Dialog Editor
For Charlie A., it was a one-word prayer he uttered when he hit bottom, “help.” That started his road in recovery.
He was a 20-year-old alcoholic. Today he recalls his plea more than 30 years ago as “a surrender, an absolute surrender.”
Joe C. remembers losing his career in finance and being homeless, sleeping under the Verrazano Bridge.
“I said a prayer deep in my heart for help,” Joe said. “The next night I was at an A.A. meeting.”
Both Charlie and Joe have attended decades of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings since they “hit bottom,” but both men, whose names are being withheld because of A.A.’s tradition of privacy, now attend Calix Society meetings, a Catholic support group for A.A. members.
Calix takes its name from the Latin word for chalice. The society seeks to substitute “the cup that stupefies with the cup (chalice) that sanctifies,” according to its website.
Calix reinforces A.A.’s 12-step recovery program through the teachings of Catholicism. The steps have a distinctly spiritual nature, especially two of them.
The third step is make “a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.”
And the 11th step states, seek “through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.”
Bishop Malooly endorsed the start of a Calix Society in the diocese in 2012. For the last year and a half its members have been meeting each week at St. Matthew’s Church in Wilmington.
Charlie, who is the group’s current president, said the Calix gatherings of about 10 to 15 people include a Mass, then a meeting with a topic such as Advent, or Father Robert Barron’s series on Catholicism or the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius.
Calix meetings begin at 6:15 p.m. and, “we’re out at 7:45,” Charlie said.
“We welcome other alcoholics who are not members of our faith” and any others concerned about it, such as relatives of people who are addicted, he said.
“Our stated purpose is sanctification in the church, with and by the sacraments and her disciplines.”
Father William Hazzard, who lives at St. Matthew’s, has become the spiritual director of the society at the parish. He celebrates the group’s Mass on Wednesdays.
Alcoholics Anonymous “is basically a spiritual program,” Father Hazzard said. “It’s turning yourself over to God’s will in order not to drink.”
The diocesan priest, who is “retired” but helps out at the parish, said he first became involved in ministry with A.A. members in 1966.
In 1995, “I became a real member,” he said. “I had started drinking every day. It creeps up on you. … So, I’m not ‘visiting,’ I’m a real member now.”
“The Calix Society started with a priest who emphasized our higher power has to be Christ. A.A. teaches we have to have a spiritual life and we have one, the Catholic Church, that gives us a sacramental program. We have to realize what it is and grab a hold of it,” Father Hazard said.
“What I get from it is I get to go to Mass an extra time a week. I get to filter the 12 steps through the eye of the church. I need to be continually catechized,” Charlie said.
The society is also starting a new group at St. Francis de Sales Parish in Salisbury, Md.
For people struggling with alcoholism or other addictions, Charlie said hitting bottom can be a “gifted moment.” The moment of surrender to God in the struggle with alcoholism might destroy ego, but it means turning to God and asking, “what do you want me to do?”
The answer includes the call to “trust God, clean house and help others,” Charlie said.
For information on the Calix Society at St. Matthew’s call (302) 521-9330. Go to calixde.org for information about other meetings.
