Conference on problems of dependence

Below are papers read at the conference on Theological Understanding of the Addiction Problem:
Orthodox and Catholic Approaches
October 1-2, 2019, Sankt Petersburg (continuation)

Transformation of the Drug Addict's Relations with God while Healing

Ekaterina A. Savina, Zebra & K Rehabilitation Charitable Fund, Moscow

God heals. As long as the man is with Him, healing is possible. Otherwise, it's like going into the outer space all on your own - it will bring nothing but death. The addict doesn't see this - the denial of addiction interferes. That is why the goal of rehabilitation is to bring the person to a conscious communion with God. However, there are obstacles on this way.

First, we know that it is God who brings recovery, but often we do not accept this - hence judgement, lecturing the addict, praising one's own role in their transformation, manipulation. Recovery is not perceived as a miracle, but as an algorithm that needs to be properly performed in which case everything will work out.

Second, when an addict comes into rehabilitation, we have no common conceptual framework, language or spiritual experience. The spiritual experience of a drug addict is different: it is characterised by communication with the dark forces and demons. We need to be aware that when we say "God", the addict may not necessarily mean the One we keep in mind. We talk about different things, and s/he does not understand us!

Despite the hindrances, despite the lack of contact with God, God starts the process of recovery: He triggers a crisis and promotes it, if He does not encounter the person's free protest against recovery in which case God withdraws.

In the process of recovery, we witness a growing understanding of God by the drug addict, depending on the way the person progresses in his/her recovery.

While drugs are still used, at the beginning of the process of meeting God, He is in the periphery of the world, a character of legends or fairy tales, which may be partly true; thus, God is somebody unknown. The Gospel has not been preached. The person may have heard about it, but it is perceived as a legend, which the person tries to adjust to his/her understanding of reality and discards everything that does not fit into this framework.

I am the boss, so God is allotted a service function - 'give me and serve me'. He is much less important than the people around. "Forgive me" is not said at all. Not only is God's identity unknown, it is of no interest. God can be dangerous: He will inflict revenge for mistakes (an angry director, judge or an executioner) and He sees and knows everything (an investigator). The main danger that He brings with Him, is that He will not allow to use drugs - the main concern in life of an active addict. That is why one needs to hide from God (ignore Him), turn to Him in extreme cases and consider as a hindrance for the rest of one's life.

Here we see the characteristic features of an addict: deceitfulness (including lying to oneself), denying one's subordination to the devil of addiction, using others for one's own purposes, the main of which is the use of drugs. Thus, the world is divided into I and Them; with this, I live so badly that I ought to be pitied and saved from misfortune, and They are often the culprits of what is bad. All this gives food to hostility, resentment and anger, and results in violence and forlornness (Ghorlum).

Along with that, the man has another sub-person - a good one, brought up in the family, who does not wish bad to others and oneself, who is ashamed of the reality of the Ego. Both these sub-persons form relations with God. They are conflicting and intertwined, and this only exaggerates the chaos in the relationship of the Ego with the world and God.

The crisis that may mark the beginning of recovery, is characterised by experience of powerlessness and exhaustion of all personal resources; this brings God from the periphery to the proximity of the Ego-centre. It comes either as a conflict with God (resentment, anger and fear), "How could you do this to me??!", or as a need to be saved from the crisis, through a miracle and for free, without any personal responsibility. They are often intertwined. By the way, salvation is granted for free, but it comes with the responsibility to accept it and hold it.

Crisis - judgement - a turning point in the life of a drug addict; there may be several of them in one's life, and recovery may begin thereafter. We cannot create a crisis, but we can accentuate it and bring it to the surface. The beginning of recovery and which direction the process will go, depends on whether the drug addict decides to start changing his/her life and stop using substances. There may be no decision taken, and then the crisis will remain a futile torment and a delayed resumption of the substance abuse. One can even die during the crisis if they decide to persist with taking drugs (Gorlum).

However, Ego remains in the centre of the world. The drug addict often sees the demon's action or even the demonic forces in person that exercise their full power over him/her, seeking his/her death and generating horror. The man in such a crisis begins to pray heartily or at least hope for salvation that may come from an unknown source. Answering this cry, God may help the person as if from behind. The man does not repent, but needs a relief to his/her state immediately, and pleads only for deliverance from the agony.

