“Above all, Bill believed that his depressions were perpetuated by his own failure to work the A.A. Steps. … Many A.A.’s agreed. Not a few of them suggested to Bill that he try working the Steps.” (Pass It On: The definitive biography of A.A. co-founder Bill W.)
The programme works. Completing the first nine steps produced recovery. The last three steps maintain the recovered condition and as a bonus do wonders for all sorts of other things.
When I don’t work the programme exactly as outlined, I lapse back into old ways: depression, anxiety, ill temper, conflict, gloom, cynicism.
When I start working the programme properly again, everything clears up, and amazingly quickly.
Where to start? Pages 84 to 88 for the daily programme. Page 67 for resentment. Page 68 for fear. Page 69 for problems. Pages 98–99 for relationships. Pages 117–118 for disputes.
That combined with a quarterly survey of my character defects in all my affairs with the attendant confession, surrender, and amendment does the trick perfectly well.
Would that I had learned that lesson early on! Instead, I had years, almost decades of ‘easier, softer ways’. What do I conclude from these?
I—and I stress ‘I’—don’t need special spiritualities, esoteric knowledge, superstition, or voodoo; I don’t need to spirito-hack the universe to unlock its secrets, to harness its powers, to actualise my potential; I don’t need healers; I don’t need analysis or therapy; I don’t need pills or potions for the mind; I don’t need syntheses of the programme with other beliefs, rituals, or practices; I don’t need exercises, elaborations, embellishments, extended third columns, pre-AA Oxford Group prayer and meditation practices, gilded lilies, or bells and whistles; I don’t need new experiences, deep dives, shadow work, or family-of-origin work; I don’t need special postures, breathing, cushions, or candles; I don’t need apps; I don’t need psychedelics, microdosing, or Adderall; I don’t need to go to Nepal, Thailand, or the Costa Rican jungle; my extensive forays into ‘easier methods’ (page 62) were fun and interesting and sometimes valuable in their own right, but they’re not necessary: the programme has been sufficient without them, for me.
At the end of the day, when all of that brouhaha dies does, there was me in a dark room with the ego still nagging at me in my own voice. It turns out the ego cannot be destroyed with any of the ‘easier methods’. It actually loves those methods. When I’d tried everything else, there was only this: stop trying to solve my own problems through practices and procedures, stop trying to work my way to heaven like the Pelagian heretics, abandon myself to God, busy myself with being constructive and useful in the day, and enjoy what I see around me at the still point of the turning world.
On comes the light and the ego’s show is over, for today.