In an October letter to the faithful in his Diocese, a Bishop of the Episcopal Church admitted he had a “problem with alcohol” and had checked into a rehab facility. He continued, stating that in part for this reason, he was retiring as Bishop of the Diocese effective the end of November.

We ask ourselves, “How can we help?” First of all, we can share our own story, “How did we get here?” For many of us, it was a sudden experience brought about by our alcoholic behavior. Maybe the family or our employer had “had enough” and presented us with an ultimatum. 

We can pass along to him that there was so much more: that the Program called us to take our inventory, to seek spiritual support and, where appropriate, make amends for our alcoholic behavior. In some ways, the beauty of the Program is that our assignment didn’t end there; we learned we were charged with a continuing obligation to periodically review our conduct and to change things where necessary. And importantly, we were left with a directive to cultivate our spiritual life.

I remember those first and early days of my surrender experience. I was relieved. A way to recover was freely given me. I felt cleansed. I found a new way of dealing with life’s issues. I saw joy in others when they had taken the same steps, the changes wrought in their lives, their new revived relationships with others. We attend meetings to learn but we also attend to see new lives come into being, new relationships growing, a deeper spiritual growth.

We don’t know how the Bishop entered our rooms or what drew him to seek us out. But we know that something called his attention to his addictive behavior—someone carried a message, a message of hope and a solution and a way to bring all of that about. We are relieved when someone enters our number for, we can hope and pray and in some way by our quiet examples, demonstrate that there really is an “easier and softer way” to respond to the life’s ills. Perhaps most importantly, when we surrendered, we learned we were not alone, we were blessed with our Higher Power to guide us, and yes, the Program was there when we sought it.

Maybe we will have a chance to share with the Bishop what we found once we took that first step of surrendering.

Jim A., St. X Noon