STEP TWELVE

 

Step Twelve is about carrying the message and practicing the principles embodied in these steps as a way of life. We do this because our spirit has awakened and we know its because we took these steps. Naturally, we want to shout it from the rooftops. It isn't necessary to go that far. There are lots of people all around us who are suffering the same as we once did. They are not that hard to find. I find them in meetings.

Sometimes the new fellows I sponsor wonder why I go to so many beginner meetings. I'm not a beginner anymore. The answer is simple. That's where you find the new people. A common misconception in 12-step programs is that we go there to get better and then once we've licked the problem, then we need to cut back on our meetings and go out and enjoy life. We should do the enjoying part. For years we stayed at home with the door locked, the drapes drawn, drinking in the dark. Or gambling at the bar. Or working ourselves into the ground or whatever the case might have been. We shied away from life and all its realities. Now that we are sober we ought to re-integrate as much as possible back into life.

But we should never forget how we got sober. Remember those old-timers who took all that time out of their lives to see that we felt welcome. The ones that seemed to be at every meeting we went to. Well, that's us now. I'm not saying you have to “live” in AA or NA or GA. I went to meetings every day when I got sober. I still go to three or four a week, sometimes more if I'm helping out a new guy. As I mentioned before, I've opened my home to these guys (and gals) and not just for a meeting, but lots of other times me and a new guy will sit around reading the book, going over the steps or just talking about cars or baseball.

Someone once asked me what was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I don't even have to think about my reply. It's the look in their eyes when they realize they don't have to live like that anymore. They come in the same as we all did, head down, staring at the floor, confused, embarrassed, lonely. And after a few days, they start to look a bit better, they might even talk back when you speak to them. In a week, they're full of life. We are often aware of the transformation long before they are. A fellow told me once that he had a spiritual awakening the day I took my sunglasses off and sat up front.

I am convinced that one of the reasons I have been sober as long as I have is because of the work I do with new people. Every time I go through the twelve steps with a new person, I take the twelve steps again, with myself. So, it's safe for me to say I've taken them at least 50 times. I don't think that makes me a step guru because every time I take them I learn something new about myself.

Probably the biggest test you will ever face is applying these steps outside of whatever fellowship you're in. At home. On the job. At the ball field. In rush hour traffic.

In the fourth step, there's a prayer that we can say whenever people get under our skin and start pushing our buttons. “God save me from being angry. Thy will be done.” Its easier said than done. I hope someday I'll be as well as everyone thinks I think I am. Then I won't ever need to say that prayer. But, that day hasn't arrived yet. I'm a work in progress.

I hope you have learned something from these essays on the Twelve Steps. I know I did.

STEP ELEVEN

 

When I came back into recovery this time around, Step Eleven was the scariest step because the wording of it sounded so religious to me. Fortunately, my sponsor had good news for me. He said there are ten steps in between this step and the one you're currently on. So I didn't have to worry about it in the beginning.

In Step Two, I expressed a willingness to believe in the possibility of a power greater than myself, and that was enough. In the third step I began to put to the test the things this power was capable of. I didn't go through my day waiting around for God to show me what to do. I'm an adult. I know the difference between what's right and what's wrong. The only difference in my way of thinking was that now I would strive to do what was right instead of what was wrong.

Then I got into the inventory steps, 4, 5 and 6, and I learned more about what I had been doing wrong and why I had been doing it, so I became more conscious of what areas of my life I had to work on. In many cases it was just my thinking. My perception of reality needed to change. I had to try to be less selfish, less dishonest, less angry, less afraid, not so greedy or lustful or self-centered. And by becoming less of the wrong things I became more of the right things.

I found that despite all my attempts to remove my shortcomings, I was unable to do it on my own resources. I had to have the guidance and the care of this power I had become acquainted with in steps 2 and three. In Step 7, I got that guidance. My perception of God and humility began to change. It was helpful that I had been separated from my drug of choice for quite some time. My thinking was becoming more clear and I could see that my shortcomings had really been getting in the way.

Then I did my eighth and ninth steps, trying to improve not only my understanding of myself and my understanding of the people around me, but also improving upon my understanding of God. There were times when I needed to know God was with me when I approached some people. So, all this time, on this journey I was on, my understanding of God and of spirituality was changing. It didn't seem so frightening anymore. I'm not a religious person in the sense that I used to relate that to. I don't belong to a church. I don't go to mass. I don't wear an orange bathrobe and I don't eat walnuts. I'm just a guy that used to think there was no such thing as God.

