The idea for a book with the title Human Beings Anonymous started with one of the times I was working my way through Addiction and Grace*by Gerald G. May, M.D. An earlier working title was Living as Mustard Seeds in Cracked Clay Pots which is still a valuable working premise for developing meaningful practices, but not, at least in my opinion, a title.
In my experience, sadly, I very much agree with the statements of Gerald May that follow:
I am not being flippant when I say that all of us suffer from addiction. Nor am I reducing the meaning of addiction. I mean in all truth that the psychological, neurological, and spiritual dynamics of full-fledged addiction are actively at work within every human being. The same processes that are responsible for addiction to alcohol and narcotics are also responsible for addiction to ideas, work, relationships, power, moods, fantasies, and an endless variety of other things. We are all addicts in every sense of the word. Moreover, our addictions are our own worst enemies. They enslave us with chains that are of our own making and yet that, paradoxically, are virtually beyond our control. Addiction also makes idolators of us all, because it forces us to worship these objects of attachment, thereby preventing us from truly, freely loving God and one another. Addiction breeds willfulness within us, yet, again paradoxically, it erodes our free will and eats away at our dignity. Addiction, then, is at once an inherent part of our nature and an antagonist of our nature. It is the absolute enemy of human freedom, the antipathy of love. Yet, in still another paradox, our addictions can lead us to a deep appreciation of grace. They can bring us to our knees.
Grace is the most powerful force in the universe. It can transcend repression, addiction, and every other internal or external power that seeks to oppress the freedom of the human heart. Grace is where our hope lies. (3-5)
The coming series of posts will focus on The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and other related fellowships as they inform our understanding of living as Human Beings Anonymous. These steps, these formative practices, point toward practices that make it possible to open our lives to the possibility of grace, practices that are positive formative influences for helping us to become whole and healthy human beings, and practices that teach us that the only way to keep it is to give it away. They help us learn and believe that “grace is where our hope lies.”
*Gerald G. May, M.D. Addiction and Grace. San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1988.
tmitchellmusic 
Thanks for this, Tom, and also for the coming book.
thank you thank you thank you!! I’ve been dealing with alcohol but finding the judgements of others to be ludicrous because if I look at them for a few minutes I can just see their addictions. I was just posting into an alcoholics forum a minute ago and thought ‘we should have human beings anonymous’ .. so I googled that and here I am! I’m not excusing my own addictions but I find people telling me about it rather hypocritical. I just happened to choose a really obvious one everyone recognises. I often actually feel fortunate that I dont have (many) of the really sneaky variety that hide out as something else. You can point to alcohol very easily.
And that quote from Gerald May is the closest thing to the meaning of life I have heard in a while. Specifically the idea of Grace in the midst of our addictions. I’ve thought on that paradox quite a bit, which is why I have been compassionate with both my own and other people’s behaviour. I see it as if we were put here in these bodies with these compulsions built in (or learned early) in order to teach us humility and compassion.
We should seriously have HBA meetings.
I agree with you Mr.Daniel Johnson, I was standing in my kitchen, wondering how to deal with my own addictive/abused/needy consciousness; I’ve been to AA, NA, and any other A’s and left feeling manipulated, needy and lost. So, I was thinking, what the hell, I’ll go back to an AA meeting and say, “My name is Wayne, I’m a human being”. Then, I thought, there’s got to be a human beings Anonymous, and here I am.
I do not need another label in my life, confining me to someone’s idea of what or who I am. I think we all start out with Love, created in the Image of the Spirit of Life/Love/Truth/Christ or Bob’s Pizza Dough, whatever you choose to call it, and through ignorance of that Spiritual guidance, we turn our love to things, to be drained, tainted, mixed, confused, lacking, needy and in poverty. I only hope I have come to the right place; to do good, not to be seen of men (anonymous), thus to be free to grow toward the Spirit, not being laid claim to or giving place to obligation and more neediness. Someone show me where to meet, share, learn, and maybe do some good in this pseudo love confusing world, I’m in.