I'd Like To Call for Help, but I Don't Know the Number: The Search for Spirituality in Everyday Life

by Abraham J. Twerski

Overview

Do you have to be religious to be spiritual? Can you have a spiritual life and not believe in God?

These and other profound questions are explored by Dr. Twerski in I'd Like To Call For Help But I Don't Know the Number: The Search for the Spirituality in Everyday Life. He shows us how to open ourselves up to the deeper aspects of our lives that are often obscured by concerns about success and material wealth.

True spiritual discovery, Dr. Twerski suggests, involves more than overcoming selfishness or dependency; it also requires a journey of self-improvement, character development, and respect for others. Inspired by the Alcoholics Anonymous groups he encountered in his clinical practice, Dr. Twerski outlines a twelve-step program for spiritual growth through self-awareness, service, and self-management. He illustrates his program throughout with true success stories he has witnessed over the years.

"Abe Twerski provides us with an understanding of our spiritual side . . . It's like a conversation with a warm and trusted friend." - Betty Ford

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466881884
Publisher:	Holt, Henry & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	07/02/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	159
File size:	868 KB

About the Author

Abraham J. Twerski, M.D., is a clinical psychiatrist specializing in addictive behavior, an ordained rabbi, and the founder and director of the renowned Gateway Rehabilitation Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His books include When Do the Good Things Start? and Waking Up Just in Time, both inspired by Charles M. Schulz’s Peanut comic strips; and Life’s Too Short!, The Thin You Within You, and I'd Like To Call For Help But I Don't Know the Number.

Read an Excerpt

I'd Like to Call for Help, but I Don't Know the Number

The Search for Spirituality in Everyday Life

---

By Abraham J. Twerski

Henry Holt and Company

Copyright © 1991 Abraham J. Twerski
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-8188-4

---

CHAPTER 1

Is Man Homo Sapiens?

Being human is difficult. Becoming human is a life long process. To be truly human is a gift.

Abraham Hesche

The noted historian, Barbara Tuchman, wrote in the Saturday Review in December 1966, "Let us beware of the plight of our colleagues, the behavioral scientists, who by use of a proliferating jargon have painted themselves into a corner — or isolation ward — of unintelligibility. They know what they mean, but no one else does. Psychologists and sociologists are farthest gone in the disease and probably incurable. Their condition might be pitied if one did not suspect it was deliberate. Their retreat into the arcane is meant to set them apart from the great unlearned, to mark their possession of some unshared, unsharable expertise."

Discussions of things such as spirituality often feature long words and difficult-to-grasp arguments. In contrast to those behavioral scientists described by Ms. Tuchman, I do not possess any unshared or unsharable expertise, and I hope to avoid the pitfall of unintelligibility. I have been impressed by the effectiveness of the AA teaching to "keep it simple," and in compliance with this principle, I wish to make a simple assertion: Man is different from animals.

This hardly seems a shocking revelation, even after we eliminate the obvious difference that man is a biped with an upright posture. Yet a bit of reflection shows us that the true distinctions between man and animal are not universally acknowledged. For example, biologists have classified man as being homo sapiens, homo referring to the general group of hominoids, among which are monkeys, apes, orangutans, and chimpanzees, and sapiens (intellect) being the distinctive feature that separates man from other animals.

Perhaps it is my ego at work that makes me reject this classification, according to which I am an "intellectual gorilla." Indeed, I believe that other forms of life also have intellect, but are not as wise as man. Hence, the biologic appellation distinguishes man from animal only quantitatively; i.e., we have more intellect than animals, but does not provide a qualitative distinction.

I believe that more than just a greater degree of intelligence distinguishes man from animals, and that if we analyze man and understand all that we can about him — his thoughts, emotions, behavior — we will find additional features that are uniquely human. On this basis, I would like to coin a definition. All the unique features of a human being in their totality are what constitute the spirit of man. When man exercises these unique features, he is being spiritual. Thus, spirituality is simply the implementation of those distinctive features that separate man from animal.

