One of the personal stories in the book Alcoholics Anonymous became more well-known than most.  Its title was “Doctor, Alcoholic, Addict,” and lotsa folks in AA would drop a page number from that story like it was the combination to a bank vault.  That particular page held a couple paragraphs about acceptance, and those paragraphs are pretty much what made the story famous.

Then, the combination to the safe got changed, which flummoxed folks who had some trouble accepting the change.  Title got changed, too, and that didn’t meet with complete acceptance, either.  Story’s now called, “Acceptance Was the Answer.”

Addict-heads aren’t big on acceptance, which is why that piece of the story got so much play it became the title.  Addict-heads are big on “more is better”—which isn’t uncommon among non-addict-heads, either.  Non-addict-heads more often have a stop-button, though: “too much of a good thing is no good.” 

Acceptance is a good thing, right?

The author of the story, known as Dr. Paul, writes this line: “And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.”  Yep.  He even uses those italics.  ALL.

Boy, that’s ALL some of us need to hear.  If you got somethin that’s “the answer to ALL my problems today,” I’m huntin you down for that.  If some company was sellin that, for real—really worked—they’d never go out of biz.  Never.  Who doesn’t want somethin that is the answer to all their problems?  Most of us gotta peck of problems in a day.  We wake up with em (or they wake us up), we wrestle em mosta the day, and we try to forget about em at night to sleep.  We mighta solved one or two that day, but three or four new ones mighta shown.  Gimme the answer to all of em, and man, what else do I need?

It’s no wonder this story became famous.

Folks seem to gloss over the notion that Dr. Paul is talkin about himself.  About his own problems.  He doesn’t say, acceptance is the answer to all your problems, today, or everyone’s problems.  He speaks for himself, just like we’re taught to do in recovery.  Each of us tells his or her own story.  This is not the same as saying that the Twelve Steps will work for everyone.  We don’t say, “If these Steps don’t work for you, nothing else will.”  There aren’t very many things that work for everybody.  Air, maybe.  What the Program DOES say is, let somebody else who’s in the same jam know how you got out.

Behind this is the tried-and-true formula: monkey see, monkey do.  That makes it sound stupid, and it’s selling short one of the primal principles humans still utilize every day.  It’s one of the ways kids first learn about the world: imitating others. 

So here’s a guy sayin he found the answer to all his problems, today.  Wow.  Could I replicate that?  I sure wanna try.

Or not.

The thing is, the monkey-see-monkey-do principle runs right up against the “everything ain’t for everybody” principle.  Everybody’s gotta eat, but folks got allergies, sensitivities, tastes and real physical differences—like chewing and swallowing—so what’s healthy for you might be anything but for me.  Yeah, everybody needs nutrition to live, but how each person gets it runs the gamut from feeding tube to five-star banquet.

Me?  I can’t swallow that much acceptance.  I’m good for maybe ten hot dogs, but that guy who eats fifty-something?  That’s a contest I’m never gonna win.  Besides, I’m a big believer in the Serenity Prayer concept: I gotta have serenity to accept, and that comes from somewhere beyond me—just like I didn’t choose the digestion I have—it came with the body I was born with.