The 12 Step Program as Onion

It is a curious phenomenon to me that my spiritual journey has led me to a re-evaluation of the 12 Step programs of Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon. I am not an alcoholic, and so I cannot speak for alcoholics. I am, however, the friend and family member of many alcoholics, and I was an active member of Al-Anon, the support group for the friends and family of alcoholics, for 10 years. I even started an Al-Anon group in the town in which I live that ran for over a year. As I have expressed before, these blog articles are written in the literary genre of the personal essay. This is not a research paper, unbiased and replete with nothing but confirmable facts. There are surely readers who question whether or not I "know what I am talking about" regarding various subjects. I do my best to write with the utmost integrity, from the position of my education and experiences. My goal is not to provide a balanced list of the pros and cons in a disinterested sort of way. I know what I know, and I don't claim to know it all.

Also, the spiritual journey is, by nature, never finished. I have not yet drawn any firm conclusions. I am like a detective following clues, not yet sure how they will all fit together. Will this crime ever be solved? He doesn't know, but faith and hope prompt him to keep looking, and to not rule out any possible connections or suspects, whether the evidence seems logical or not. He just knows, somehow, that he is on to something. When a house burns down, the inspectors sift through the rubble looking for the source of the fire. Those who lived in the home salvage what they can and move on. Or maybe it is a storm that destroys the house, and when they rebuild, they do so on higher ground. In any case, after the smoke clears and some semblance of order has been restored, it is wise to reflect on what worked well, what did not, and why. This is the reason we study history, people! We need to understand ourselves, why we act, think, and believe as we do, what happened to get us where we are today, and how we can avoid repeating our mistakes. I am the camel who rides bravely through the storm, not the one who sticks his head in the sand. I am not bound by political correctness or paralyzed by the fear of offending someone. The reactions of others are not something one can control anyway.

This is what prompts the writer to write, this feeling that she is on to something. If she were not, then no strong reaction would occur in the reader. He would not click on the link unless the title piqued his curiosity in the first place. He would not be moved to laugh, or cry, or become angry, or to think, if there wasn't a good point being made somewhere. It must too be understood that the writer is not her blog, anymore than the poet is the poem, or the artist is the painting. Surely something of the creator is in the creation. But the paradox is that the artist must be detached to a certain point from the thing he makes, or gives birth to, for his work to be good. So I separate myself from the page, and I hope the reader has the sense to do the same.

Metaphor serves us well in this detective story, so let me get on with the onion. Often in Al-Anon I heard a member describe the process of his spiritual growth through the program as the peeling away of a layer of an onion. Each time he made a discovery or understood something, there was another layer underneath, so he had to just keep peeling. Now, I understand that all metaphors are limited. It would be silly to imagine that the whole program could be explained with this produce comparison. But perhaps it gives a clue as to why I found myself disillusioned and needed to move on from Al-Anon, just as I became unsatisfied with the particular brand of Christianity I had known. Have you ever peeled an onion? It makes me cry. A brilliant thing I heard in the rooms of Al-Anon was that it is possible to learn one's lessons through joy rather than always through pain. Maybe the onion is the painful part of the path. An onion has a base from which it grows, but it has nothing comparable to a core, such as you find in an apple.

The apple has a skin right on the surface that contains the highest concentration of nutrients in the fruit. Then you have that fleshy part that you can really sink your teeth into, and it is sweet and juicy, especially if it's organic and in season. But then you hit the core, and you have to stop and wonder, even be in awe. What are these things in the middle? True, you can eat them. But if you plant them, you can grow a whole new tree and a whole crop of apples. Why, you can have an arbor or a whole forest! Like Johnny Appleseed, you could even travel the nation and plant these seeds everywhere you go, and the variety of apples could become nearly endless. So the onion and apple are the points of departure for what appears to be a whole series on this subject of what is missing with the 12 Step program. My working hypothesis, then, is that the 12 Step program is more like the onion than the apple. It has its base and value, but perhaps what is missing is a core. I have finished with the onion and am working my way through the flesh of the fruit. I did not discard the peel, I ate it. And when I get to the core, hopefully I will find out what to do with it!

As a final note, allow me to make another analogy. As a student Montessori teacher, I spent an entire weekend in teacher training every month. Inspired by the writings of Montessori and the discussions of her brilliant method, I would be excited to try these techniques and apply these theories in the classroom. Sometimes my mentor teacher took the wind out of my sails by admonishing me that at the end of the day, you have to do what works in your particular classroom. Following the truth in what she said, I will argue that what I have observed and experienced in Al-Anon and AA meetings, and what I have seen regarding what people actually do with the Big Book and Conference Approved Literature and how they practice the program sheds just as much light on how these programs actually work as does knowledge of what the books themselves say. This is my opinion, and by gosh by golly, I will not be derailed by self-doubt or the frowns of others, for I am on to something! Perhaps, dear Watson, it is elementary after all.