Here the person is forced to turn to God, there is no personal relationship with Him, but a demand to help. The focus of attention is on the person who is suffering. Our attempt to help, saying, "you need to stop using drugs" can paradoxically trigger anger, "I feel bad already, and He wants to deprive me of everything I have!"

One may call this a childish relationship with God, but even a baby smiles at its mother and father, loves them. A drug addict in crisis does not love God or feel ashamed of him/herself. They try to use Him - as simple as that.

The beginning of recovery. The addict starts communicating with other recovering people in groups and acquires three new experiences for him/herself: the hope that an addict can live well without drugs; the idea of God as a Person with whom these people are in communication; a personal initial experience of sobriety. This is where meeting God begins.

Much depends on people who are in contact with the addict. S/he absorbs like a sponge everything new and tends to follow instructions being confident that this is the way to come to recovery. God is again an auxiliary object of his/her world, but He is much closer than before - some interaction with Him begins. It is hard for the sober lifestyle to compete with the previous values of substance abuse - there are many temptations to combine them somehow.

Many prejudices come into play from their previous experience - about God as the Judge and the Executioner; God 'not wanting me to live my way, so I need to stay away from Him'; about the need to become like those believers (mother, for example) who quite recently 'were against me, and pray like them'; childish ideas about the ignorance of the believers; fear of being deceived, etc.

Looking at the transformation of the addict's personality in recovery, we see that recommendations are aimed precisely at overcoming deceit and secrecy ("honesty, openness, and open-mindedness are the spiritual pillars of our recovery") and at finding other spiritual values that compete with the use of drugs, which is the main value for an addict.

This is not only a return to oneself ("having come to his senses, said"), but also an opposition to the harmful changes that addiction has brought about.

A critical and watchful getting to know God is on the way, nevertheless there is willingness to seek and try. God 'hast shown [His] loving-kindness to man as usual (from the morning prayers, Prayer 6 by St Basil the Great) and responded to these attempts with a gift of moments of pure joy, friendship and mercy, followed by renewed mistrust and criticism. Now it is a teenager in faith who is zealous in his/her strive for the truth and does not forgive God in case of his friends' death, for instance - "Why You failed to save them?!" This 'teenager' does not tolerate the uncertainty and transcendent; they need to 'take everything to pieces', and then they wonder 'why there are some extra details left and the thing does not work'. These 'extra' details include, for example, fasting periods and feasts, the Church at large. However, sometimes, there is this youthful frankness and trust in God and absolutely stunning feats of faith. I know a recovering addict who worked as a doctor and was to have arrived to the clinic by 8 a.m. He would get up at 5 a.m., pray for half an hour, read texts on recovery and then write a list of what had made him grateful to people and God the day before, encouraging his feeling of gratitude, then he would prayed for them again and leave to work. In the evening, he attended his group of Narcotics Anonymous, where he helped newcomers; when at home, he would write some papers to support his recovery, pray heartily to God and go to bed. He did this every day for five years, including weekends. He responded to every request for help. He managed that. I remember the funeral of one of our friends, an addict: his coffin in the church, friends reading the Psalter in Church Slavonic all night long. They read it in small chunks so that everyone had a chance to read, some of them did this for the first time in their lives, hardly understanding anything, but with the faith that God was hearing them and would help their friend!

It is not always like that. Many have so much distrust and are so weak in their faith that they cannot maintain it, and their recovery either. They fall, and then get up, and try to believe again. This adolescent confidence brings a lot of perplexity and pain; the confidence - warmed up in groups - that everything can be understood and accomplished following the recommendations of 'the leaders' in the recovery from addiction or advice from the priests, relatives or specialists. To accomplish everything without God. There is an adolescent desire to find an authority, a teacher whom one believes unconditionally and gets disappointed later, of course. We know that recovery is a miracle worked by God - often, but not always. And usually this happens in certain circumstances, but they are nothing but circumstances; it is God alone who works miracles. That is why any efforts of the man alone cannot ensure recovery. There is nothing but hope in God, and for that it is necessary to put Him in the centre of one's world. This is what the man does! This is the watershed.

