The Capacity to be Honest

Friday, September 20, 2013:

Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are those who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault, they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those too who suffer grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.

Alcoholics Anonymous, p.58

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I remember hearing this paragraph read in my first meeting and then read it for myself that night as I poured over the first 164 pages of this book. It stuck in my craw like a playground challenge… it was either fight or flight at this point. What do they mean, “Honest with myself?” Could it be true that I couldn’t be honest with myself; that my dishonesty was the reason I couldn’t get sober? My mind went back to my first psychedelic trip in which I was stunned and sat on the beach in Waikiki as each lie I told others; each lie I told myself; every promise I failed to fulfill; revealed itself in a flash of consciousness. I remember grasping what it meant in terms of a cosmic reality. My mind went back to that moment and also recalled how I had been relieved of the obsession to drink for about three or four months. I attributed my short-termed sobriety then to the power of LSD, psilocybin, peyote and did not once give credit to the cosmic reality I had realized. It all faded into the background and I simply picked up where I’d left off in my moment of clarity.

            I speak of this experience, not so much to extol the virtues of psychedelic short-cuts, as it is to demonstrate how essential it is to follow-up on profound spiritual experiences with a simple program in order to stay free from the bondage to self. I had no way to make it stick… to take that moment of clarity and carry it beyond the sands of the beach and into my daily affairs. It took thirty years to finally have this point driven in like a stake in my heart by reading this simple paragraph. It was true… again I was god-smacked into realizing that I might be constitutionally incapable of staying honest with myself without some help. So, the journey began fifteen years ago; the journey that actually began thirty years before on the beach in Waikiki; the journey continues. I couldn’t get this delusion taken care of without the power of the Heart of Compassion to grant me the courage, the Twelve Steps (a simple program) to give me direction, and the Fellowship of others like me combined to help me dismantle what I thought I was. It works… it really does.

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