He Ran out of Hope
He sat in his kitchen surrounded by hidden bottles of gin.
Like most alcoholics, he drank for no other reason than it was there. Sinking in quicksand is the phrase he used to describe himself and his life. He couldn’t stop on his own.A friend came to visit that day.He told him about a way to stop. The program of action his friend suggested was simple but not easy. He needed to search his soul and his life and make amends for the wrongs he had done. He needed to give up his self-serving ways and think about others instead of just himself. He needed to humbly ask God for guidance, then when in doubt sit quietly and wait for the answer to come.He needed to reacquaint himself with God.Bill Wilson could understand the importance of getting right with others and himself. But God? He believed in God generally, but as he looked around at the world—the wars and treachery going on—he surmised that evil ruled both the world and his own life. The idea of a personal God was foreign to him.Bill’s friend then suggested that Bill chose his own conception of God.That day changed Bill’s life and the world. It was the day that sparked the movement called Alcoholics Anonymous. Bill Wilson thought that thousands of lives might be impacted by this way of life. He was wrong. Alcoholics Anonymous has saved millions of people who lost all hope. Even Bill’s tragic story before that day—all the events that led to it—were put to good use.An important part of the actions Bill took was reacquainting himself with God through prayer. It helped catapult him into that spiritual realm he called the fourth dimension of existence. He learned that A Power Greater Than Himself could do for him what he could not do for himself.You don’t have to be a hopeless alcoholic to benefit from prayer. Prayer doesn’t change things. Prayer changes us.Did you ever call someone on the phone, planning on leaving a message on the voice mail because you expected them not to be home or not to answer the phone? That’s how it was for me the first time I sincerely talked to God.I had been exposed to God and prayer when I was a child. I attended church from an early age. I went to a religious academy for most of my high school years. But at age twelve, I decided that if God was real, He didn’t care about me. And as dastardly as the events in my life had been until that time, I decided I could handle things at least as well on my own.When I ended up in treatment for my chemical dependency in 1973, I was horrified to discover something that people around me had known for a while—I couldn’t stop using on my own. I was facing a jail sentence or indefinite treatment. Treatment for as long as it takes were the words the District CourtJudge used who had sentenced me there.I had already been there a long time—months—and I was still getting high in treatment the day I decided to talk to God again. “God, I don’t know if you’re real or not. And I don’t know if there’s a program that can help me get better or not. But if you are real, and if there is, please help me get it,” I said.That’s all. A simple prayer.I looked at the ceiling, doubting it had been heard.I was astounded when within a few days I was sitting on the banks of the hospital grounds—getting high —and had a psychic transformation that revolutionized my life. I took a hit off a joint and lay back on the lawn, expecting to watch the clouds roll by. Instead, the heavens took on a purplish tone.And I knew that I knew that I knew that moment that I had no right to keep getting high.I took one more hit off the joint, then went back into the hospital and began to throw myself into the program with all the commitment I had previously dedicated to getting high.If I take just half the energy I’ve put into screwing up and use it trying to do the right thing, there’s little in this world I can’t do, I thought.I didn’t tell anyone about that experience for years. I’m already indefinitely committed to an institution. If I tell people the heavens turned purple and I saw God, I’ll never get out, I thought.I didn’t expect God to answer when I called Him on the phone.It wasn’t that God became real that day. He became real to me.“I was fishing one day. It was a stupid thing,” a woman told me. “But it meant a lot to me. I stuck my line in the water and asked God, if He was real, to help me catch a fish. And I did. I caught the biggest fish I’ve ever snagged in my life. It wasn’t about catching that fish, though,” she said. “It was about establishing a personal relationship with God.”We can talk to God formally—using the prayers recommended by our religion. We can pray in the morning, in the evening, or throughout the day. Some people even ascribe to the belief that our thoughts and intentions are like prayers.We can keep a prayer journal—either a diary, or a file in our computer. This is an idea that’s particularly helpful to me. I like the written word. It has power. When I write something, it becomes more real. I can also look back at my prayers and see how they’ve been answered. Keeping a journal of answered prayers helps me remember to have faith during those valley experiences, too.We can talk to God informally throughout the day, shooting thoughts to our conception of God as we understand God. We can pray out loud or silently.The components of prayer that are common to most if not all religions include confession of wrongdoing, asking for forgiveness and cleansing for wrongdoing, acknowledgment of blessings and answers to prayer that have been received, praise (or general thankfulness), requests for guidance to stay on the path, requests for help with specific problems, and blessings on the people in our lives.I like to talk to God generally, too—just ramble on about what I’m feeling, what I’m thinking, where I’m at.Sometimes the most powerful prayer we can pray is simply Thy will be done.“Your relationship with God has been as passionate as your relationship with any human being,” a friend remarked to me one day. That’s probably true.I’ve been delighted with, infuriated with, complacent toward, dutiful toward, resentful of, humbled before, and eternally grateful to God at any given point in my life. And sometimes all of the above in the same day.By the way, while we’re asking blessings for everyone else, why not take a minute and ask God to bless us, too?Prayer is a choice. Don’t be surprised when God answers the phone.
From the book: Choices: Taking Control of Your Life and Making It Matter
