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I was at a great meeting recently where the topic was finding faith in sobriety, and someone shared the old slogan that “the opposite of faith is fear.”
I found myself nodding along, because I do find that when my faith is strong, my fear is weak. When my fear is strong, I usually am struggling with faith. Usually, I can have one or the other, not both.
But a few minutes later, somebody gently disagreed, saying he thought the opposite of faith was despair—nothingness. His point was that you can be faithful and get scared in this world, so technically you could feel both. I guess that’s true if you’re very faithful and go swimming in the ocean and sharks start chasing you, you probably paddle like crazy. So maybe there’s some truth to that.
He made the point, though, that you can’t have faith and also despair. He said he thinks when you feel despair in the world, it means you probably don’t have faith of any kind. So his opinion was that despair is the opposite of faith.
I found myself nodding along because he made some good points. I didn’t quite think that on a spectrum with faith at one end that despair would be the polar opposite, but his rationale was interesting, and I always try to be open-minded about the whole faith thing.
Then someone else gently disagreed with both fear and despair as the opposites of faith, and he said he thought the opposite of faith is certainty. His point was that when you are absolutely certain of anything, you squeeze out the possibility of faith. He said something I have always believed, ever since somebody said it to me, which is that one of the most valuable phrases in life is “I don’t know.” And yet, I am often afraid to say that, because I want you to think I have all the answers, and I want to believe that myself.
I think what I like the most about envisioning faith at one end and certainty at the other is that that gives me a reassuring feeling about faith. I like being around people who have strong faith and lots of questions, because I’m not sure faith in anything can ever be said with 100 percent absolute surety. Some of the people who have turned me off the most over the years are those who say that their religion is the only answer, and that there is a book that was written 1000 or 2000 years ago that should be my handbook—and my only handbook—on how to live.
Early on in recovery, I’ll never forget I was explaining to someone with a lot of sober time what I liked and disliked about 12-step programs, and I was talking fast. This dude just calmly listened and at the end he just gently said, “This is just a suggestion, but I want to tell you a phrase you might consider using more often. I’m not sure you have ever used it before. It goes like this: ‘I. Don’t. Know.’ You should try thinking that and saying that more often than you do.”
I was offended by that but I slowly accepted his point. The more certain I am, the more I need to throw a penalty flag on myself and investigate why I’m so sure. I’ve found myself talking a lot lately, offering lots of opinions that weren’t requested, spewing nonsense about football games and what restaurants are good or bad, and all kinds of other stuff that the world just doesn’t need. I’m better off listening and contemplating, and only giving you my opinion when you ask for it.
And honestly, what exactly do I know in life? How to get sober? Maybe, but I really only know what works for me and that’s what I should stick to.
Raising kids? Come on, give me a break, I’m not sure anybody quite knows the perfect way to raise kids.
Football? A friend asked me to help him with some NFL picks recently, and I follow the NFL at an intense level because it’s both part of my job and also something I enjoy. I can tell you injury statuses of almost every team in the league. I know the statistics of pretty much every good player. I have watched every single team play at least one game this year. I listen to hours of podcasts and TV shows featuring former players and other experts about the NFL.
And when I pick NFL games… it’s a coin flip whether I get it right or not. In fact, if you took my picks and went with the opposite of them, you’d probably do better than me.
A conversation about faith that ends with discussing NFL picks might sound silly, but I think it’s quite powerful. It’s a reminder to me that even the things I think I know inside and out… I still am better off starting from a place of uncertainty… which is the opposite of certainty… which I now think is in the conversation for being the opposite of faith.
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
YOU KNOW YOU'RE AN ALCOHOLIC WHEN. . .
Your job interferes with your drinking.
The back of your head keeps getting hit by toilet seats.
The parking always seems to have moved while you were in the bar.
(Credit: AA Grapevine, February 2004, by Diane M.)
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