Here are some notes I did for a talk. They can double as a rough guide to the first three Steps.
Introduction
Newcomers to the fellowship or newcomers to the programme? Sometimes people are years sober and are newcomers to the programme. The approach is largely the same with these!
Newcomers to the Steps, or newcomers to the Steps as they are set out in the Big Book? Sometimes people have great experience of some Steps, but with ideas that are fundamentally at odds with those set out in the Big Book, and likewise missing some ideas in the Big Book.
Preface / Forewords / Doctor's Opinion + up to 63: a lot of material!
If the approach is not detailed enough:
- Risk of missing important points
- Without a sufficiently deep experience, there might not be the motivation to get through the harder Steps
If the approach is too detailed:
- People lose steam and give up
- Missing the wood for the trees
Variation:
- There are different approaches for different people
- I've grown, so how I sponsor changes over time, too
This is how I sponsor presently.
Step One (up to page 44)
Six points to cover:
- Physical craving: powerless after the first drink
- How do I know I'm powerless?
- If I keep drinking 'too much' (= giving rise to more consequences than I'm comfortable with), the only reasonable explanations are:
- Stupidity
- Madness
- Powerlessness
- If I am neither dumb nor mad yet keep drinking too much, that's powerlessness
- Entails: no such thing as a safe slip
- I might do a terrible thing on the slip
- I might go into a fog that never lifts
- Mental obsession: doomed to have the first drink
- 'The recurring overpowering delusion that a drink is a good idea'
- If I keep getting bad consequences yet keep returning to the first drink (which seems a good idea at the time), the only reasonable explanations are:
- Stupidity
- Madness
- Powerlessness
- If I am neither dumb nor mad yet keep having the first drink, that's powerlessness
- Fatal / progressive / incurable
- If you drink way too much repeatedly, it'll likely kill you early
- According to a German doctor I know specialising in alcoholism, you're looking at shortening your life on average by more than 20 years
- It got worse as I got older and so will likely continue to do so
- My response to alcohol will never fundamentally change
- My propensity to bad decision-making will never fundamentally change
Unmanageability
- If I can't choose when I drink and I can't choose how much I drink when I drink, I am not in charge of the course of the day
- I'm not in charge of the course of the day, I'm not in charge of the course of my life
- That is unmanageability
By going back in our own drinking histories, we could show that years before we realized it we were out of control, that our drinking even then was no mere habit, that it was indeed the beginning of a fatal progression. [After a few such experiences,] often years before the onset of extreme difficulties, [he would return to us convinced.] (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)
- Unmanageability is therefore not about consequences but about being trapped in a downward spiral
- Unmanageability is not disorder, incompetence, or neurosis: these are not singular to alcoholics nor universal amongst alcoholics
- Being trapped in a downward spiral of alcohol is both singular to and universal amongst alcoholics
- Powerlessness thus entails unmanageability
- Powerlessness is the cause; unmanageability is the effect
- Necessity of the Higher Power
- What happens after the first drink can't be fixed
- My only hope is to stay away from the first drink
- If I can't, necessarily something else must empower me, if I am to do this
- I need a Higher Power to ensure my survival: and that needs to kick in today
Step Two (Chapter 4)
- I need direction and power (this is entailed by Step One)
- Establishing the existence of that power:
In the face of collapse and despair, in the face of the total failure of their human resources, they found that a new power, peace, happiness, and sense of direction flowed into them. This happened soon after they wholeheartedly met a few simple requirements. (Page 50)
- Were others powerless?
- Have others accessed power?
- There is a Power Greater Than Them!
Do I now believe, or am I even willing to believe, that there is a Power greater than myself? (Page 47)
- Either I am greater than other people's Higher Power
- Or other people's Higher Power is greater than me
- Let's test this out: can I get anyone sober?
That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. (Page 60)
- Other people couldn't get me sober; I can't get other people sober
- If that Power exists, it is by definition greater not just than them but greater than me
- Relevant scope of that Power: direction and power to stay sober and thrive
God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn’t. What was our choice to be? (Page 53)
- If power and direction are available, they're available universally, not selectively: they're available to me
What I leave out of Step Two:
- The definition of 'God'
- Theodicy ('the vindication of divine providence in view of the existence of evil')
- The how of it, other than: activating all three sides of the AA triangle is sufficient to access that Power
- Religion in general
- Anything else that gets in the way
These questions are set aside for now and can be returned to later. Generally, they resolve themselves automatically once the Steps have been completed.
Step Three
How it works
Key points to consider (from pages 58 to 60)
If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it—then you are ready to take certain steps.
Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.
Half measures availed us nothing.
Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas: (a) That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. (b) That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. (c) That God could and would if He were sought.
Step Three Requirement (pages 60 to 62)
We've already decided we have to have God in charge: we cannot be trusted.
Wouldn't it be easier if we turned out lives over gladly?
The point of these two pages: not only is staying sober through God being in charge necessary; it's also the only way of producing effectiveness and contentment more broadly.
We had to let go of all of our old ideas: the whole basis of life must go!
The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success.
This means that living life believing we have to arrange circumstances to our liking fails every time.
Either we get what we want, and we're disappointed and want something else.
Or we don't (yet) get what we want and we're frightened and angry.
The whole system produces despair.
Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages well?
I create my own unhappiness, both externally (where I play a contributory role), and internally (where my emotional response to life is 100% down to me).
So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making.
'I' am the problem, and the 'I' has to go.
Step Three Idea
I remain in the driving seat.
But: God is the power and direction.
GPS + GAS.
I have to take action! That's down to me.
You gotta take action to activate your faith: God ain't gonna slide no hotdog under your door.
The contract:
He provided what we needed, if we kept close to Him and performed His work well.
Taking Step Three
- Am I willing to complete the process I start?
- Am I willing to do so, putting hours a day into the process until it's done?
- Am I willing to maintain the structure of Steps Ten through Twelve as I'm doing it?
If the answers to these questions are satisfactory:
- Adopt the position of God being in charge (an internal matter).
- Say the prayer (sealing the deal / signing the contract).
What next?
Establish / reaffirm the daily routine of Steps Ten through Twelve.
Start Step Four under a sponsor's guidance. 1+ hour a day on a workday. 2+ hours a day on the weekend.