Recovering Alcoholic Needed Support, not Religion

To the Editor:
As a recovering alcoholic for the past 19 years, I read with interest and some alarm, Mr. Campbell’s position that successful recovery from alcohol or drug addiction can only begin when one accepts God, clergy and religion. Are you kidding me?! When I started my road to recovery, the last thing I wanted to hear was that jabber. What I needed was the support of other people in the room. I needed to hear about their experience, strength and hope and I needed to hear it enough that I would keep coming back, which I did… if I had had to meet the prerequisite that you believe I’d be dead by now.
What I didn’t hear from them, thankfully, was that I had to find God and clergy. Your theory that “clerics are the ones who hold and can offer the most needed factor in recovery and rehabilitation: hope and linking to divine power” is a theory that can only be held by someone who has never suffered from addiction and by one who has the luxury to paint with such a broad stroke.
Yes, I was lucky enough, in the passage of time and community, to develop a spirituality that has helped give me strength to work my recovery on a daily basis, but unless a particular cleric was in recovery, too, or had a degree in alcohol/narcotic counseling, such an office was the last place I would have sought out early—when I had reached the bottom of my own particular barrel. I was grateful to have even a piece of a piece of pie; I didn’t care about having the whole pie or the price I paid for that piece. Some things are priceless.
There is an enormous difference between religion and spirituality: “Religion opens the gates of Heaven and lets one in; Spirituality opens the gate of Hell and lets one out.”
Al, go after the government however you please, but be very careful about soap boxing on recovering from addiction. As you said, “This is a life-and-death situation more serious than many realize,” and unless you’re climbing this mountain yourself, please don’t presume to know how recovery works or how it should work.
DORY COE
Wildwood Crest
(ED. NOTE: The author refers to the Oct. 23 Compass Points by Managing Editor Al Campbell.)