Many recovering addicts have found God as a Helper and Hope, and are trying to live the right way according to the Gospel not being aware that they live thereby or that God is the author of the Gospel. They integrate the right sober way of living - the 12 steps programme, they thank the programme (and people in it), they pray to God, asking for their needs, they may even go to church from time to time, but they do not see Christ in God, they live without Him, and any attempt to preach encounters a polite resistance, "I know for myself how to believe". Baptized in their childhood, they are not Christians; their faith strongly resembles that of the Old Testament, imbued with a firm hope for help and fear they may offend God, but there is no love for Him.

They have had experience of communion with God, but indirectly. They believe in an unknown, but caring and helping God (could it be their Guardian Angel?). There are heartfelt prayers and there is prayerful work - their conscious sobriety is a proof to that. God continues to help them, which is not surprising. "My God who isn't proud", Simeon the New Theologian wrote. But when they meet Him, before or after death (preferably, before), there will be much surprise and repentance. Now they reject any catechism as an intrusion in their relationship with God that gave them the current sobriety, and they are very afraid of losing it. They are protecting their most precious thing!

What do they know about God? That He is loving, helping in difficult times, and that He is able to give them back their sobriety and sanity to maintain and strengthen it. They believe that God helps them through people who are healing along with them, and see the obvious fruits of this faith. They somehow articulate to themselves: God wants them to live "the right way", because God will not help them in their wrong way of living; but sometimes they also believe that it is somehow possible to hide from God and go on living without Him, and then come back to Him, and God will not reject the one who has returned. They believe that God cares for them and will find a way out of any difficult situation, so that they may not hide from life into the use of drugs. They seek God's will and try to do what He wants. For example, a recovering addict tries not to do evil by clearly distinguishing between the good and the evil. The addict speaks confidently about his/her conversion, but prefers to call God the Supreme Power, precisely because s/he does not associate it with Christ and does not want it, fearing religious influence. Why is that? Partly s/he is afraid to touch something that works so well already in their life, partly because s/he is aware that there are still many addicts among Orthodox Christians, including priests, i.e. the Orthodox faith on its own does not save. (We know that well, don't we?). It is that unknown God who saves, and therefore they appeal to Him.

Others manage to overcome the watershed. Having followed the quest for God in the 12 steps programme, or without it, having found Him as Helper and Protector with other recovering addicts, they risk asking, "Who are you? Who am I addressing?" And God answers them almost like He did with Moses, "I am". The man does not surely hear the voice, but undoubtedly feels that the CONTACT with God has taken place. It is overwhelming. It takes away all beliefs and prejudices for a while, and gives an acute sense of happiness. Usually the person tries to keep it secret. This happened to many people I know they have experienced recovery. As one becomes aware of this experience, s/he begins to understand that what is written in the Gospel is true, not only from a historical point of view, but in a personal story as well - it was Christ s/he met then. It is important that the person does not take pride in this, does not lecture, does not look for special sensations from that contact, but the contact changes his/her relationship with God, s/he is now looking for a life with God, not only for a trouble-free sobriety - his/her previous life does not suffice. The urge for drugs remains; the person naturally sins, too, but the grain of sanctitude, which used to reside secretly in his/her soul, has become visible - one can even see it in the person's face. Now the Church and the Gospel are important for that person, the prayer becomes a natural part of his/her life. Without it, s/he wears out and is well aware of this. Challenging experiences in life only strengthen his/her faith. Sobriety becomes a direct consequence of that life, rather than an end in itself, but at the same time a precious experience and gift that s/he carefully maintains at Narcotics Anonymous meetings, knowing that one should "peck where it is sprinkled". It is there that s/he came to God and discovered Him for him/herself; that is why s/he stays in the Community. It is tempting to decide in his/her situation that "everything is all right now", God has healed him/her, and s/he no longer needs these fellows' support, their experience or relations with them. A recovering person becomes able to love, see the beauty, be selfless, repent and rejoice.

Some experienced this encounter with God or saints earlier, in the downmost period of their lives. I had a patient who met St. Nicholas at the time of despair and then came to recover. "My God who isn't proud" descends to people in the hell. God is free to meet the man whenever He wishes. As Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh said, "There are no such roads where man cannot meet God".

