The New York Times runs a blog called “Proof,” described as being about “alcohol and American life.” One of the contributors is author Jim Atkinson, a recovering alcoholic. And this week, he wrote about religion’s role in his sobriety:

My own recovery did not require me to become a born-again Christian or a Bible thumper of any sort. But sobering up—and staying that way—did involve a certain tectonic shift in the psyche that had nothing to do with willpower or common sense. In my experience, there are three reasons for this: First, the process of becoming addicted to alcohol involves a kind of twisted leap of faith in itself—coming to believe that all answers and all happiness lay in one more drink—so it only stands to reason that to escape alcohol’s clutches, one must take a similar size leap in the other direction. Second, for me anyway, trying to “reason” my way out of my addiction didn’t work. Talk to any recovering alcoholic and he will tell you about how many times he tried to stop or “manage” his drinking via the left side of the brain and failed. Indeed, it is the inability to control one’s drinking—even in the face of countless rational reasons to quit—that distinguishes the alcoholic from the merely abusive drinker. Finally, under the circumstances, I decided that I had no choice but to try the spiritual route to recovery.

This involved the deployment of two time-honored spiritual tools: surrender to and faith in a power greater than oneself — the often-invoked higher power. For me, surrender—as intimidating a word as it is—was relatively simple. After all, any drunk who decides to go to rehab has made a surrender of a certain measure; he’s saying, “I can’t lick this myself.”

Placing my faith in a higher power to help me with this endeavor was a bit more complicated. It’s not that I’m an atheist; I’m believer enough. It’s just that I’d never had occasion to apply my faith in this specific a way—that is to say, expecting a favorable resolution (losing the compulsion to drink) just for the asking of a favor from some unseen force.

It all felt quite awkward, and frankly, I wasn’t sure I could summon the requisite faith to fully engage the process. But desperation is the mother of many a good recovery, and desperate I was. So I did what I was told: I put blinders on, invested my faith in a higher power and set about the grunt work of recovery—the self examination and soul searching, the forming of a clean and sober and ethical self—with the hope that sooner or later, my compulsion to drink would disappear.

Ironically, it was the willingness to do anything to sober up—a most pragmatic strategy—that was the linchpin of my spiritual leap of faith.

Atkinson doesn’t seem entirely comfortable discussing this aspect of his recovery, and that’s understandable. But his honesty is laudable, and refreshing. Check out the blog for more.