Bloody Mary

I'm speechless.  Truly speechless.  I just watched the most blasphemous, foul, disgusting, and anti-Catholic episode of South Park ever (and that's saying something).  And I couldn't stop laughing.  That has to be like a mortal sin, right?  I mean, God doesn't have that much of a sense of humor does He?  I guess I can feel safe that my many acts of charity will make up for my incessant laughter this evening. 

Of course, behind the humorous blasphemy was an actually well-written, thought-provoking episode that exposes Alcoholics Anonymous for being something other than what we all - or at least I - thought it was, and pokes holes in the generally accepted belief that alcoholism is a disease.  And I know I probably shouldn't be taking advice from a cartoon - especially one where the Virgin Mary is bleeding out of her ass - but it made a lot of sense.  And did I mention the laughter?

The 12 Suggested Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol--that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought 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.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Seriously.  That's what they showed on the program - I didn't quite believe it, but a quick Google search and there they are - the 12 Steps.  Everybody's heard of them.  Everybody universally agrees that it's pretty much the only way to stop alcoholism.  And fully 6 out of the 12 steps directly reference God.  Now I'm certainly not going to get into a religious discussion here, but if you are an atheist, or an agnostic, or a Muslim, or an Indian, or just an ordinary lapsed Catholic, you're going to have a little trouble getting through your first AA meeting.  But beyond that - and what the show was emphasizing - is that going through this process is a complete and utter admission of powerlessness (it's the first step!) and that only a higher power can save you.  These guys aren't big on personal responsibility I guess.  Very strange.  I really had no idea that was the basis of the program.

Anyway, the plot of the episode is that Stan's father drives the kids home from karate class (where they learned all about "personal discipline") after having several too many beers, gets stopped for drunk driving, and is forced to attend an AA meeting.  At the meeting, he learns that he has a "disease" that he has no control over, which sends him into a massive drinking binge (since he now thinks he can't stop himself) and fills him with fear that he is dying. 

In the meantime, at a church in a nearby town, a statue of the Virgin Mary begins to bleed, sparking talk of miracles, a huge crowd coming to witness it, and reporters on the scene investigating the... um, odd nature of the bleeding.

    Why do you believe the Virgin Mary is bleeding out her ass?

[Sorry God, I'm just relaying the line here.  I didn't write it.  I did giggle, but that's nothing uncommon for me, right?]  Anyway, Stan makes his way to the AA meeting to try to find out what they told his father that turned him into a complete drunk.

    AA member: "Alcoholism is a disease."
    Stan: "No.  It's not."
    AA member:  "It is a disease.  It's a physical dependency, so it's a disease."
    Stan: "No.  Cancer is a disease.  My dad just needs to drink less."

But Stan's dad is already convinced and begins to believe that his only hope is to drive to the site of the bleeding statue.

    "They say her divine ass blood has miraculous healing power."

And then there's a scene where the Vatican sends a Cardinal to validate the claims of miracles and gets a pintful of blood squirted on his face with accompanying fart noises.  Seriously.  Yes, you're going to hell just for reading about this.  Let's just move on. 

Stan's dad eventually makes his way to the site (with Stan driving even though he's 8) and believes he's healed when the blood is applied.  There's also a shot of a girl with elephantitus that also made me crack up, just in case I wasn't already going to hell.  But Stan's dad is cured and all is well, at least until new Pope Benedict arrives and takes a closer examination of the statue and declares that the Cardinal's ruling was incorrect - the blood is coming from a different place on the statue.

    "A chick bleeding out her vagina is no miracle.  Chicks bleed out their vagina all the time."

I'll let you pray for forgiveness for continuing to read this post now.  Ok, done?  Alright, moving on...

So this declaration sends Stan's dad immediately back to the bottle, but his son is able to convince him to stop.  Stan's dad vows to never drink again, but Stan gives him some words of wisdom about the, well, wisdom of such a plan - and basically debunks the whole thesis of Alcoholics Anonymous - that one sip of beer will send you over the edge.

    Stan: "If you devote your whole life into completely avoiding something you like, then that thing still controls your life and you haven't learned any discipline at all."
    Stan's dad: "But maybe I'm just the kind of person that needs to have it all or nothing."
    Stan: "No.  All or nothing is easy.  But learning to drink a little bit responsibly?  [with a Japanese karate teacher accent] That's a discipline.  Discipline come from within."

Ah.  I think this episode may win a Peabody.