Staying sober in the long term seems to require a few things:
- Completing the first nine Steps without any gaps
- Periodically reworking the first nine Steps
- Living in Steps Ten, Eleven, and Twelve
- Sponsoring a lot of people plus doing a good deal of service
- Going to lots of meetings
- Finding an occupation
- Building a network of close people
- Learning how to manage one's life practically
- Learning how to loosen up and have fun
There are pitfalls, too:
- Treating inventory as a psychological funfair rather than a moral question
- Endlessly 'working on oneself' with various therapies
- Splitting across too many programmes, fellowships, and sponsors
- Trying to get high off spirituality
- Treating spirituality as an end in itself rather than a vehicle to find God
- Treating finding God as an end in itself rather than a means of serving God
- Putting Step Ten or Step Eleven above Step Twelve
- Dabbling in sponsorship rather than seeing it as an avocation
- Getting flabby, inefficient, and self-indulgent with sponsorship
- 'Leaving it to the kids' and taking a back seat
- Becoming dismissive or cynical about AA
- Graduating and only ever dropping in
- Graduating and only ever dropping in
- Using the programme to get one's own way better outside
- Treating serving God as one of many priorities
- Monetising the programme
- Professionalising the programme
What's the best way to stay on track?
Stick to the Steps, Traditions, and Concepts. Stay busy in AA. Find a sponsor who is tough. Tell them everything. Listen to what they say. Do it. If your sponsor is not amongst the toughest people you know, you might have the wrong sponsor. Mollycoddling and co-signing are deadly for alcoholics.