In both cases, with the "unknown God" or with Christ, a recovering addict forms relations with other people in a different way. Now God is in the centre of the world, and people - including the addict - are around Him, and this forges the relations of brotherhood. The awareness that God warms them as well with His grace makes the recovering addict treat them as him/herself, following the commandment of love for their neighbour, which in turn strengthens their relationship with God in the centre of his/her world. This is the way this person begins to live from now on...

We should try to speak their language with the recovering addicts at different periods of their spiritual maturity. We can speak about God only using the current notions the drug addict has about God, the way s/he understands Him today. This is how we shall be able to help and participate - with the addict - in creating circumstances where God Himself can work the miracle of recovery.

Common views on AA program and a look from within

Archpriest Roman Syrkin, rector of the Church of all Russian Saints, Beloozersky, Moscow region

In this my presentation I will talk about my work with the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. I will do my best not to distort the observations that recovered alcoholics shared with me.

I would like to emphasize that unlike normal people, non-alcoholics, they look at their malady from within, not as an outside observer. Therefore they have their own viewpoint and many things they see differently. These are not scientific facts since these drunks are not scientists or experts in alcoholism or drug addiction, but for specialists and those struggling to help this information might be of interest. For some people this information might turn out to be unexpected and controversial, but for some, I hope, it will help to avoid serious mistakes and will help destroy widely spread prejudice.

Why did I have to do all this? I was ordained in 1990 in Moscow suburb. I faced not only the problem of rebuilding the destroyed temple, but also alcoholism and drug addiction among the locals. Naturally, I tried to help through church sacraments, such as Confession, Unction, Communion. This helped some, but not all. Despite the fact that the suffering people sincerely wanted to recover, they slipped, died or got out of sight. Something else was needed. For example, if a person has gangrene, then it is obvious that after all the sacraments and prayers he must be sent to a surgeon. Therefore, I had to look for specialists, read professional literature, attend seminars. In 1992, I met Yevgeny Nikolayevich Protsenko, who gave me the book "Alcoholics Anonymous". I read it carefully, and my personal ideas about alcoholism have dramatically changed. In this book, high level certificate psychiatrists admitted their powerlessness in treating a certain class of alcoholics and wrote them off as hopeless. But they immediately testified that Alcoholics Anonymous found a spiritual way out of the deadly impasse by proposing their program.

Due to my great arrogance and ignorance, as a young minister, I decided to correct this American program set forth in the book and make it, as it seemed to me, "Orthodox". In addition, at that time, I believed that so-called self-help groups could include not only alcoholics, but also drug addicts, and emotionals, and gamblers, and so on, as all these are one and the same. But after a while my conscience told me that the results of my actions were not at all what I expected. Now I can easily explain where I was wrong. The fact is that just as "Orthodox healer" label may contain no Orthodoxy whatsoever, any sign that mentions steps, for example, "twelve steps of healing from alcoholism," does not necessarily mean that these are Alcoholics Anonymous. The prerequisite for the effective work of the program and the condition for compliance with the "sign" turned out to be the presence and mandatory observance of the Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous. Otherwise, it is something else and should be called differently, and then the guarantees of Alcoholics Anonymous are cancelled and replaced by the guarantees of healing specialists. I could not give such guarantees, on the contrary, I admitted my complete inadequacy as a "healer".

Therefore, the next step was a new study of both the Program and the Traditions the way they are described in the book "Alcoholics Anonymous," but not on my own. Now I carefully listened to the comments of recovered alcoholics. In addition, the experience of accepting confession from people undergoing the program has appeared. My ideas about this disease have once again seriously changed. Finally, I saw that this program was addressed not to all sinners in general, and not even to all drinkers, but only to completely hopeless alcoholics, to outcasts who went beyond human help, only God Himself can save them. When I tried to "improve" the program, so to speak, I confidently took the place of God. Now I am sure that during these experiments on sick people, many of those who could have been helped, unfortunately, died.

It turned out that the only guide to God can be a recovered alcoholic who in person and at AA meetings (which primarily exist for this) passes his recovery experience to a hopeless fellow alcoholic, or, as they say, "real" alcoholic. How does this work?

