Easy Does ItI am an alcoholic, an adult child of an alcoholic, married to an alcoholic, and have ingested more than my fair share of legal and illegal substances. I consider myself to be the luckiest person in the world. I get to go to any meeting I want.
It appears we have some folks in a huge hurry. Whoopee! Let’s just whiz through these steps and things will be much better. Not so fast, now. Remember this is not a one-time event – this is a conversion experience and it will continue the rest of your life. I toyed with the idea of replacing the word alcohol with some generic term but decided to leave that part up to you. Consider it “active participation” without the Kumbaya and tambourines.
When I first went to AA, I was determined to be the best “sober” person I could possibly be. After all, I was a darn good drunk and I wanted to continue being the best at what ever I did. I obsessively studied my Big Book, which is what we call our publication; “Alcoholics Anonymous.” My copy of “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions” quickly became dog-eared. I studied everything I could possibly lay my hands on until I was an expert in the field of recovery. What great drunken thinking that turned out to be. About year three it hit me – I’m supposed to live the 12 steps - not just work them.
Let’s take a look at the entire 12 Step program. Just like the Ten Commandments, there is a sensible order to the steps. The first three have to do with our relationship with God. The first step is the most important, and all the others flow from that instant of recognition of our helplessness without God in our lives. Without God we are nothing. It is He who willed us into existence and who sustains us. It is this step of surrender that will open the doors to the greatest freedom you have ever experienced.
Now please don’t confuse surrender to God, the love of Christ Jesus, and the workings of the Holy Spirit, with lack of free will. Nobody gets to sit back in their recliner and say, “ Well, this is just the way I am.” Or even worse, “This is the way God made me.” Pretty tacky to blame your Creator for your problems.
Steps 4 through 9 are the action steps of this program. These are the steps that give us the practical actions we need to take on our spiritual journey. And finally, steps 10 through 12 are the maintenance steps. Ignoring these last steps will place your spiritual condition at great risk.
Those of you familiar with Ignatian spirituality will see the parallels between these two systems. Any Catholic should be able to spot Examination of Conscience and the Sacrament of Reconciliation reflected in steps 4 and 5.
If you are someone who is dealing with the addiction problems of a loved one, I do have a small bit of information for you. This program is about you - not about your “fixing” someone else. Only they are capable of fixing themselves. It would be like going to confession and telling the priest everything your spouse did wrong. Priests just love that!
The Twelve 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
Picture: Dr. Bob's home in Akron, Ohio considered to be the birthplace of Alcoholics Anonymous. There are twelve steps leading up to the front door.
