Posted on 06/07/2008 10:46:55 PM PDT by Roger W. Gardner
A couple of weeks ago I celebrated an important anniversary.
Today I am seventy-one years old, passionately engaged with this turbulent world of ours and inordinately and perhaps undeservedly happy. I am what's known as a recovering or recovered alcoholic -- take your pick. Either way I don't drink.
I credit my sobriety to the lessons learned in AA. Prior to my experience in AA my life was a continuous downward spiral of self-destruction. The doctors to whom I had gone for help invariably looked to the “historical solution” to my problems -- delving into my childhood, my relationship with my mother and father, etc. Not one of them ever simply suggested that I quit drinking. So I continued drinking and continued going to my analysts and my life continued spiraling downwards. Then, finally, after my fourth hospitalization, I was effectively coerced (against my better judgment) into attending an AA meeting. That was February 16, 1978. And I haven't had a drink since that day.
What was it about the AA message that proved so successful? Two things come to mind. First, I remember someone at a meeting saying this: Imagine that you wake up and you’re in a burning building and you have no idea how you got there. What do you do? Answer: You get the hell out of the building. Later, when you are safe and sound, if you want to try to figure out how you got into such a predicament, or who exactly started the fire (the historical solution), you can delve into it at your leisure. However, as your life improves, and things get better and better, affixing blame for your previous troubles becomes less and less meaningful.
Secondly, the whole premise of the AA philosophy is built on unconditional surrender and honesty, rigorous self-honesty -- honestly admitting that you are defeated, that the old ways don’t work, and that you need to turn your life around; but that you also need to accept responsibility for your own life and quit blaming others.
What in the world, you might well ask, does this gratuitous personal revelation have to do with the world we live in and with Islam?
And I would answer: everything.
It has occured to me that this latest violent incarnation of Islam, almost the entire Arab World, and the Palestinians in particular, are all locked in an obsessive, self-destructive downward spiral not unlike alcoholism. And, as with alcoholism, seeking an “historical solution” -- i.e., who has the more legitimate claim to the land -- just doesn’t work. Perhaps they must collectively reach that proverbial “rock bottom” and admit defeat (1948) and finally and unconditionally surrender in order to have a chance to recover and move on. Unfortunately, there is no quick fix. As hard as it is, you must just quit.
For me it took twenty-five years, two failed marriages, and several bungled careers before I reached my particular rock bottom and finally admitted defeat. For Germany and Japan, in the first half of the Twentieth Century, it took two world wars, the death of millions, and finally, the complete and total destruction of two hateful and evil regimes to reach their historical turning point. It took the relentless imposition by the Allies of Unconditional Surrender to achieve these miraculous turnarounds. No room was to be left for retrospective qualifications or rationalizations, no absurd revisions of history -- such as transpired in post-WWI Germany -- were to be allowed. No false promises or temporary truces would be accepted. Not this time around.
Only complete and utter Unconditional Surrender. In short -- they had to hit rock bottom. Which they did. And, against all odds, within five short years Japanese kids were playing baseball in Tokyo, and Germany (at least that democratic Western part of it) was well on its way to becoming a national economic powerhouse. And, just as suddenly, as the prospects for success became more and more apparent, that whole outmoded, now-useless, unhealthy concept of victimization began to lose its appeal. Thus, hope replaces self-pity, and we rise anew from the ashes of our despair.
In 1948, in a rare display of Arab unity, all of the surrounding hate-filled Arab states came together to wage a war of total annihilation against the tiny fledgling State of Israel. They mustered their huge supremely confident armies and, assured of a magnificent success, they savagely attacked the insignificant and ill-prepared Israeli forces.
And they lost.
Not only did all of the combined Arab states lose, but they suffered one of the most humiliating and ignoble military disasters in modern history. And Israel continued to live and to thrive.
But the embittered Arab states never unconditionally accepted the awful reality of their defeat. Almost immediately after the disaster, the Arab world began their delusional retrospective qualifications and rationalizations, their absurd revisions of history. Year by year, war by disastrous war, they sank lower and lower into that dark hopeless world of self-pity and hatred. That irresponsible world of lies and denials, wherein nothing is your fault and everything is the fault of others. And as Israel prospered, the Arab world seethed with self-loathing and plotted revenge.
The first time I got to tell my tragic life's story in front of the group, based upon my previous experience, I was pretty assured of the response I would get. The usual response was immediate unqualified sympathy and affection. That night, my sponsor and mentor, a tall, kindly, soft-spoken older gentleman, with fourteen years of sobriety, whom we all called Big John, was seated next to me. When I finished my story, everyone was very quiet and then Big John got up and put his long arm around my shoulder and said, very softly, "You know something, Son? You're full of sh*t."
And thus it began. That long hard road to disciplined self-honesty. That whole frightening process of abandoning all of those comforting old lies and obfuscations, abandoning that whole sick delusional persona. And, it should come as no great surprise, that those amongst us who were unwilling or unable to try to become honest with themselves were the ones who didn't make it. A lot of those less fortunate people are no longer with us.