An alcoholic who comes to a meeting finds out that he is sick and that his illness consists of two parts.

The first part in their semantic space is called "allergy of the body". When a stone cold sober alcoholic takes a drink of alcohol he, as a response, has an unstoppable physical craving for alcohol, which is not amenable to any conscious control. The only way to avoid this craving is not to drink any alcohol. As of today mankind does not know any way how to rid an alcoholic of this allergy. Alcoholics Anonymous are convinced that any person who once manifested such a reaction to alcohol will die with it. It is not curable. No pickle can change itself back to a cucumber.

All the rest that is illogical and inexplicable sufferer's behavior, the program relates to the second part of the disease, summarizing it with the term "obsession of the mind". Since the mind of an alcoholic is obsessed all the time with a recollection of a feeling of ease and comfort that will come once he takes a few drinks, those drinks that others (not alcoholics) drink with complete impunity.

This damage to the mind leads to the fact that at any unpredictable moment the alcoholic forgets for a moment that if he drinks, then he will not be able to stop, and that the consequences will be terrible, but the recollection of sense of comfort or any ridiculous excuse for drinking easily erases this from memory, and the whole nightmare cycle repeats. This is obvious madness.

For outsiders, the life of an alcoholic looks as if he thinks only of himself and completely ignores the interests of other people. To a large extent this is true. But it is absolutely necessary to add that the alcoholic live is a real, living alcoholic hell, never interrupted for even a second. He erected its walls out of fear, and he blocked the entrance with a stone of self-pity. It makes no sense to frighten him with death, because death has long seemed to him a deliverance, not a threat. Much more than death, he is scared to be left without alcohol. None of the people can enter this cave for reasons that I cannot explain. People can talk to him, throw some food to him, but they can't help him. On the other hand, the alcoholic who completed this program not only knows how to enter this cave, because he used to be there, but most importantly, he now knows how to get out of it. And only he can convince the outcast to follow him, because he speaks the same language with him.

In the program, this is called "identification", when alcoholics understand each other perfectly, unlike "external" people, none-alcoholics.

When exhausted by decades of drunkenness, often after a week of a spree, an alcoholic appears at the entrance of an AA meeting, he is faced with an inexplicable phenomenon. Before that, people around him told him that he was guilty, that he had to pull himself together, or that he was drinking because he was not loved in childhood, or something else, perhaps very correct, but that did not work. And when he finally arrived at the group, for the first time in his life he was among the people of exactly his kind. They talk about their illness, about its two main symptoms, and, discovering this in himself, he makes himself the same diagnosis! And although none of them tells him: "I do not blame you," he feels it. Often this makes such a strong impression that exactly at that second an alcoholic gains the opportunity to stop. This sobriety is not a consequence of personality change, so it is unreliable and is unlikely to be long-lasting, but nevertheless, is a direct result of the identification of one alcoholic with another.

The program does not deal with the feelings of an alcoholic, it is centered around prayer and practical actions, leading the alcoholic to first fully realize his defeat, and then to the readiness to cry out to God for help. And then God, only God and no one else, can radically change the man's personality, this is constantly emphasized in the program, which from the first to the last letter is God-centered.

The program wastes no second to find out the cause of alcoholism, it deals with a fait accompli and works only towards the solution, and not on a study of the preconditions. The alcoholics who completed the program say about themselves: "We have recovered!" Exactly so, in present perfect form. This does not mean that now they can drink like normal people. This means that God changed their personalities so that in their value space the effects of alcohol on them left no trace. They do not drink not because they are afraid, vowed, or "they cannot", but because God freed their mind from the obsession of alcohol. They are no longer hiding from alcohol and are not fighting it; in their new life, it neither attractive nor dangerous to them.

In the process of going through the program, by the third step there comes a time when Alcoholics Anonymous begin to insist that selfishness is the root, essential component of the disease. The program does not speak about allergy of the body anymore, the obsession of mind is occasionally mentioned, but the entire subsequent course of recovery is centered around the egoism of an alcoholic.

