🌀 The Script We All Know

Seeing Alcoholism for What It Is

“The miracle comes quietly into the mind that stops an instant and is still.”
— A Course in Miracles, Chapter 28

That line reminds me that miracles don’t crash in with fanfare; they arrive gently, in silence, when the noise in my head finally settles down. In those rare moments of pause, when I stop striving, fixing, or figuring everything out, something sacred slips in. Stillness isn’t just peaceful; it’s powerful. It opens the door. Without it, I’m too full of myself to receive anything new. But with it? Grace shows up unannounced, yet right on time.

To truly navigate the complexities of alcoholism, we must do more than simply admit we have a problem; we need to understand it deeply. It’s not enough to know the facts; we must also feel the truth of our situation. Without this kind of honest recognition, genuine recovery remains out of reach.

I’m not just referring to abstinence; I’m talking about a recovery process that gradually dismantles the illusion of control and reconnects us to something real: a spiritual connection that brings clarity and peace.

Alcoholism doesn’t highlight our uniqueness; it impersonates it. It convinces us we’re different, that we’ll beat it our way, that this time will be different. But behind every story of desperation and denial is the same familiar pattern. The names change. The cities change. But the script doesn’t.

I remember a guy in early recovery. Sat in the back, arms crossed, that look in his eyes like he already knew better than the rest of us. One night after a meeting, he pulled me aside and said, “I’m just trying to get my life back on track. This isn’t permanent.” I nodded and told him what someone once told me: “This disease doesn’t care about your plans. It only cares that you keep believing you have any control.” He didn’t like that. I didn’t either, the first time I heard it. But I could see it; he was still in the illusion. Still believing it was his life to run. Two months later, he relapsed. Six months later, he came back. Humbled. Confused. Willing.

Because once you’ve truly experienced the depth of this illness, you start to see how predictable it is. It’s not about character. It’s not about upbringing or circumstance. It’s about the disease. It plays out in patterns, not personalities. And the longer you stay sober, the clearer the pattern becomes. You don’t need to be psychic; you must tell the truth because alcoholism runs the same playbook every time. Different faces. Same story.

That’s why the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous still hits so hard. It doesn’t just tell a story; it tells your story. It doesn’t describe something that walks beside you. It represents something that takes you over. It’s not a billion unique versions of addiction; it’s one parasite wearing a billion different disguises. And once someone shows you that pattern, once you see it, you can’t unsee it. It’s like waking up in a dream and realizing you were never running the show.

You start to become something like a clean and sober spiritual meteorologist. You can sense the storm before the person in front of you even feels the wind. And it’s not judgment; it’s compassion. Because we’ve been there. We lived in that fog. And thank God, someone saw us clearly before we could see it ourselves. So now we play it forward, not with correction, but with clarity. Because we remember exactly what it felt like to be lost in the storm.

You try to share what you’ve learned. The insight. The warning. The experience. But most people, especially newcomers, aren’t ready. They nod politely, maybe argue a little, and walk off convinced that they’ve got it figured out this time. Part of you hopes they’re right. But you know better. Because you’re not talking to them, you’re talking to the illness that still has them. And that illness lives in the mind. It doesn’t want to hear the truth.

At its core, this is a mental illness, but even deeper, it’s a spiritual one. A sickness of separation. Separation from truth, from love, from God, from our essence. It convinces us that we’ve strayed too far from the light and are broken, unworthy, beyond redemption. And as long as we keep listening to that internal dialogue, the illness has us. But here’s the quiet, steady, and eternal truth: You are the light. The illness can’t separate you from it… Unless you forget that you already are it.

I used to think I could be free if I just tried harder, figured it out, and got it right. But the truth was, I wasn’t free at all. I was a construction of fear, ego, and self-will. Constantly trying to manage and manipulate life. What I needed was freedom from me, or more precisely, from the false self I thought I was.

That’s when the miracle happened. I wasn’t dealing with alcoholism; it was dealing with me. It thought for me. Spoke through me. Made decisions in my name. And the most dangerous part? It had me convinced I was in charge.

But when that illusion finally cracked, it didn’t feel like defeat; it felt like freedom. That was the beginning of true recovery. Not doing more, but letting go. Not tightening my grip, but surrendering it. Not self-control… but self, surrendered.

“It can’t block you from the Light unless you believe you are somewhere else.”
— paraphrased from A Course in Miracles

The root of addiction is separation. The belief that we are cut off from grace, love, God, and worthiness. But there is nothing outside the Will of Love. And if pain comes from believing otherwise, then pain is an illusion. The only thing to do with illusion is to lay it down, because it was never true.

But here’s what is true: You are the light. Recovery isn’t about earning that back but remembering what was never lost.

The Big Book calls it “a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.” Seemingly. Because what once looked like the end can become the greatest doorway to grace.

When the mind gets quiet, the miracle comes in.
If you’re still caught in that wash, spin, and repeat cycle, please hear this: I’ve been there. Most of us have. Recovery doesn’t make us perfect; it just makes us honest. It doesn’t hand you control but offers you peace. And the beautiful thing is, you don’t have to figure this out alone. You never did.

Keep the Faith