A basic plan for newcomers

1.      Schedule time every day as a matter of priority on your step work. An hour a day is reasonable.
2.      Go to 5–7 meetings a week. ALL must be Step or Big Book meetings in AA. They should be the same ones every week. At least one must be the home group of your sponsor. After each meeting, text your sponsor with three points of identification, three tools of the programme you heard, and three things that inspired you.
3.      Perform service at two or more meetings a week. Those are your home groups. You turn up at those unless you’re dead or out of town.
4.      Follow the instructions on pages 86 to 88 every day. Follow the instructions to the word.
5.      Text or email your sponsor your plan for the day in the morning, which you construct by asking God how you can be helpful to others and writing down what God inspires you to do. The plan should be complete and sufficiently detailed so you know all day every day what you are supposed to be doing at any point in time. The plan should show all AA actions of the day.
6.      Be open to feedback from your sponsor, and respond promptly and fully when your sponsor enters into a dialogue on your plan for the day.
7.      Read spiritual literature for half an hour a day. Report to your sponsor what you learned from it and how you can apply it to your life.
8.      Throughout the day, constantly ask God for strength to do what is on the plan. If you fail, tell a trusted AA friend, then come back to the plan anyway.
9.      If there are other unhealthy habits (inappropriate sexual, romantic, or other obsessive relationships, gambling, acting out with food or spending, etc.) ask God for the strength to stick to the plan instead.
10.  Don’t enter into a romantic involvement until you’ve completed the first nine Steps. If you’re in one, follow all of the instructions on the Just For Today card plus the instructions regarding relationships on pages 98 to 99 and pages 117 to 118 of the Big Book, which will keep you reasonably out of trouble until Steps Four through Nine handle the underlying issues.
11.  Call two people in AA every day (one who has the same amount of sobriety or less; one who has more). Report to your sponsor the fact you have done this.
12.  Whenever you are fearful, angry, guilty, ashamed, or obsessed with yourself, ask God to direct your mind and actions towards the plan for the day.