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Medical Leader News - Neverending story within a story?Neverending story within a story?
In the 1984 movie entitled The Neverending Story, the main character is a lonely, dreamy kid who misses his dead mother. While hiding out in a store to avoid some bullies from his school, he picks up book and begins reading a tale about Fantasia, a land where a dreadful force called “The Nothing” is destroying the country. As he reads the story, the boy realizes he is the only one who can save Fantasia; and, magically, he enters the story. By becoming part of this adventure, the boy is given the self-confidence he needs when he returns to the real world.
The movie is a story within a story where the end is not the end. That's the way it is with the Twelve Steps. Getting to Step Twelve is not the end of the story. It's like climbing the first mountain in a range of mountains. We struggle to get to the top of the first mountain only to discover more mountains to be climbed. Step Twelve reminds us that we are only beginning.
Step Twelve says, “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.” This step has three parts - spiritual awakening, carrying the message and practicing the principles.
In some ways, I picture overcoming an addiction as being similar to the experience of the Gadarene demoniac in Mark 5. In fact, addiction has many parallels to demon possession. Mark says that “no one could restrain him even with a chain.” When addiction gets us in its grip, nothing has the power to restrain us. We seem to have the power to break shackles. And Mark says, the Gadarene demoniac was “always howling and bruising himself with stones.” Addiction is a similar self-destructive behavior.
After Jesus healed this demon-possessed man, the crowds were surprised to find him “sitting there, clothed and in his right mind.” What a great description of a recovering person. This transformation is clearly a result of our spiritual awakening.
The second part of Step Twelve encourages us to carry the message of the Twelve Steps to others. This step leads the formerly self-centered addict to reach out to others. It's an old wisdom. One of the best ways to help ourselves is to help others. The best way to learn is to teach the material to others. The best way to recovery is to help others recover.
When we have been healed, our first impulse is to tell others. It was always so in the Bible. Mark ends the story of the Gadarene demoniac with these words from Jesus, “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.”
The last part of Step Twelve reminds us to practice the principles. Every day for the rest of our lives, we are to review the Twelve Steps and make sure we are still keeping them. We look back and realize how much our faith has grown.
Step Twelve tells us that the process is gradual, regenerative and neverending. It is truly our neverending story, a story within a story, a story which we are writing every day. We slowly become more God-centered and Goddirected as we learn the true meaning of serenity and peace with God and others.
Writing these columns about the Twelve Steps has been a wonderful experience for me. I have grown in my appreciation for each step, and in my deep respect for my recovering friends who do the hard work of each one.
So I end this series by reviewing the list. These are steps to recovery, steps for life, steps for all of us.
1. We admitted we were powerless over the effects of our separation from God and that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.
4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. We humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. We continued to take personal inventory and, when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Mickey Anders is the pastor of First Christian Church in Pikeville. He can be reached by e-mail at mickeyanders@yahoo.com.
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