Insidious Counting (One Christian's Perspective)

If life is truly to be taken "one day at a time," and "all we have is today," why would a recovering alcoholic ever be encouraged to count, one by one, his accumulating sober days?

The counting of sober days is potential temptation and punishment rolled into one!

Counting sober days risks making the recovering alcoholic a veritable slave to his own accrued sober time, to the external appearance of well-being, and, possibly, to an insidious pride in his sober time.  God, however, does not want us slaves, but free.  He does not want us to get ourselves puffed up, however subtly, only to become enslaved to appearance or pretense.  Perhaps this is why those who do "go out" to drink again -- and who survive the experience -- appear so much calmer, clearer, and relieved upon their return to sobriety.  They may have hurt themselves in one way, but they have also reasserted their freedom under God and restored their own humility.

Recovering alcoholics are encouraged to "keep it simple" while, paradoxically, engaging in the scrupulous practice of counting every single day of sobriety, so that they may "earn" their "celebrations" for "x" amount of time sober and remain grateful for the gift of sobriety.  But scrupulosity in any form is normally considered to be a spiritual affliction, a psychological burden.  Counting sober days contradicts the very essence of any program which stresses the importance of "one day at a time," "living just for today," leading a balanced life, and, overall, "keeping it simple."

Counting sober days, in short, is all sorts of spiritual trouble -- the root of which is pride and the fruit of which can be lies.  The practice of religiously counting sober days is therefore dangerous to a recovering alcoholic's sobriety.

"Attending" recovery meetings for 90 days, after all, is quite different from feeling compelled to "get" 90 days sober.  A free man "attends."  If he stumbles, drinks, and survives, he simply picks himself up again.  In reality, no one who drinks on day 89 of his sobriety actually loses his previous 88 sober days!  Yet, despite those 88 genuinely sober days, the recovering alcoholic who drinks on day 89 must typically begin counting his sober days all over again after his fall -- no official group acknowledgment will be forthcoming for that comprehensive string of 88 consecutive sober days.  That string of 88 sober days is effectively erased.  This erasure, however, is a lie.  The consequences of this lie can be far worse than any mere withholding of celebration.  It is a lie which has the ugly effect of also discrediting, to a greater or lesser extent, the whole person who has "slipped."  To complete the lamentable picture, lies and distortions of any sort feed into the spiritual part of the disease of alcoholism.

So why, the question begs to be asked, should any "returning" recovering alcoholic bear the degradation of appearing to have lost his truly sober time  -- through the rigid, scrupulous, and potentially punishing practice of counting sober days?  This practice actually becomes a controlling mechanism which treats an adult like a child, then punishes a "fall" -- the act of drinking -- with the lie of sober-time erasure.  This erasure of "accrued sober time" often effectively exaggerates the actual amount of so-called "lost" sober time.  For instance, in the case of a very brief foray back into drinking, the comparatively short time spent on drinking assumes a much greater weight than all the sober days that preceded it:  If a recovering alcoholic drinks on even just one day -- say, day 89 -- he "loses" the entire string of his 88 prior sober days.  And this insult to his reason and dignity comes after the very practice of counting sober days has possibly helped to tempt his fall in the first place!

How might the practice of counting sober days actually tempt a recovering alcoholic to drink?  It might tempt him to drink by virtue of the very detail noted above:  by treating him like a child.  Children, after all, lose potential rewards when they disobey . . . . .  The counting of sober days having become a control mechanism (which the recovering alcoholic then obediently inflicts upon himself), it also becomes a potentially shaming mechanism under the surface -- despite group encouragement to "keep coming back" after a "slip."  A control mechanism, in turn, devalues both human dignity and free will.

Something deep within an adult human being may understandably revolt against this degrading treatment of his humanity . . . and he may wish, legitimately, to say "no" to it -- perhaps without even realizing exactly what is rankling him, but reacting from instinct alone.  What a shame (or, perhaps, a tragedy) if a recovering alcoholic were to say his first, bewildered "no" to this dehumanizing approach with a drink. 

May others say "no" for him, preferably BEFORE THIS HAPPENS -- by discouraging the destructive and obsessive practice of religiously counting every single sober day.

God bestows the gift of free will on each of us.  If people are truly "free" to believe in Him in a recovery program, then they must also be "free" to be free (!) -- which always must include the freedom to make reasonable exceptions, in charity and prudence, even to the most so-called popular or "proven" methodology.

The counting of sober days enables fortunate souls to celebrate various segments of their sober time, but perhaps at the high, high cost of grinding other, less fortunate souls into an early grave under the punitive cloud of perceived -- and exaggerated -- failure.  For the returning alcoholic who has had a drinking "slip," the hard message between the lines is that there is no real forgiveness or "mercy" built into the mechanics of such a program.  Furthermore, there will be no accompanying count of "successfully sober days" to boost, rationally and realistically, the returning alcoholic's true "sobriety average."

In the operating mechanics of such a program, the recovering alcoholic's "slip" erases his prior history of integrity and perseverance, and he is "bumped" back to "Start."  

Making a fresh spiritual beginning with each new dawn is one thing.  Erasing history, however, is quite another.