The Taproot

The principle that we shall find no enduring strength until we first admit complete defeat is the main taproot from which our whole Society has sprung and flowered. (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions [AA], pages 21-22)

The taproot, on researching a bit, seems to have several interesting characteristics. Obviously the first is that it is a long root that in dry soil reaches way down for water. But that's not from research, that's from living most of my life in arid country. The research indicates plants sometimes start with a taproot then develop a system of roots called fibrous roots, meaning roots spread out and near the surface. Lots of plants that stay with the tap root modify that root into a system of storage, as in a beet, a carrot, or an onion. The kind of soil affects the kind of plants growing there, with deep rich soils leading to plants with taproots and clay soils promoting something I would have thought to be an oxymoron, multiple taproots. (I also learned the adjectival form of clay is not clay but clayey. But I digress, which normally means I'm avoiding talking about what I set out to explore, and which is true now.) 

The passage says our taproot -- the taproot of the Alcoholics Anonymous society and therefore by extrapolation the taproot of each recovery program -- is complete defeat. What does the taproot do? It stores food. Defeat is what holds us in OA or other recovery programs, the fact we've been there, done that, don't want to go back outside again. What does the taproot do? It gets down deep enough to get water. If water is the source of all life, the substance and essence of what we have to have for life to evolve, does that make water God? At least metaphorically? Probably. Actually, I think physically too, but I won't get into that argument here alone.  

On rereading, it doesn't quite say that complete defeat is the taproot of recovery. It says "the principle that we shall find no enduring strength until we first admit complete defeat is the main taproot." So it's not the defeat itself. If it were, everybody who commits suicide or who launches into a binge or the equivalent fully knowing the result is to walk away from the program, from the steps, would be automatically fixed up. It does come back, where the paragraph started, to the fact that humility is the basic ingredient, the spicy secret that makes the recipe the recipe. We first humble ourselves, and with that, the program becomes something more than the precarious holding on without humility. And it goes on to say real happiness doesn't happen without humility. Yeah. I can see that. And in a Grapevine article in June, 1961, Bill W said we get a daily dose of humility by avoiding the bog of guilt and rebellion on the one hand and on the other, pride. So the taproot, the supporting infrastructure to recovery, is to stay on that straight road without losing my focus and wandering off. Let's see. 

Today was good on the food, and I accomplished big things but turned some to the games instead of to God when the things I accomplished raised raucous emotions.   Tomorrow will be better, a step closer to understanding just what God's will for me is. Good night.