What, I wonder, will it take for those embittered Islamists, those hate-filled Arabs, that whole new generation of Palestinians, nurtured on years of hatred and revenge, to reach their collective rock bottom? How many more years of death and destruction? Where is the end of this Arab/Islamic downward spiral? Who, if anyone, will be Islam's Big John? Who will put their big strong arms around them and tell them lovingly that they're full of sh*t?
Who knows?
One thing is certain, though. One cannot break out of this suicidal spiral without being scrupulously honest with oneself. One must reject the false comfort of the role of victim -- how many horrors have been unleashed on this world by purported victims?
In short, the only thing that works is to just quit. And the only way to quit is to learn how to be honest, scrupulously and uncompromisingly honest with yourselves.
And finally, my friends, we must never give up hope, because life without hope is no life at all.
voted by Fox News at Gop Hub
Great read.
Interesting analogy. Imagine sitting on top of the world’s largest oil reserves and still being a ‘victim’. Perhaps with access to this wealth they’ll never be able to ‘sober-up’.
I’ll drink to that!
Unfortunately, the culture over there values dishonesty, it's actually considered a virtue. The better liar you are, the more you're looked up to. It's accepted and venerated.
So, really, the only answer is Ann Coulter's suggestion--convert them to Christianity.
Great writing. Absolutely top notch.
Except the Islamic theocracy preaches to worlds: Life under Islam, and the kufir/infidel.
Once land belongs to Islam, it belongs to Islam.
They WANT Spain just like they want Israel.
It isn’t a slight that “this nation took something away from us”.
The Jews are not to have a nation in the view of Islam.
The very notion of “muslim lands” must end. The most muslim of muslim lands do not permit the practice of any religion other than Islam. There is no tolerance (under penalty of death) for any muslim who converts away from Islam. There are 2 classes of people Muslims and kufir who have different rights and protections under the law.
When Imam today are asked about the continued law for slavery under Islam, they say that the laws of Mohammed cannot be changed. That reform would require the presence of the 12th Imam.
They say that is may not be considered acceptable around the world but that we are not to question the wisdom is Mohammed. And they bring up as a defense that these slaves MUST be seized in Jihad (not just anyone can be a slave) and they must be taken back to “muslim territory” to be divided up.
This very concept of “muslim territory” cannot be permitted to stand in the 21st century.
Our founding fathers fought for a freedom of religion and freedom from tyranny.
And now we are supposed to “co-exist” with it, as we were expected by the Socialist Left to “co-exist” with the USSR’s ever expanding territories.
The only reformation that muslims can come to is to reject the death cult of Mohammed (a dead conquering warlord) and return to the Biblical text as Jews or Christians (or become agnostics, Buddhists, Hindus, whatever). Many muslims would find great offense in it being suggested that they become Jews but if they wish to follow the source of the teachings they have lived by and wish to continue to deny the divinity of Jesus, then that is the path for them.
Unfortunately while the world boasts of how many people around the world are muslims, few muslims actually have any CHOICE in the matter.
Excellent article! Congratulations on 30 years!
Islamics don’t need AA.
They need the Bible.
- John
Did I read somewhere that Bill W. was a conservative Republican?
Wow.
Thank you for posting your excellent piece.
Ping :)
Wow..
Ping for the list- this is a keeper.
lol. Sounds good to me. He must have been.
rg
Good article.
Whatever one wants to name it, there’s no doubt that the Arabs generally and the Palestineans in particular have worked themselves into a raging and psychotic cultural mental illness which will only begin to end with some kind of terrible self-inflicted disaster.
For example an Iranian nuke set off in Tel Aviv, and leading to the utter destruction of Tehran and Gaza.
IMO, it’s only something along those lines that finally will lead the Arab Muslims back to some kind of sane relationship with the real world.
>>>>>GREAT article. Though, the brainwashing done by the radical Islamics will take years to reverse.
Like the alchie hitting rock bottom, it will begin to change instantly in the face of destruction and disaster, and (as the article says) once the alchie knows that he is finally beaten and must surrender unconditionally or die.
>>>>>>Perhaps with access to this wealth they’ll never be able to ‘sober-up’.
Good point but I think the sobering-up metaphor still applies.
The kind of disaster I forsee - the one they have and will even further bring upon themselves - involves a nuke left somewhere in Israel; the proven complicity of not just one but several Arab nations; devastating retaliation by Israel and with the tacit OK of the West; the end of all political and economic freedom of in the ME, simply because we (the West) will have seen their utter inability to handle it.
That will be the end of the Middle Eastern Arab’s oil wealth. No more crutch.
GREAT article - welcome to FR! Your sponsor sounds awesome....and smart. Who is he to assume a newcomer is full of s**t. LOL. When a 12 Step program is implemented in the Mid East, I hope each Muzzie gets a copy of The Promises.
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