6. SEEING THE MAGIC EYE SAILBOAT WITHOUT AMORAL FRAME
The Jewish Lobster Prologue: Part 6
SEEING THE MAGIC EYE SAILBOAT WITHOUT MORAL FRAME
Core tension: The 12-Step model of “Character Defects” (Sin) vs. the cognitive reality of “Adaptive Patterns” (Strategy). Moving from praying for removal (via magic surgery) to understanding functions in terms of root cause and the physics of our humanity.
IN MY WORDS
“My Program helped me tease out and define my personal list of ‘defects of character’ that my Higher Power needed to remove. But I don’t have defects – sprockets, widgets, software, and fruit have defects. I have highly specialized survival mechanisms that my brain has adaptively hardwired neuro-chemical-bio-habituations and have outlived their usefulness.”
“You can’t shame a pattern into changing (you polka dots should line up!). You can’t pray a neural pathway into dissolving (although both are in your head). You need to honestly investigate the unique archaeology of your circus of suffering and connect the dots of your own reality.
“Step 6 and 7 are the magic trick where your agency starts to smell encumbered. ‘Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.’ It treats your personality and idiosyncrasies like a tumor to be excised rather than a system to be investigated and integrated. I stopped asking for removal and started asking for the schematics.”
THE EVIDENCE
Steps 6 & 7: Explicitly frame behavioral issues as “defects” and “shortcomings” to be removed by an external deity. This is the “Sin/Absolution” model.
Therapeutic Contrast: Modalities like IFS (Internal Family Systems) or CBT view “defects” (such as lying or rage) as protective parts that protect a vulnerable core, rather than moral failings.
The Persistence of our damned Defects: Old-timers with 30 years of sobriety still pray for the removal of the same defects? If a medical treatment fails for 30 years, we usually question the treatment, not the patient.
STICKS AND STONES
Naming matters. If you call a behavior a “sin” or a “defect,” the only available and appropriate responses are shame, confession, and suppression.
Alternatively, if you call it a “pattern” or a “strategy,” the available responses are investigation, understanding, and modification.
The “Moral Frame” keeps you in the confession booth. The “Pattern Frame” puts you in the driver’s seat on your road to chemical freedom
THE MORAL PRISM SCHISM
The 12 Steps are an effective and cathartic “humility machine.” The work is very effectively designed to deflate the ego, a well-marinated ego that was buttressed through your chemical abuse to ascend to Supreme Life Commander and must be the first part of you deposed.
In this type of framework, your anger isn’t a signal of a boundary violation; it’s a “defect.”
Your fear isn’t a risk assessment; it’s a “lack of faith.”
Your desire for control isn’t a response to trauma; it’s “playing God.”
This is the “Recovery Religion” and culture at work. By moralizing every uncomfortable emotion or behavior, the program forces you into a perpetual state of spiritual insolvency. You are always “defective,” therefore, you always need the program to mediate your relationship with reality. This is confounding and crazy making to dry Jewish Lobsters.
The program creates perpetual insolvency by design. But here’s what changes when you stop moralizing and start investigating. Here is the Jewish Lobster paradigm shift: Behaviors are not sins. They are solutions.
They might be bad solutions. They might be outdated solutions. They might be solutions that cost more than they save. But they were created to solve a problem verified and validated by your mind itself.
My Pants on Fire: I didn’t lie because I am “dishonest by nature” (Original Sin/Disease). I learned that I lied because, at some point in my history, telling the truth was dangerous. The lie was and is a highly effective shield.
Rage Hard or hardly: I didn’t rage because I am “spiritually sick.” I learned through analysis that I raged because I felt helpless, and rage creates a temporary feeling of power.
That Boss Sauce: I didn’t drink because I was “powerless over alcohol”. I drank to turn down the volume on a sensory processing disorder or an anxiety loop.
When you strip away the moral frame, you stop asking “What is wrong with me?” and start asking “What is this behavior doing for me?” The lobster trap loosens greatly.
THE REMOVAL FANTASY (STEPS 6 & 7)
Step 6: “Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.”
Step 7: “Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.”
This is the peak of the “Magic” thinking for Muggles. It assumes that personality traits can be surgically removed by a supernatural surgeon if you just grovel correctly and enough.
It is also a setup for disappointment in the supernatural.
When you pray for your anger to be removed, and then you get angry in traffic the next day, the Program says: “You weren’t entirely ready. You didn’t surrender enough.”
The Trap closes tight here. The failure of the magical intervention is blamed on the user, not the method. Again, confounding the Jewish Lobster.
INTEGRATION OVER AMPUTATION
I don’t want my “defects” removed. I want my agency, confidence, and choice-making repaired from my personal and perpetual self-sabotage. Your personal frustration formulation has a critical foundation in some sort of factual reality.
My “arrogance” is actually confidence that has lost its calibration. I need that confidence.
My “fear” is prudence that has become hyper-vigilant. I need that prudence.
My “manipulation” is strategic thinking deployed for safety. I need that strategy.
The goal cannot be abstract amputation of abnormal ideals. It’s integration. It’s taking the energy of the “defect,” stripping it of its maladaptive, deleterious mission, and using it for its intended purpose.
The Jewish Lobster doesn’t cut off its claw because it pinched the wrong thing. It learns to control the claw.
FRAMED
This is where the “God” concept becomes an obstacle to the recovery of your “Reality” concept.
God Frame: “Please take this away from me.” (Passive, dependent, magical).
Recovery Reality Frame: “This pattern exists because X causes Y. If I want to change Y, I must change X.” (Active, agentic, causal).
Reality is the ultimate Higher Power because it uniformly and unilaterally enforces consequences without judgment. If I touch a hot stove, I get burned every time. The second time I do it stove doesn’t think I’m a sinner. It’s just physics.
Recovery is physics, or at least chemistry, but not theology. Utilizing pattern recognition allows us to treat our behaviors as worldly, human physics.
NEXT: MAINTENANCE WITHOUT SUBMISSION
So you’ve reclaimed your agency. You’ve recognized the religious structure. You’ve shifted from moral defects to causal patterns.
Now, the terrifying question: How do you stay sober without the fear of God?
If you aren’t “powerless,” and you aren’t “defective,” what keeps you from drinking?
Part 7 explores the mechanics of maintaining sobriety through preference, logic, and self-efficacy rather than submission and fear.
The Jewish Lobster Core Curriculum is an 8-part series examining recovery culture through systematic inquiry.
It’s for people who got sober but found the provided framework intellectually untenable.
Not therapy. Not a program. Not steps. Just tools for thinking.
