Overcoming Alienation through Narcotics Anonymous
One thing I look forward to during the week is our Narcotics Anonymous meeting at the monastery.
The longer I participate in it, the more I realise that sin is not our problem – alienation is the problem and sins are only some symptoms of it. That we are alienated from God – that is the correct understanding of the story of Adam and Eve and of the fall. This is so essential to understand, and we must put away from our hearts all thoughts of the juridical heresy of “Original Sin.”
Because of our alienation from God, we can also become alienated from each other, and from our own selves. Understanding this latter fact – alienation from one's own self – is of the utmost importance if one wishes to actually help anyone or support them in their struggle.
We may have 50 people in our Narcotics Anonymous group at any one time, but when we are gathered together, no one is alienated from the rest of the group. Everyone there is gathered with a people who understand them and know the meaning of their pain and suffering, of their trauma. No one is being made to feel that they are in alienation because of their race, past, colour, or sexual orientation. This is starkly unlike most religions –from so much of Christianity and Islam in particular. Everyone at N.A. is open to each other, to support them in their struggle, and to assure them that they are not alienated from those around them. That is one of the main healing features, and it is also one of the reasons why religion fails so often when it tries to help people who are addicted: our moralisation. Our penchant for trying to moralise everything often makes it impossible for us to help people who are truly traumatized, suffering, and in need.
One thing we are trying to do in our N.A. group is to help people discover an inner strength that they themselves have but did not know that they had. So far, I have never met anyone in the group who was truly an atheist.
We too often look for some "hypothetical moral issue" when dealing with people who have these traumas, when we should be looking at understanding their inner suffering and the source of their various alienations. Instead of "convicting them of their sin" (as the sectarians like to say), we help them to overcome their alienations.
This is the greatest value that I see in the Narcotics Anonymous movement.
I’ve noticed a few important parallels between Orthodox soteriology and 12-step recovery that are helpful but also generally distinct from the Evangelical theology in which I was raised.
Both the Orthodox Church and 12-step recovery affirm that:
1. God’s primary disposition to humankind is mercy.
2. Even in the fall, humanity still bears the image of God as our truest and deepest self.
3. Our primary malady is seen as a sickness to be healed rather than a moral failing to be punished. That sickness we call ‘alienation.’
4. Our salvation includes an acknowledgement that we are sinners/addicts (our condition) who are beloved children of God (our identity).
5. Our salvation is a journey that involves struggle and participation, and not merely an imputed righteousness irrespective of transformation.
I could go on, of course, but it begs the question as to how 12-step recovery has such affinities with Eastern Christianity yet emerged among Western Protestants. I have a theory about the recovery community’s spiritual backstory. It goes like this:
1. While 12-step recovery does not adhere to any religious tradition overtly and denies being bound to any specific doctrinal creed, it nevertheless makes some very specific claims about God (as one proceeds in the program): that God is personal, relational, caring, forgiving, and responsive. In a sense, AA, NA, etc., are all GA: God anonymous.
2. While the founders did not identify their faith heritage (because they knew God wanted to embrace all addicts, regardless of their beliefs), both their theology and their practice echo aspects their Methodist roots. In a sense, AA, NA, etc., are all MA: Methodism anonymous.
3. While the principle founder of Methodism, John Wesley, was an Englishman of Anglican extraction, his particular theology was rooted in his study of the Fathers. He translated St. Clement, St. Ignatius, St. Polycarp, the Martyrdoms of St. Ignatius and St. Polycarp, and Macarius the Egyptian.
4. In a letter to Rev. Dr. Conyers Middleton, Wesley lists the Fathers that he regards as representing authentic Christianity” “I mean particularly Clemens Romanus [Clement of Rome], Ignatius [of Antioch], Polycarp [of Smyrna], Justin Martyr, Irenaeus [of Lyons]. Origen [of Alexandria], Clemens Alexandrinus [Clement of Alexandria], Cyprian [of Carthage]; to whom I would add Macarius of Egypt [Pseudo-Macarius] and Ephraim Syrus [Ephrem the Syrian].”
5. While Wesley’s ‘holiness teaching’ would get moralised in the various holiness movements thereafter, his ‘method’ was really about orienting ourselves in surrender to the care of God. Such faith is not mere assent to a doctrine of grace alone, but rather, faith in the Fathers’ sense as real participation in our liberation (theosis), an inner transformation by the grace of the Holy Spirit. In that sense, AA, NA, etc., is OA, Orthodoxy anonymous.
Yet we never try to ‘claim’ 12-step recovery as property of the Christian Church, for the simple fact that it is one of those rare examples where we actually did fulfill our role as the royal priesthood for the life of the world. Today, 12-step recovery exceeds the narrow boundaries of it Christian backstory… and maybe be the most important corrective to our wayward present.
How grateful we are to serve that calling in some small way through the monastery.