For some time now, I have been watching the work of 12-step programs—Alcoholics Anonymous,Narcotics Anonymous, and others—with admiration and a little bit of envy. If you have been to even one of those meetings, you know that  what you find when you walk in is an immediate sense of  honesty and authenticity that is rare and refreshing. When people come together and are willing to admit that they share a need—especially a need for forgiveness or healing—the whole community is opened up for something powerful to happen.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it is in 12-step groups that opens people to the power of God to change their lives for the better. I think it’s that honesty about the need for help, the willingness to admit that there is something in an alcoholic’s or addict’s life that is just too big to control on your own.

The same processes that are responsible for addiction to alcohol and narcotics are responsible for other addictions—to ideas, or work, relationships, power, moods, perfection, romance, attractiveness and lots  of other things. An addiction is any compulsive, habitual behavior that limits our freedom to live as we truly want to.

Our addictions prevent us from truly,freely loving God and one another.

We are all addicts in some sense; if that were not so, we would each be living the graceful and generous lives we want and hope for ourselves. And our addictions are our own worst enemies. They imprint destructive behaviors and attitudes onto our body and mind and spirit. They enslave us with chains—and even though those chains are of our own making, they are also beyond our control.

Are we able to admit our own unhealthy attachments, so that we too might be open to God’s powerto free us?

For the next twelve weeks in worship, we’re going us into greater freedom—from whatever it is that binds us to explore together how the 12 Steps that are part of the work of Alcoholics Anonymous might be the same twelve steps that can lead us all to a greater awareness of ourselves and our need for God to lead us into greater freedom—from whatever it is that binds us.

Let this freedom be the gift of the New Year.

Blessings and love,

Kathi