Here's part 3 of a 4-part blog entry. Go back and read part 1 if you haven't yet.
Before getting to the actual 12 Steps of Clutterers Anonymous (CLA), I want to point out some particular things they additionally mention on their website:
- "The only requirement for membership is a desire to eliminate clutter."
- "We each choose how to define 'Higher Power'. All clutterers, whether they are religious or not, believers, atheists, or agnostics, are welcome at CLA."
With these in mind, let's look at the 12 Steps, as worded on their website:
1. We admitted we were powerless over clutter -- that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for the knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Why these are all worded in past tense, I'm not exactly sure. But let's take a deeper look:
1. We admitted we were powerless over clutter -- that our lives had become unmanageable.
OK, first step is to admit that you have a problem. That's a smart first move. Admit you have a problem. Then you can work on being not so powerless against it, right? Well, not quite.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.
And here's where we get to one of the distinguishing 12-step features: the 'higher power'. But wait a minute, didn't they say that atheists and others are welcomed? Yes, and as it also said, individuals get to choose how they define "higher power". It doesn't have to be a deity, or anything metaphysical. They add the qualifier here at the end of #3, "...as we understand God". OK, I can understand that. The word "atheism" after all means nothing more than "no belief in deity". It seems to me though that they should have just worded this step "...to the care of your higher power, as you understand your higher power." I mean after all, CLA is not a religious organization, right?
The hardcore 12-steppers will be quick to tell you "Oh your higher power doesn't have to be 'God'. I [claim to] know some atheists in AA whose higher power is a rock, or a tree in their yard." Um, OK. Though I'm still not sure how this placebo for a deity would work. How exactly would you "turn your will over to" an oak tree, let alone turn your life over?
Not that this all terribly matters at CLA though, since again, "The only requirement for membership is a desire to eliminate clutter." You can attend the meetings without doing the 12 Steps. That's good. But how can you both maintain a personal desire, and "turn your will" over to some other entity? Seems silly to me. Then again, perhaps I'm using this blog as my "higher power", since I have to "answer" to it in the sense that I have to keep making posts. But ultimately, it's still ME driving everything. Even the book I keep raving about (Clutter's Last Stand by Don Aslett), which has helped me tremendously, was not taken as infallible dogma.
My biggest problem with the 12-step approach is that it's based on the idea that you should be hopeless and surrender your will to an external entity. It would seem to me that if you want control over your own life again, that you need to learn how to TAKE control and EXERT your will, not surrender.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
I'm not sure how a "moral inventory" comes into play here, at least for me personally. Morals are more about how we treat other people. I can see how this applies to a junkie who stole money from a friend. Or even a packrat who, say, turned away a friend who desperately needed a place to stay for the night, because the packrat was too embarrassed to show his or her living room to any other living person. If this is just about trying to find some of the underlying problems ("the exact nature of our wrongs"), then that makes sense. For example, packrats who keep buying clothing they don't need, just because they get a cheap thrill from shopping. But that doesn't strike me as a "moral" issue. Maybe I'm just being nitpicky on the wording.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
Get rid of the general underlying behavioral problems, as well as the specific problems. OK, I get that. Though again, this is just asking your "higher power" to do so, which again they conveniently just revert back to calling "God"...even though monotheism isn't a requirement to join.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
I can understand apologizing if the people are still in your life. But I've heard of alcoholics who try finding people they haven't talked to in 20 years, just to apologize. I'm not going to track down and call up every person who's ever had to step over clutter in my home! I wonder how many 12-steppers get stuck on this step and never really do anything about their problem.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
In other words, keep on the ball. Good advice! But then we take a weird turn:
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for the knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
More of the "higher power" BS. But at least they finally added back the disclaimer of higher power definition, "...as we understand God". The "awakening" here also implies that you suddenly recognize the problem and dump it. That's often not the easiest way of getting rid of an addiction. Sometimes you just have to ween yourself off. Or in the case of clutter, clean it one room corner at a time. I don't see there being one single "spiritual awakening" though. I've certainly had moments of insight and inspiration in my de-cluttering process, but nothing that changed me or my home overnight.
Have any packrats cured their problems with the 12 Steps before? Maybe. But I have to wonder how many of them truly have. I sincerely wonder how many have been going to these CLA meetings for over a year, and still haven't really conquered their problem, if not gotten worse. That was one of the things going through my mind when I attended a CLA meeting. More on that in the next blog entry.