Sin and the 12 steps

Richard Rohr, Franciscan monk, proposed that sin was the biblical word for what we call addiction today.  Sin was used in archery to denote ‘missing the mark’.  

 In Romans 7:19 Paul said, For I do not do the good I want to do but the evil I do not want to do …this I keep doing.”

This gets to the core of intention and outcome.  Dr. Phillip Ney felt that the second law of nuclear physics pertained to sin in the world,  A perfect state would be described by the first law of thermodynamics without entropy.

Milton in Paradise Lost best described the first angel , Satan, as preferring to look at his shadow than to turn around and lose himself in the light of God’s gaze.  

Pride is the first sin and also the hubris of the Greek philosophers.  

The 12 step programs once called  the “way out’, describe the individual aa overwhelmed by separation and alienation and seeing their individuality, the ego, as all.  Psychological studies of alcoholics and addicts showed them to be developmentally regressed, selfish and self centered..

Anna Freud, the child analyst daughter of Sigmund, described the developmental journey from the narcissism of the baby to the altruism of the grandparent.  Alcoholics and addicts were seen as “stuck’ in childhood or adolescence using coping skills which no longer served in the mature adult world.  

C.S. Lewis , the great Christian theologian said ‘ don’t look for God in the wall’.  That’d like looking for love in all the wrong places.  

The old joke about the materialist scientist of the distant future is that they confront God and say they can create human and all of life from dirt just as God did. But as they are about to demonstrate their prowess God says, ‘get your own dirt’. 

In the church the sins have been separated in to most serious or mortal or lesser. Venial..  Pride is considered to generate all other sins,    Humility is considered the ultimate antidote as is the understanding of Grace,  The song of addiction is Frank Sinatra’s I did it my way’.  I especially like the Eagles Song, Desperado. The first step of AA is ‘surrender’ but not as in the military use of the word which my friend skips to say ‘her own position was likely overrun’.   It’s more like the Kenny Rogers song the Gambler. You have to know when to fold them,  We don’t need to take the down elevator to the basement or subbasement. We can get off at any floor.  

The 12 mortal sins are 

1, Murder

2. Adultery

3. Theft

4. Bearing false witness

5.  Blasphemy 

6. Apostasy

7. Despair

8. Gluttony

9. Greed

10. Lust

11 Sloth

12. Envy

AA and NA address these in the 12 steps and it’s interesting to consider the 12 step spin offs that have occurred.  Sexaholics anonymous focuses on lust , Overeaters anonymous on Gluttony.  Indeed Alcoholics, narcotics, cocaine anonymous and marijuana anonymous could all be said to focus on gluttony and sloth.  The addiction is not just what is done but what is neglected.  

Dr AbrahamTwerski addresses much of these ‘errors’ in his classic book ‘Addictive thinking, understanding Self Perception.  The alcoholics and addict wants to be the ‘victim’ and say ‘poor me, poor me, poor me another drink’. Yet in AA the men say’ get down off the cross we can use the wood’.  

The idea of right size is finding purpose and meaning and joy and pleasure in right measure but not in over indulgence or unhealthy abuse,  As Joni Mitchel sang of Wood stock we have to get back to the garden. For  most that means we have to sacrifice something, the apple being the image.  Each person’s apple is different.  The epidemic of America is obesity and fentanyl and the study of disease is about not judging the person who has a different addiction  Take the log out of your own eye before you try to take the sliver out of another’s eye, said Jesus.

Trungpa, the great Buddhist teacher,said that we in the west suffered ‘spiritual consumerism’. We wanted to ‘own’ and keep that which is at best rented or leased.  Ernest Becker wrote the classic psychiatric book, the Denial of Death.  Existential angst is fundamental root of human existence.  Yet in communion we can love and only love conquers all.  Jung talked of the shadow self. In 12 steps they say we are as sick as our secrets. Addiction is the symptom of the spiritual disease. The anxiety we feel is described as the god shaped hole that substances can’t fill but community can. We are not alone.