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Each day the webpage of a new group posts what many believe are messages from God Himself. The organization Catholic and Orthodox Professionals International (COPI) features at least one each day.
What follows is the post for June 11, 2007, to remain for at least one week:
"Many of your readers are in some type of twelve-step recovery program. My favor rests on these, because when they are carried out correctly, they lead wounded people to Me.
The first program of this kind that I blessed is Alcoholics Anonymous. Although Narcotics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, and others use the same principles, I will base my teaching today mainly on A.A., for this is the program in which you yourself participate daily.
Almost all of these people, including you, have been abused as children or teens--either sexually, physically, or emotionally. Most of the women have been sexually abused, and many are incest victims, while the men have mostly suffered physical or emotional maltreatment. Many have been raised with a twisted concept of My nature.
The wounds to their souls have very greatly hindered them from coming to Me, in many cases. Mostly they fear Me, some to the point of denying that I exist. They falsely believe, but yet really do think, that they are agnostics or atheists. In actuality, they are either angry at Me or they fear Me. Many blame Me for what has happened in their lives. Therefore, they will not approach.
I do not hold these reactions against them. There is no normal way to react to the craziness that has victimized them. They are, indeed, victims, and their alcoholism is, in fact, a disease--an ailment mainly of the soul but also of the body.
Their addictions and all the horrors they have caused are rooted in several realities. Prior to the recovery process, the alcoholic has an internal emptiness that causes a craving for peace and a calming of the fears by which he is constantly plagued. He or she finds very great comfort and elation through alcohol, for it is a release. It is freedom from the anguish.
He feels a surge of power, and he senses that he is equal with other people, when before he has always felt deeply that he was out-of-place in his social setting. He feels accepted, even special, and imagines that anything is possible with his loyal friend, alcohol.
Naturally, he becomes conditioned to these effects of alcohol and so continues to consume as much as he can, as often as he can. But he is not yet addicted. The addiction becomes firmly established by further conditioning.
In psychology, not everything is true, but the phenomenon of operant conditioning has been established scientifically. For example, if a laboratory animal is rewarded every time he repeats a behavior, it will continue to perform the same act in order to get the reward. When the reward is given only at certain fixed intervals, such as every second performance or every fourth, the conditioning becomes more firmly rooted. When the reward is presented randomly, on no fixed schedule, the animal is hooked. The animal is addicted to the behavior, and so he repeats it furiously, because the payoff may or may not come.
The alcoholic becomes addicted when he discovers that the alcohol does not work for him all of the time, as it did in the beginning. There is no predicting whether he will attain a successful intoxication or not. In a way similar to the conditioned animal, the alcoholic repeats the consumption in greater amounts and more frequently. His need for the alcohol becomes insane, even though it does not bring benefits anymore, but only suffering. Nevertheless, his behavior accelerates, becomes frenzied, and produces dire results. At this point, the alcoholic is without hope.
The enormous consumption brought on by the conditioning, or addiction, produces permanent changes in the body. The liver, even though it may heal, depending on the extent of damage, will never again be able to process alcohol. The alcohol cannot be broken down to sugar and water, but instead there remains a residue that forces and magnifies the craving immediately after the taking of only one drink. In fact, even an alcoholic with long-term sobriety will feel worse after a single drink, not better.
Not only are the physical damages permanent, but so is the original conditioning. It is this conditioning that causes a sober alcoholic to continue the craving. He will think of, and sometimes desire, a drink, at least from time to time, for the remainder of his life.
But what about the effects on his soul? His soul has been rampaged more than the brain and body. It has become numb. The eternal part of the man or woman has become resistant to any idea of asking for My help. Yet, only a miracle on My part can save his life. What is he to do?
Herein lies the truth, and the beauty, of A.A. The program does not force the still suffering alcoholic to accept Me as the solution. The founders and early members did just that: They insisted that the sick man get on his knees even before his first meeting. But soon they found that their approach did not work.
I revealed to them the concept of a 'Higher Power'; that is, an unnamed power greater than the flimsy abilities of the alcoholic. Thus there came a way for the agnostic (very few have been atheists) to entertain the thought that there might be hope. While his best efforts have always produced less than no results, there may indeed be a solution. Maybe some entity, with power far beyond his own, could deliver him from this deadly obsession.
So the alcoholic discovers two realities: that they may be hope and that there is only one hope: the Higher Power. At this idea, the alcoholic begins to pay attention.
No more fruitless, exhausting willpower needed, he realizes. Then, when he progresses through the first two steps, he automatically, by My design, begins to conceive of God, of Me, rather than a power with no name. He takes his early steps towards coming to Me. I take him by the hand, and I gently pull him to freedom.
The remaining steps keep him close to me and teach him how to live a fulfilling life--one of giving to those who still suffer.
Not only A.A., but all of the twelve-step programs, have one commonality: That only a miracle can bring freedom to the enslaved. There is only one source for miracles. It is I, your God, who loves you and wills that you be free. I came that you might have life, and have it more abundantly."
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