I realize that I am treading on thin ice, because I may be challenged to prove that all these features are indeed unique to man. You might say, "How do you know that animals do not have the equivalent of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony or Shakespeare's Hamlet? Just as animals may well be unaware that these exist among humans, humans may be ignorant of what exists among animals."

Absolutely correct. Yet no one has really taken issue with the biologic establishment for designating man as homo sapiens, and no one argues that animals may indeed be far more intelligent than we assume, and that we are merely ignorant of the great intellectual achievements of animals. Someone might argue that bees are extraordinary mathematicians and engineers, who have not only calculated the configuration of a hexagon to an unbelievable degree of precision, but have also cleverly devised a structural technique that they have communicated to their brethren all over the world. While this might conceivably be true, we generally do not assume this to be so. Rather, we attribute the geometrically precise honeycomb to an inborn instinct rather than to bees' mathematical genius.

I believe we are justified in extending this way of thinking to other properties that we consider lacking in animals. We generally assume that animals do not create poetry or produce artistic masterpieces, and that animals have not transmitted the history of ancient events to their offspring over many generations. While this is indeed only an assumption, it is a reasonable one, and one that an overwhelming number of people hold to be valid. I will therefore proceed on the basis of this assumption that, given our observation of animals, man displays sensitivities and attributes of a unique nature. It is in the quality of these unique attributes that his spirituality lies.

CHAPTER 2

Spirituality and Free Choice

The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitudes.

Victor Frankl

One of the ways in which man is distinct from animal is that man is free, whereas animals are not.

Man and animals both have biologic drives: hunger, thirst, sex, desire for comfort, avoidance of pain, etc. Animals are at the mercy of their biologic drives and cannot resist them. An animal that is hungry is driven to look for food, one that is thirsty must look for water, and one that is in heat must look for a mate. Given our right to reach certain conclusions, as was discussed in the previous chapter, we may assume that no animal has ever made a conscious decision, "I will suffer the pangs of hunger and thirst, but I will not eat or drink today, because I have decided to fast." Nor has it ever happened that an animal in heat has suppressed its sexual urge and made a conscious choice of celibacy. Animals do not have the capacity to choose in this sense. They are totally dominated by their internal impulses, and lack freedom of choice.

True, under certain circumstances an animal may avoid gratifying a biologic drive. For example, a hungry jackal looking for food may come across a delectable carcass, but if this happens to be in the possession of a ferocious tiger, he will not approach it. However, this is not because he consciously suppresses his appetite, but because the fear of being killed by the tiger overrides the hunger. This is not an instance of free choice, but merely a greater biologic drive, that of survival, overcoming a lesser drive, that of hunger.

Some psychologists would have us believe that human behavior is on the same plane, and that man's freedom of will is but an illusion. They argue that man has a number of drives, some of which are in conflict with others, and that human behavior is merely the result of the struggle among various drives for dominance. They claim that man's consciousness of what he is doing causes him to think that he is choosing, but that this is nothing more than an illusion. His choices are being made for him by his internal drives.

These psychologists may be in concert with those biologists who consider man as merely another variety of animal, and according to this concept it is virtually meaningless to speak of spirituality. It is quite evident, however, that in practice we do not subscribe to this theory. Our entire concept of human responsibility, with our elaborate system of positive and negative sanctions, is based on the assumption that man is not at the mercy of his impulses, and that he indeed has the freedom to choose and determine much of his behavior.

Freedom is one of man's preeminent values. Patrick Henry spoke for all humanity when he said, "Give me liberty or give me death," as did the founding fathers when they asserted that man has an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Tyranny is intolerable, and is equally despicable when it is that of internal drives as when it is that of a ruthless despot. Slavery is abhorrent, not only because it is often cruel, but more so because it is dehumanizing. Man is a free creature, and to take away his freedom is to rob him of his humanity.

