My Windmills
My Windmills
One of the peculiar things about holding a minority view for a very long time is that people eventually begin arguing with positions you do not actually hold.
For decades I have been told that I am denying emotional issues, denying trauma, denying psychology, denying growth, denying complexity, or denying reality itself.
The truth is much simpler.
I am describing what happened to me.
I am describing what I have observed.
And I am asking questions about the history of Alcoholics Anonymous.
That is all.
I have never argued that other people should not pursue therapy. I have never argued that depression does not exist. I have never argued that emotional suffering is imaginary. I have never argued that people should not seek whatever help they need.
I have simply remained interested in a different question.
What happens when the program works exactly as described?
Not partially.
Not symbolically.
Not aspirationally.
Exactly as described.
I came to Alcoholics Anonymous because alcohol had defeated me.
I became willing.
I took the actions.
The compulsion to drink was removed.
Not reduced.
Not managed.
Removed.
Nearly four decades later, that remains my experience.
For many years I assumed this was what Alcoholics Anonymous was talking about. Then I discovered that many people regarded such an experience not as ordinary recovery but as denial.
I was told that the real problem must be deeper.
That unresolved issues must remain.
That hidden wounds must still exist.
That emotional disorders must still be operating somewhere beneath the surface.
I listened respectfully.
I still do.
But I remained puzzled.
Because that was not my experience.
Nor was it the experience of many of the newcomers I have worked with over the years.
Some of them followed the directions in the book with remarkable simplicity.
They identified the problem.
They became willing.
They took the actions.
The obsession disappeared.
Then they found themselves confronted with an unexpected challenge.
Not alcoholism.
Explanations.
People insisting that freedom could not really be freedom.
People insisting that relief could not really be relief.
People insisting that the absence of struggle must itself be evidence of a deeper struggle.
And so I found myself returning again and again to the same place.
The Doctor’s Opinion.
Page 22.
The early Akron members.
The Cleveland pioneers.
The first generation of recovered alcoholics.
Not because I was trying to win an argument.
Because I was trying to understand what they thought had happened.
What I found was a recurring pattern.
These early alcoholics often seemed surprisingly ordinary after recovery.
They went back to work.
They repaired relationships.
They paid debts.
They helped newcomers.
They became useful citizens.
They reacted much like other men.
That phrase continued to catch my attention because it described my experience as well.
Over time I became less interested in proving anyone wrong and more interested in clarifying the historical record.
Were the pioneers describing something real?
Did they actually believe the obsession could be removed?
Did they actually expect recovered alcoholics to become free?
Did they regard that freedom as unusual or as normal?
Those questions matter to me because they matter to the newcomer sitting across from me today.
The newcomer who has followed the directions.
The newcomer who has found relief.
The newcomer who wonders whether he should trust his own experience.
I tell him what I know.
I tell him what happened to me.
I tell him what I have observed.
I tell him what I find in the early history.
Then I leave him free to draw his own conclusions.
Perhaps I am tilting at windmills.
But they are my windmills.
They are important to me.
Because behind every historical question stands a real alcoholic asking a practical question:
“If this worked for you, could it work for me?”
For nearly 38 years my answer has remained the same.
It did for me.
It has for many others.
And that is a story worth preserving.
