Emergency protocol

What happens when everything appears to fall apart?

Batten down the hatches. What does that mean?

  • Admit complete defeat and decide to throw your lot in with God.
  • That means you'll be protected if you decide to trust and serve God 24 hours a day.
  • Complete defeat also means taking your focus off yourself, your resentments, your self-pity, your self-loathing, and your fear. Ego is bullshit and needs to go.
  • Have a couple of home groups where you do service. These should be the strongest AA groups in the city you live in, no exception. By 'strongest' I mean those with the densest content concerning the destruction of self and serving God and the strongest fellowship network plus social activities after the meeting.
  • Go every week unless you're dead or out of town.
  • Follow the instructions of pages 84 to 88 of the Big Book every day, in particular discussing with people who won't permit any self-indulgence any bad behaviour or negative thinking. If they make a suggestion, follow it.
  • If you've not completed the first nine steps, do so.
  • Get a job in the AA service structure.
  • Seek opportunities to carry AA's message to the outside world.
  • Find newcomers or other people in trouble to share solution with; sponsor.
  • Reclassify work and family obligations as service.
  • If you haven't got a job, get one.
  • If you can't get one, study and volunteer for 35 hours a week.
  • Find opportunities to be useful in your community and/or society.
  • Spend at least one hour a day reading and listening to spiritual materials, and actively mine these materials for principles, ideas, attitudes, and corrective measures.
  • Talk to your sponsor every day.
  • Talk to two other people every day whose lives are based on service.
  • Do everything they suggest.