The AA programme is set out in the Big Book up to the end of page 164. People who do precisely that, omitting nothing, and continue to spend a large proportion of their free time helping others inside and outside AA, tend not to drink again.
I've sponsored a lot of people who had previously relapsed, and many of them said, 'But I've done the Steps ... many times!'
Starting the Steps, even working hard on the Steps, and 'thoroughly following our path' (page 58 of the Big Book) are different, however.
My experience of AA is that a half programme or even a seven-eighths programme is not enough: I need a 100% programme.
Most people are pretty good at going to meetings, talking to people, and even doing a Step Four and a Step Five. Just some of the gaps that I had in my programme, and which many sponsees had had in theirs, are the following:
- Not letting go of resentment (see the top of page 67 of the Big Book)
- Not turning away from self and towards God for the removal of fear: permitting worry (page 68)
- Not scouring the past to identify every single relationship where my behaviour was wrong (Step Eight)
- Not doing my upmost to proactively track down and make amends to those people (page 77)
- Not monitoring one's own thoughts and persistently turning away from unhelpful ones (page 84)
- Not spending much of my free time in Twelfth Step work (page 19) (I now spend many hours each week on this).
Once I started working diligently, daily towards these and the other ends of the programme, I started staying sober. 'When these things were done', (page 13) my sobriety took off, but with roots deep into the ground to keep me safe.