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Attraction Rather Than Promotion

A twelve step program I am fond of touts the mantra  “attraction rather than promotion.”  When I was younger and held prisoner by addiction to alcohol and other drugs, well-intentioned clergy, family, friends, doctors and law enforcement would try to promote the idea of either abstinence or self-control to me as I moved brazenly from one jackpot to another.  Usually I heard that I needed to “slow down” or get some sort of handle on things.  Once I was told by a psychiatrist that I needed to find a good woman to help calm me down and live an orderly life (in all fairness, when I think about the stuff I told him, I have to remember that you get garbage out if you put garbage in). 

The magic of a recovery program happened for me when I heard somebody tell their story and I was able to relate to it.  The terminal uniqueness I suffered from had finally succumbed to a dent in its armor -in the reality that others may well understand exactly where I was coming from.

What finally got me and kept me there was the fact that others were beginning their sentences with words like “I” instead of “you.”  The similarities between their experiences and how they felt about them were way too obvious to ignore.  Even thought he people I was listening to were not trained professionals, they were educated in the school of hard knocks and went on to the higher education of leading self-examined lives.  They had something I instinctively knew I needed and wanted.

In my previous rather lengthy post about the 11th step, I wind it up with some links to issues of some importance to newcomers, but somewhat contradictory to views like mine that a born from a Christian perspective.  Some may have asked why I would do that.  In the interest of being not only open-minded, but also attempting to be inclusive to all perspective members of a recovery fellowship, I feel it is important to reiterate the fact that there is only one requirement for membership, and that it is not that you subscribe to a Christian point of view or any other religion's, for that matter.  People must meet God on their own terms and with their own beliefs.  If Christianity is what I think it is, then it is more than capable of attracting people to its banner --just like the 12 step fellowship I belong to does.  Sometimes faith is the substance of things that are SEEN.

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