to get out of the way.

Grateful Believer,

Sheldon