I listened with astonishment to Mitt Romney's speech yesterday, not because he completely avoided actually talking about his Mormonism, but for the claim which has so many in the secular camp worried about his concept of what role religion and freedom play in our lives.
This is that part:
Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.
I say with no inhibition that my freedom not only exists without religion, but that an avenue available to me free of religion, implicit and explicit, not only saved me but enriched my life.
One morning in 2002 I awoke with a headache and a sour stomach. It took me a few minutes, but after I had fully gained my senses I knew something was wrong. The last clear memory I had of the night before was going to local liquor store with one of my two roommates at the time, to buy a bottle of Scotch. This was after being cut off at the dive bar we often walked to, and that had pissed me off. After that a fog had set in as it usually did. I washed my face and tried to clear the morning after fog. Still, a dark feeling rested in me; something bad had happened the night before but I was unsure of what it was. As soon as I went downstairs and had the perspective from the couch in the living room accompanied by the dire looks from both my roommates it came back to me, still a bit fuzzy, but I remembered. After an early evening of heavy drinking I ended up in a fist fight with the very roommate I had gone drinking with. We were good friends and suddenly the shame blanketed me as it had done so many times before. All the denial in the world, something I was a master at, couldn't shake the knowledge inside that it had all been my fault. I was heavy drinker and a bad drunk. I had known it for almost two decades; I had blacked out dozens of times while my peers were just at the tail end of puberty. It hadn't gotten any better.
I was told plain and simple: get help or get out.
I knew I needed help, all addicts do at some point. This time though something in me knew this was the time to truly follow through on getting help and not to placate others, but for myself and my future. I had toyed with sobriety during college for a year but it was never a long term goal and I always knew it at the time. This was different; my life was in the balance and any hope of a good and fruitful one. So, I immediately went about getting help, but there was a catch: I am not religious, a strong non-believer. Most, if not everybody, think right away of AA; but I had been down that road and it was not going to be useful to me.
While some may say that was churlish of me in such a time of need I can say without reservation that it was not. While I knew I desperately needed help, I could not wish away my core beliefs. I could not base such an important decision, such a life changing action, on a set of principles that were antithetical to my most personal tenets. I could not pretend that the 12 steps would be my salvation. I could not concede the control of my sobriety to a "higher power" or a I would be living a lie. If I did so, the lie could fall apart at any moment and therefore take with it my sobriety.
With this knowledge then, I sought out a different path; one which would not require me to sacrifice my being. Thank goodness for the internet. After searching, I quickly came across SOS (Secular Organizations for Sobriety) While this was what I had hoped for, I still went with great skepticism; I am lucky enough to through all my life have some semblance of reality, and therefore knew no matter the method, it would be a touch road.
I sat there scared. I wasn't even sure of what would happen, what would be said, or what would be expected of me. A man in dark sunglasses (it was night) sat playing a harmonica and around a few couches were people of all ages and from the looks, walks of life. I didn't expect some sense of hegemony, but in the fog of all of this, I was simply petrified of my situation and all these disparate faces didn't help alleviate that. What was I expecting? A bunch of friends and a guarantee of sobriety? This was only one day after the mist of my last binge, and I wasn't even sure if I had the strength to follow through on what I so desperately needed.
Jim, who it appeared was a leader of some sort, came out of an office and sat, bringing with him some literature in the form of leaflets and a few books and a small basket. There were only a few of us but the meeting began. Jim said he would start the meeting and from a booklet read the following:
All those who sincerely seek sobriety are welcome as members in any SOS Group.
SOS is not a spin-off of any religious or secular group. There is no hidden agenda, as SOS is concerned with achieving and maintaining sobriety (abstinence).
SOS seeks only to promote sobriety amongst those who suffer from addictions. As a group, SOS has no opinion on outside matters and does not wish to become entangled in outside controversy.
Although sobriety is an individual responsibility, life does not have to be faced alone. The support of other alcoholics and addicts is a vital adjunct to recovery. In SOS, members share experiences, insights, information, strength, and encouragement in friendly, honest, anonymous, and supportive group meetings.
To avoid unnecessary entanglements, each SOS group is self-supporting through contributions from its members and refuses outside support.
Sobriety is the number one priority in a recovering person’s life. As such, he or she must abstain from all drugs or alcohol.
Honest, clear, and direct communication of feelings, thoughts, and knowledge aids in recovery and in choosing nondestructive, nondelusional, and rational approaches to living sober and rewarding lives.
As knowledge of addiction might cause a person harm or embarrassment in the outside world, SOS guards the anonymity of its membership and the contents of its discussions from those not within the group.
SOS encourages the scientific study of addiction in all its aspects. SOS does not limit its outlook to one area of knowledge or theory of addiction.
If I said a light went off immediately I would be lying. But a kernel of some kind of truth was placed in my mind and I knew it. The meeting went on with everyone sharing; some with stories like mine, some with much worse addictions and consequences, but they all had a one common thread: a religious grounded recovery was not how they could survive. They did not, like me, believe in a higher power or at least some didn't want their their sobriety to be entangled in a religious construct. I shared that first night. I was trembling and fearful, yet it also gave me hope and alleviated much of the anxiety an addict has of being truthful and open about their life.
I left the meeting with literature and website info, contact numbers and a warm and inviting smile from Jim. I had come to find out that Jim had been the founder of SOS and himself was almost 25 years sober. There were others who had many years sober in SOS and that is important; the knowledge that others have done what you want to do is as much an inspiration, and to some extent relief, as anything else you encounter upon first attempting sobriety. I read the pamphlets and attended other meetings that week around town. Unlike AA, our organization has very few meetings in comparison, but I knew that from the start. Just as most people in America claim to be spiritual, most recovery is of the 12 Step nature and relies on spirituality. But I had a place to go, a place free of religious trappings either explicit or implicit. It was a group of like-minded people who were there for the one thing I was: sobriety. Not to also enrich or extract a spiritual sense of being, but plain and simple sobriety.
What this did for me I can never fully put in to words, but I will say what I can. What Jim and others said helped a switch go off in my head and I came to realize that I was the source of my sobriety. The common denominator in my addiction was me, and therefore to keep that in check I must always be the one to take the steps to remain sober; whether they be to avoid certain situations or to avoid certain people, it didn't matter. Alone, I could and have conquered my alcoholism. Oh, I was helped by the SOS meetings which I still attend, but instead of telling me I was powerless it instead empowered me to become what I am today: a sober alcoholic. Years ago in college and early on in my sobriety I encountered some 12 Step members. I was and always will be respectful of their sobriety, but they did not reciprocate. I was told I would not, in fact could not, remain sober without AA. I am living testimony that that belief is flatly wrong, and there are thousands more like me who can attest the same. Since becoming sober I have given speeches at conferences and rehab clinics, written about my experiences for different publications and was one of the subjects of an NPR show, which you can listen to here half-way down the page where it says "Sobriety Without God". You'll have to excuse my diluted accent.
So Mr. Romney, don't preach to me that my Freedom requires religion. The greatest freedom I have, I gave myself explicitly free of any religion or spirituality. That freedom from religion saved my life; my physical, emotional and social life. It not only insults me but is patently false on its face. I am fiercely defensive of my independence from religion and that my sobriety rests not without but within me.
I must finish by saying I respect anyone's sobriety, and that short of hurting someone to accomplish it, it deserves that respect from all. For me it required an inner strength and personal, secular responsibility. Mr. Romney can soberly take that to his spiritual bank.