Reflections on Recovery Part 3

I am still attending 12-step with my friend and learning a lot.  I do, however, have one concern.  Every 12-step meeting includes a sharing time.  Those who share introduce themselves by first name only and then a personal self-statement.  "I'm _________ and I'm an alcoholic."  "I'm ___________ and I'm an addict."  While I understand that this is done to remind the participants that addictive diseases are progressive and, once you have developed an addiction, you will need to abstain every day for the rest of your life, I have a problem with a self-defining statement of each person's most negative character flaw.  To say, "I am --- anything," to me is an invitation to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Last week at meeting, someone introduced himself and said, "I'm _________ and I'm a gratefully recovering addict."  I liked that.  It was a more accurate description of this person (who has been clean for 7 years) than saying "I am an addict."

I AM is the name used by Jehovah to Moses: "I am that I am.  Tell them I am has sent thee."

I AM truly is a self-defining statement.  When we use it, we are describing ourselves and reinforcing whatever character trait we describe. Jehovah/Christ stated this as His name because he has the absolute perfect and most complete character of all.

To the woman at the well in Samaria, Jesus said, "I am [he] who speaketh to thee."  King James scholars who translated the New Testament added the italicized word he to make the sentence flow better in English, but in doing so they diluted the message of the original Hebrew of the phrase I am.  This is the first recorded instance of Jesus clearly stating that He was I AM, Jehovah of the Old Testament and Christ of the New.  The woman understood immediately what He meant and ran to testify to her friends, "Is this not the Messiah?"

Saying I am is a powerful statement.  That is why I feel concern that those who have repented completely and been forgiven by the Savior would make that statement linking themselves to the sin of which they have repented.  Does that not reinforce the very character flaw they have worked so diligently to expunge?  The Lord said, "I will remember them no more" referring to repented sin; why on earth would we continue to define our very essence through referencing that sin?

In his book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis represents this interchange in the addiction of the character Edmund to the witch's Turkish Delight, which leads him to do some abominable things.  When Edmund is rescued, he has a private interview with Aslan in which he confesses his sins and is forgiven.  Afterward, in response to Edmund's siblings' questions, Aslan said, "We will talk of it no more."  Wise advice.

Shakespeare also illustrated the concept of repentance and forgiveness in his play As You Like It. Oliver, the eldest son of Sir Rowland de Bois, seeks every opportunity to neglect, abuse, and even despise his younger brother, Orlando.  When Oliver finds himself in a life or death situation with a lion, it is Orlando who save his life.  Oliver has an immediate paradigm shift and he repents of his earlier treatment of his young brother.  Sometime later, someone comes to Oliver and say, "Are you not he who was always trying to kill your brother?" to which Oliver replies, "T'was I but t'is not I." Oliver remembers so that he will never repeat his sin, but he no longer defines himself by the sin.  T'was I, but t'is not I.

I would love it if 12-step programs would follow the same self-defining statement of Oliver when introducing themselves: I'm _______.  T'was I, but t'is not I any longer." 

That would be as I like it. 

We will speak of it no more.