Having a sponsor and repeatedly working the Steps in all areas has worked spectacularly well for me, in terms of keeping me sober, first and foremost, but in particular in resolving the past, resolving all of my relationship conflicts more than satisfactorily, and enabling me to take up a useful place in the world.
Are the Twelve Steps that the only way to achieve this?
Obviously not.
Let's look not at the form (the Steps) but at the substance, for this is what brought about the change. Let's examine this substance from seven different angles.
From blame to responsibility
This means taking 100% responsibility for my beliefs, attitudes, values, thinking, conduct, emotions, inner world, and outer world, disregarding what messed those up in the first place, withdrawing all the blame placed with parents, school, background, upbringing, society, peers, employers, authority figures, 'the system', whatever, and focusing solely on what can be changed: me.
From selfishness to service
This means switching from being concerned with my welfare and others' conduct to being concerned with my conduct and others' welfare. This means eliminating self-absorption, self-concern, and self-obsession. This means building a life based on humble service for the greater good, without regard for personal ambition or gain. This means building relationships around what I can give, with zero concern for what I can get back.
From grievance to forgiveness
This means converting my grievances into love through the active practice of empathy and compassion. It means fostering awareness of others' virtues, and patient, tolerance, understanding of their flaws.
From mental chaos to mental discipline
This means systematically learning to permit only those thoughts to persist in my mind that connect me with God and others, that underpin useful activity, or that consist in learning, appreciation, fun, levity, lightness, wit, creativity, and understanding. It means systematically rejecting all fear, grievance, and attack thoughts.
From defect to virtue
Here are some virtues: forbearance, diligence, prudence, self-discipline, trust, equanimity, patience, tolerance, insouciance, stability, and selflessness.
From immaturity to maturity
This means going from whining, sulking, acting out, attacking, arguing, criticising, and blaming to gratitude, impulse control, self-containment, rational decision-making, pragmatism, problem-solving, and love.
From hubris to humility
This means going from being the centre of the universe, concerned with one's own feelings, rights, hurts, upsets, plights, gripes, demands, commands, expectations, biases, prejudices, and sensitivities to being a tiny dot in the universe, yet playing a vital role, by quietly and reliably showing up in love and service in a thousand small ways each day.
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When examining other systems or approaches, whether religious, spiritual, therapeutic, or pragmatic, one could do worse than to measure their objectives and methods against the above tried-and-tested features of successful transformation.