Grateful for my path and still growing

[gr8ful]

I no longer meet in the local churches, and I am not conscious of a resentment against persons or the group of people meeting with or leading either specific local churches or LSM. This was not an easy process for me, as I did suffer guilt and fear for years about leaving the ground of oneness, seeking spiritual help or fellowship outside of the circle of The Recovery or the recommended writings in the group.

Some background. I began meeting with a local church in the mid 1980s and jumped in fully. I had been seeking a fellowship based in the Bible and with a spiritual richness. I felt like I was home early on. I attended the FTTA and began serving full-time for several years after.

But I also struggled. I was, unknown to me, an early-stage alcoholic (an early-stage alcoholic is one that can seem to handle their alcohol with few serious repercussions; but with continued drinking, the progression always gets worse). I would go for years without drinking, but at certain times I'd slip and enter a period of uncontrolled drinking. Any time I fellowshipped about this problem, with great shame, I'd be told that "so-and-so was an alcoholic before they entered the Body, but being in the Body freed them." I didn't meet or hear about a current member of the church who struggled with alcoholism until the mid 2010s. I thought I was alone and "doing it wrong."

I left serving full-time at the turn of the millenium because I could not stop drinking on more and more frequent occasions. I stopped serving because I did not want to cause a scandal to the church or ministry -- and I had no hope of stopping, which would have ended my hypocrisy, obviously.

Over the succeeding years since 2000 my meeting life became harder because I could not find anyone with whom I could really open up to about this dark side. Going through the Experience of Life helped some, but I couldn't get past the "gross sins" like others could. When we started practicing the Vital Groups to have vital fellowship, I was hopeful, but (due to my fear or whatever) it seemed we focused on surface-level items, not the deeper demons that plagued me.

By mid 00s, I had begun seeking professional help for my alcohol problem. But I had an extreme revulsion to seeking help outside of The Ministry, or speaking to 12 Step Recovery groups about a generic "God, of my own understanding." If calling on the Lord and the High Peak and the Experience of Life couldn't help me on the Ground of Oneness, how could an anonymous god outside of the Divine Stream help me? I would participate in therapy and 12 Step work just enough to get sober a while, but I felt compelled to return to the Church and Ministry to get "real help." I kept going back to drinking.

Eventually, I did meet two people who had discovered their alcoholism while in the Church Life in my then-locality (mid-2010s). These two helped me very much and I felt like NOW there's a Levitical City I can go to! Alas, their fellowship was, "I went to Alcoholics Anonymous long enough until my daily Life-Study reading took over my need to drink. Go to AA for a while to get straight, but your real recovery will be in The Recovery."

I did this bouncing around until I despaired of living. Finally, I gave up. I went into treatment and stopped trying to explain how the All-Inclusive, Indwelling, Seven-fold Intensified, life-giving Spirit of the processed and consummated Triune God was waaaaaaay better than "God, as I understand him." I stopped thinking I was erring by reading Other Literature. I admitted my pride (pride to be correct, pride to be on the winning team, pride to be chosen and special to be in God's Move in this Age). I became willing to listen and share my experience with others.

And a weird thing happened. I started to gain peace and freedom. I started to enjoy fellowship with people who were experiencing God's presence, even if they didn't know his name (like I "certainly" did). I started realizing that it's not of him who wills or him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.

After a year in AA, I thought to go back to meet with believers. But…having done this several times over more than 5 years (go to AA, get sober, go back to my local church), I realized I didn't *have to* meet with the local church. And now I didn't *want to*. So, I didn't. Instead, I went to the most "Stand & Sit and Sit & Stand" church I could find, which was a Lutheran church in my neighborhood that had a hippy minister who fed the homeless, built tiny houses, grew a sustainable garden and spoke traditional Lutheran teaching. LET ME TELL YOU everything in my being shouted at me to reject that formalized, organized system of worship with it's clergy and laity, forms, images, crosses, incense. But I sat and listened. And I could hear the Spirit. It took a long time to turn off the internal judgement for all the "wrong things" the people in that Christendom meeting did. (And taking communion for the first time is a whole story itself). But, funnily enough, I am not a Lutheran today. No...that was a step to get beyond the confines of a bubble I was in that wasn't working for me.

At some point I realized that I didn't need the local church anymore. I don't know if it was AA, that little Lutheran church, or what, but I realized that I can be grateful for my experiences with so many good people, honest about the less-than-glorious things, own my failures and shortages, and not hate the local churches or the LSM.

In fact, one of the 7 Feasts came to my hometown a while back and a family member asked me to come; so I did. I went without fear (or sense of judgement); simply to participate and be with my family member. A few people from other places who knew me saw me and greeted me -- some without a sarcastic "oh, look what the Spirit drug in" semi-shaming (ok, full shaming) comment, but not all. I listened to the message and appreciated some of the healed scars from deep wounds evident in the speaker's message (Ron spoke, of course) but when it came to the part of the message that limited God's move to the Recovery, I recognized that wasn't my sense or experience and I didn't need that. No need to judge or oppose, just let it be what it is to those who are in that place in their journey. It's no longer my journey.

Today, I am continuing to grow. I'm in AA and sober. I am reunited with my kids and living a life of purpose in a pandemic in an age of unrest, grateful for all that I've been through.



NB: While I no longer meet and have shifted my focus elsewhere, I tell my story of deep shame and maddening inability to find healing while "growing in the garden of his grace" to encourage ones in whom this resonates that you're not alone and there is a way out of such a desperate personal situation.