I've been proven wrong.

Step Eleven says we seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand him. Prayer to me is talking to God and meditation is listening for the answer. It's about communication. Communication is an important ingredient in any relationship. I don't always like the answers I get, but I don't have to like it I just have to do it.

Step Eleven even taught me the proper way to pray. I was always saying gimme gimme gimme when what I should have been saying was thank you thank you thank you. We don't pray for jobs or for cars or girlfriends or for long happy lives. We pray only for the knowledge of Gods will for us and for the strength to carry out that will.

My sponsor used to say that God wants us to be happy, joyous, and free. Hey, that's what I want too. To be happy, to be joyous, to be free. So, God and me, we want the same things. Why would I perceive that as something to be afraid of? Because my perception of reality was twisted. I thought believing in God meant that I would have to give up things that I enjoyed doing when in reality believing in God meant I could receive things that would be even more enjoyable than what I knew.

Every Tuesday night at 7:30, I get together with a handful of drunks Some are business people. Bartenders. Ex-cons. And what do we all talk about? We talk about how we established and developed a working relationship with the god of our understanding. We laugh and kid around but there's a deadly earnestness about what we do. Most of us know where we would be if we weren't doing what we do. We would be sleeping in a box under a bridge or lying in a gutter with a needle sticking out of our arm.

By the end of the hour, I tell you no lie, you can feel the presence of God in that room. It is said that deep down in us is the fundamental idea of God. He is within us and he comes in many forms. I spent years looking out there for God and all this time He was right here. Of course, that's just how I see it. So, my perceptions have changed and they continue to do so. In the Bible somewhere it says seek the kingdom of heaven and all else will follow. It doesn't say you have find the kingdom, you just have to look for it.

So if you seek through talking to god and listening to god to improve your conscious contact with god and you pray only for knowledge of his will for us and for the power to carry that out, well that's how we do step eleven.

Step Ten

 

When I was about halfway through Step 9, I noticed that the problem I had been having with alcohol, and with life in general, had gone away. My life was no longer unmanageable, I no longer suffered from an obsession of the mind where drinking was concerned, and I was actually enjoying life instead of shying away from it. I told my sponsor about this. He didn't seem too surprised.

“It's perfectly natural,” he said. “The 12 steps are a spiritual way of life and they have 2 purposes. The first is to expel your obsession to drink and the second is to help you to become happily and usefully whole. It seems they are working for you.”

Ever the skeptic, I questioned this. “But, what do I do if the problem comes back?”

My sponsor just laughed. “Oh don't worry. If you do steps 10, 11, and 12 every day for the rest of your life, the problem will never come back.”

I've been doing that for slightly more than 23 years and although not all of my days are priceless, none of my days are worthless.

Step Ten suggests that we “continue to take personal inventory”. I do mine before I go to sleep. I do shift work so that's not always at night. In the book Alcoholics Anonymous, on page 86, there are some questions we can ask ourselves about our day. The passage is actually during the discussion on Step Eleven but I find it is very appropriate for Step Ten. I am not going to quote it because I am going to reword the questions. Just imagine it's the end of the day. Ask yourself the following questions:

Was I resentful today?

Was I selfish today?

Was I dishonest today?

Was I afraid today?

Do I owe someone an apology?

Have I kept something to myself which should be discussed with another person at once?

Was I kind and loving toward all?

What could I have done better?

Was I thinking of myself most of the time?

Or was I thinking of what I could do for others?

I find that I don't always get the answers I would like to get, but that my answers always help me strive to be a better person the following day. If you can remember when we did Step 4, we ended up with those 2 columns. Our liabilities and our assets. We can just look at that list, see where we were wrong today and try to do better tomorrow. The second half of step ten says, “when we were wrong we promptly admitted it.” It doesn't say, “if we were wrong.” You see, the guys who originally wrote these steps, they knew we were going to make mistakes. We are all human. None of us are saints. The idea is not to keep beating ourselves over the head with that big bat. We just keep taking stock of ourselves, we keep up the honest analysis, take what corrective measures are necessary, keep trying to live up to our chosen ideal.

So, if you continue to do this, then you are doing Step Ten.