Alcoholics Anonymous believe that the solution to the problem of alcoholism lays in the acquisition of a vital spiritual experience, as a result of which God begins to free the personality of the alcoholic from selfishness, from a painful obsession with himself. It is a fundamental change in personality that they consider recovery. They say that this change occurs when ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them. As a result of such a change in personality, the alcoholic begins to get rid of selfishness, begins to pay more attention to other people, conflicts and fear gradually leave his life, and there comes a moment when he suddenly fully realizes that a day has passed and he has not quarreled with anybody, even in his thoughts. He suddenly realizes what a peace is in his soul. The peace that is fulfilling everything, the peace that he has been looking for his entire life.

Such a recovery comes at a price: rigorous honesty, open mind, rejection of self-will. It is now considered common sense not to take action unless one has consulted with God. In other words, the sole purpose of the program is the personal meeting with God.

The program does not work for the alcoholics who consider the above price to be too high.

It does not work either if you try to export it from among alcoholics, because the contact of spiritual identification is based on absolute altruism. Alcoholics stick to the principle: freely you have received, freely give. As soon as it comes to any kind of payment, the program loses its effectiveness. It immediately turns from an instrument of miraculous transformation of personality into another attempt to replace God with human means, and it does not matter how many steps there are, in the case of hopeless alcoholics, this, alas, will not work.

As soon as I began to comprehend all of the above, I tried to give alcoholics an opportunity to hold meetings in the parish as soon as possible according to their rules and traditions. To do this, they only needed a refectory for several hours a week. Moreover, I offered it for free, but they began to pay a feasible rent for heating and electricity, because they cannot afford free rides. And miracles began. At the moment, I am witnessing the recovery of many completely hopeless chronic alcoholics. They miraculously escaped a shameful and painful death and joyfully follow their program, trying to do everything as it is written in the book. The aforementioned "guarantees" of Alcoholics Anonymous are fulfilled on them, which are the following:

"You are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. You will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. You will comprehend the word serenity and you will know peace. No matter how far down the scale you have gone, you will see how your experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. You will lose interest in sel?sh things and gain interest in your fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Your whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave you. You will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baf?e you. You will suddenly realize that God is doing for you what you could not do for yourself".

What an organization or methodology would dare to give such guarantees? I would consider such fantastic promises to be insolence, but I testify that these are the results of the correct implementation of just nine steps of the program, verified by a huge number of hopeless alcoholics.

Nevertheless, Alcoholics Anonymous claim no monopoly on the treatment of alcoholism, but only want to offer their method to those alcoholics who have tried everything, but that did not help them.

Two more minutes of your attention. We need to recall one painful problem that would seem to have been solved long ago. Let us turn to the text of the Bulletin No. 13 of NA (WORLD SERVICE BOARD OF TRUSTEES BULLETIN #13 Some thoughts regarding our relationship to Alcoholics Anonymous. - https://na.org/?ID=bulletins-bull13-r). It defines two things in detail and clearly. Firstly, it explains the key term for addicts, "addiction," a concept that is not in AA vocabulary. Secondly, the bulletin explains the serious danger of confusing the terms of alcoholics and drug addicts when an addict claims an alleged "double addiction" and subtle semantic confusion arises leading to blocking the program's effect and, as a result, to disruption. This document helped me understand why drug addicts separated from alcoholics and created their own program, radically changing some points. Of course, their texts are also not scientific literature, this is also an inside look, but this can help specialists to more clearly understand the inexplicable aspects of the disease.

In conclusion, I want to say that I have something to respect for recovered alcoholics, for example, for their deep and serious confessions. Just imagine a person who cannot lie! You don't see it often these days. But I want to ask, did not Christ command us all to be honest and unselfish? Many will say: "This is impossible in our time!" Do not believe it, look at the recovered alcoholics. I love communicating with them, they are living proof of the presence of God's love in this evil world, it helps me a lot.

I have told you about how my ideas about the program have changed, and how today I see the conditions in which it works wonders.

I think that it would be better to talk about the work of the program by someone from the Committee of Alcoholics Anonymous on relations with religious organizations, that is, those people who have a "mandate" for dialogue and could correctly answer your questions on behalf of the fellowship. I do not have such a mandate, I only shared my opinion.

Thank you for inviting me to the conference. It is very important for me to learn something new about the treatment of these diseases. Thank you once again.