Man is free when he has the capacity to make a free choice. In contrast to animals, man need not be dominated by his biologic drives. However, if a person avoids gratifying a given biologic drive only out of fear of consequences, he is still not behaving on a true human level, because as we have seen, animals are also deterred by fear of punishment. Whether the punishment is death or corporeal pain or imprisonment or social condemnation is immaterial. The person who avoids stealing because of the fear of being apprehended and punished, or who avoids an illicit sexual relation because of the fear of contracting disease or being condemned by society or family is really no different than the hungry jackal who avoids the carcass that is in the possession of a tiger.

Man functions in his unique human capacity when he chooses to deny an urge even when there is no possibility of any unpleasant consequences. When his decision to deny his biologic drive is based only on his principles of right and wrong, man rises to a supra-animal level. This is when man makes a free moral choice, something which is uniquely human, and which is beyond the capabilities of even the most intelligent animal.

A person may be an intellectual genius, capable of the most sophisticated abstract thinking. He may be the world's greatest scientist and be the ultimate in sapiens, but if he is incapable of making a free moral choice, he is lacking a fundamental feature of humanness.

The importance of making a free moral choice is nowhere as evident as in addiction. Whereas there have been various types of slavery in world history, none has been as total and as absolute as the slavery of addiction. Whatever form the addiction may take, whether alcohol, drugs, sex, food, or gambling, it totally dominates the individual. Everything in life becomes subordinate to complying with the demands of the addiction. I have heard this from many recovering people, one of whom said, "It has been twenty-one years since I drank. I may drink today, but if I do it will be because I choose to do so. I am no longer compelled. When I was in my addiction, I had no choice."

Achieving self-esteem is crucial in maintaining sobriety, as I have pointed out in Self-Discovery in Recovery (Hazelden, 1984). A lack of self-esteem can be found to have been present in most addicts prior to the actual onset of the addiction. As the addiction progresses and deprives the person of the capacity to make a free moral choice in regard to his addiction, his self-concept is further depressed, since the person feels himself to be lacking in the very capacity that defines his humanity.

The human uniqueness of the capacity to make a free moral choice is a major component of the spirit, and exercising this capacity is being spiritual. It is clear that even a person who does not have a religious orientation can conceptualize himself as being free, and is thus capable of being spiritual.

CHAPTER 3

Contentment

The purpose of man's life is not happiness but worthiness.

Felix Adler

Closely related to gratification of biologic drives is the pursuit of contentment. Indeed, since contentment is essentially being free of distress, it too is the goal of a biologic drive, because all living things seek to avoid discomfort of any type. The human being is no exception, and we can hardly fault a person for wishing to be content.

It is clear, however, that people often voluntarily accept some discontent. When the alarm rings in the morning, one would really prefer to turn it off and get back to pleasant slumber. When one drags himself out of bed to get on with the work day, one is actually frustrating a natural desire, and this is only because of a goal that supersedes the desire for physical contentment. The goal of earning one's livelihood and supporting one's family overrides the natural tendency to continue sleeping. This is a prototype of accepting a degree of discomfort or making a sacrifice for the sake of an ultimate goal.

This concept is of great importance in the prevention of addiction. When the rather naive campaign was launched, urging youngsters to "Just say no to drugs," some adolescents who were interviewed responded, "Why?" What else is there?"

There is no denying that alcohol and other mind-altering substances give the user some type of pleasant sensation. Even if the "high" does not constitute a state of euphoria, it is at least a respite from unpleasant sensations of anxiety, tension, and depression, and awkward self-consciousness. The use of such chemicals is nothing other than the pursuit of contentment.

But why should young people risk the serious social, physical, and psychological consequences of mind-altering chemicals? Are there no other, safer, and more durable ways of achieving a feeling of contentment?

Of course there are. The problem is that (1) these do not yield immediate results, and (2) one must have sufficient self-confidence that one's efforts can ultimately achieve the desired state of contentment.

The problem of immediacy is relatively new in the history of mankind, and may explain why the use of mind-altering substances is much more prevalent now than in previous times.

