Sublime

What recovering alcoholics “have” is not a stake on ultimate wisdom or a lock on virtue, but a way of life that accepts imperfection as imperfection, permitting such spiritual qualities as “serenity” and “the joy of living” to coexist with such earthly realities as “defects” and “shortcomings.”

I took a medium-sized bottle of Jim Beam and drank from it under the covers while reading No Man Is an Island by Thomas Merton. Without God, we are no longer persons. We become dumb animals under pain, happy if we can behave at least like quiet animals and die without too much confusion.

“The Big Book of AA,” Jamison notes, “was initially called The Way Out. Out of what? Not just drinking, but the claustrophobic crawl space of the self.”