Years ago people were accustomed to waiting. Travel by covered wagon was of weeks duration, as was mail by pony express. Foods would cook slowly over a period of hours, and transactions involving long columns of figures had to be laboriously calculated and rechecked. The miracles of technology have virtually eliminated all waiting. Jet flight, the telephone, and fax machines have made communications seem instantaneous. Precooked food and microwaves have eliminated time-delay in food preparation, and the magic of computers has reduced complex mathematical calculations to a fraction of a second. Speed is the password of modern technology, and with the exception of pregnancy, everything appears hurried and produces results that are immediate.

In an ethos where virtually everything is expected to occur instantaneously, it is difficult to impress young people that they should wait for years to achieve a state of well-being. Their quest for a chemical that will provide instant gratification is quite in keeping with everything else that goes on around them.

Even if delay were to be tolerated, this can only be when there is light at the end of the tunnel; i.e., when one feels with reasonable certainty that the desired state of contentment can ultimately be achieved. This requires a degree of self-confidence and an awareness of and trust in one's own capabilities that is so often lacking. In Like Yourself and Others Will, Too, (Prentice-Hall, 1978), I pointed out that many people have a distorted self-concept that causes them to be oblivious to their own personality strengths and assets. The nature and complexity of the modern super-industrialized society may have contributed to the prevalence of a negative self-concept. Where there is lack of self-esteem, the aspiration that a state of contentment is achievable is greatly diminished, and with nothing else to look forward to, young people who feel this way are easily attracted to mind-altering chemicals.

High-speed technology will certainly continue its progress, and the wondrous marvels of instant results will continue to erode our tolerance of delay. The solution to the problem of widespread lack of self-esteem remains elusive. Given these facts, what, if anything, can halt the apparent relentless recourse to use of mind-altering chemicals, especially among young people? The only answer is the development of a goal or goals above and beyond that of contentment, something for which people will be willing to forego physical comfort and accept sacrifice, just as one does when one allows the alarm clock to interrupt the nirvana of sleep.

Pride in one's humanness can provide this ultimate goal, but only if one conceptualizes himself as more than homo sapiens. The sapiens of man is that which brought about air-conditioning, jet flight, the microwave, compact discs, color television, and the many devices and methods whereby man can achieve greater comfort in life. Animals, too, are driven to seek contentment. One producer of dairy products advertises that its raw material is "milk from contented cows." The reasoning underlying this marketing technique is that the highest quality milk is produced by the highest quality cow, and the epitome of excellence in a cow is contentment. Certainly the pride of man should demand a kind of excellence that surpasses that of cows.

The milk producer is unquestionably correct. Contentment is indeed bovine excellence, because cows are creatures without a spirit. Spiritual man must be different.

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from I'd Like to Call for Help, but I Don't Know the Number by Abraham J. Twerski. Copyright © 1991 Abraham J. Twerski. Excerpted by permission of Henry Holt and Company.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Contents

Title Page,
Copyright Notice,
Dedication,
Introduction: Spirituality in Recovery,
Chapter 1: Is Man Homo Sapiens?,
Chapter 2: Spirituality and Free Choice,
Chapter 3: Contentment,
Chapter 4: Self-Reflection and Self-Esteem,
Chapter 5: Growth,
Chapter 6: Awareness of History,
Chapter 7: Purpose in Existence,
Chapter 8: Respect for Others,
Chapter 9: Spiritual in All One Does,
Chapter 10: Time,
Chapter 11: Honesty,
Chapter 12: Anger,
Chapter 13: God as Higher Power,
Chapter 14: Divine Providence,
Chapter 15: Understanding God,
Chapter 16: Turning One's Life Over to God,
Chapter 17: Mastery Over Emotions,
Chapter 18: The Will of God,
Chapter 19: Does God Care About People?,
Chapter 20: Man's Will vs. God's Will,
Chapter 21: Patience and the Ultimate Goal,
Chapter 22: Peer Pressure,
Chapter 23: Prayer and Faith,
Chapter 24: Inability to Pray,
Chapter 25: Contrition,
Chapter 26: Joy,
Chapter 27: Worship Whom?,
Chapter 28: Spirituality in the Psalms,
Chapter 29: Carrying the Message,
Note,
Afterword,
By the same author,
Copyright,