Having made our personal inventory, what shall we do about it? We have been trying to get a new attitude, a new relationship with our Creator, and to discover the obstacles in our path. We have admitted certain defects; we have ascertained in a rough way what the trouble is; we have put our finger on the weak items in our personal inventory. Now these are about to be cast out. This requires action on our part, which, when completed, will mean that we have admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our defects. This brings us to the Fifth Step in the program of recovery mentioned in the preceding chapter.
The premise behind the paragraph is that God is one’s Creator. This implies that my purpose is not one I find or devise but resides in God, and I might never find out what the purpose is. A hammer does not know what it is being used for. Being conscious and intelligent does not entail being able to discern that purpose. The most we can necessarily learn is what to do (today). This also puts wants and needs in a new light. A self-creating creature is a priori guided by their wants and needs unless that self-creating creature artificially submits to an external force. A creature created by a third party, if given free will, is faced with the choice of being guided by their own wants and needs or establishing a relationship with that third party. The wants and needs could be there for all sorts of reasons, not necessarily connected with one’s purpose. This means that they need not be obeyed. They might or might not be satisfied, but the purpose will not be confounded by that.
So, what is the new relationship? Subservience and servanthood.
What is the obstacle? Servitude to something else: self. That is what a defect is, a manifestation of servitude to self.
Can’t the obstacles simply be removed? Surely they’re past? They were what blocked the service of God in the past. Can’t we just resolve to be behave right going forward?
Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.
To effect a change in operations and to behave well consistently in the future, seven things are required:
- Relinquishment of the role of director (Step Three)
- Assumption of the role of directee (Step Three)
- Abandonment of all personal plans (Step Three)
- Cessation of all hostilities (Step Four)
- Inventory (Step Four)
- Confession (Step Five, Step Six, Step Seven)
- Amends (Step Eight, Step Nine)
Once that is done, the slate is wiped clean, and the system can be reset.
Even then, the old circuitry, now formally disconnected, will continue to arc and short-circuit the system.
How difficult it is to continue to serve God after this process shows quite how vital this process is.
This is perhaps difficult—especially discussing our defects with another person. We think we have done well enough in admitting these things to ourselves. There is doubt about that. In actual practice, we usually find a solitary self-appraisal insufficient. Many of us thought it necessary to go much further. We will be more reconciled to discussing ourselves with another person when we see good reasons why we should do so. The best reason first: If we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking. Time after time newcomers have tried to keep to themselves certain facts about their lives. Trying to avoid this humbling experience, they have turned to easier methods. Almost invariably they got drunk. Having persevered with the rest of the program, they wondered why they fell. We think the reason is that they never completed their housecleaning. They took inventory all right, but hung on to some of the worst items in stock. They only thought they had lost their egoism and fear; they only thought they had humbled themselves. But they had not learned enough of humility, fearlessness and honesty, in the sense we find it necessary, until they told someone else all their life story.
In order to stay sober, I need to establish a working relationship with God.
This, in turn, requires the abandonment of self.
This, in turn, requires confession to another person.
Why?
It does not matter, and the book does not disclose: we are interested only in that this the case, not why this is the case.
The ‘easier method’ referred to is simply the programme without the element of confession.
The paragraph essentially sets out the experience that confession is required for sobriety.
The reference to life story is not a backdoor way of suggesting that, in Step Five, we are to abandon the Step Four we written and instead write a fresh narrative of everything we have ever experienced. The instructions on pages 75 make this clear. Rather, the implication is that, by conveying all of the twists of character and dark crannies of the past, we are thereby painting a picture of our entire lives. The life story is thus not the events but the combination of character and secrets.
More than most people, the alcoholic leads a double life. He is very much the actor. To the outer world he presents his stage character. This is the one he likes his fellows to see. He wants to enjoy a certain reputation, but knows in his heart he doesn’t deserve it.
First of all, the actor, play, and director analogy is used elsewhere in the Book, on several occasions, but to illustrate entirely different ideas. Do not try to integrate the analogy here with the analogy elsewhere.
This, rather, is about pride, namely the attachment to image through identification with image.
This is problematic because the identity is shifted away from the essence, the substance of the person and onto an imagined array of images in others’ minds, which coalesce into one’s own mind as general public image or reputation.
Life becomes a game of producing and then maintaining a particular image, or, rather, my image of your image of me. I am now at least two stages away from reality.
Rather than doing things for their own sake, their purpose becomes to produce an image, yet the image, which is elusive, even if achieved, is very hard work to maintain, and does not even satisfy.
Worse than this, whilst the work is going on to produce this image, the substance of one’s life, the things one is supposed to be doing, are not getting done, and there is a terrible internal lack. That terrible internal lack produces outbursts of behaviour that seek to generate a thrill, a satisfaction, but with a terrible price. Relief achieved through drunkenness and debauchery increases the gulf between the reality and the image, until there is a snapping sound, and the personality collapses. The image loses all support and disappears, and all the person is left with is the tatters of a drunken, debauched life.
The inconsistency is made worse by the things he does on his sprees. Coming to his senses, he is revolted at certain episodes he vaguely remembers. These memories are a nightmare. He trembles to think someone might have observed him. As fast as he can, he pushes these memories far inside himself. He hopes they will never see the light of day. He is under constant fear and tension—that makes for more drinking.
Secrets block me from others. I seek to avoid anything that reminds me of them. I then construct my life to avoid their discovery. More and more people and places become out of bounds. I become hostile towards those I think might disapprove. I develop an ideology to justify my behaviour. This is then weaponised against others.
Steps Four through Nine offer a few remedies:
- Forgiveness (the withdrawal of condemnation) (page 67)
- Trust (the presumption that God will guide and support in all future moments) (page 68)
- Redesign of how one lives (page 69)
- Confession (page 75)
- Amends (page 76 et seq.)
Confession and amends handle the issue of secrets.
Once I’ve told the secret and owned up to anyone affected by what I’ve done, no one has got anything on me.
Because there is nothing to hide, the reality of who I am becomes acceptable. I no longer need to maintain an image to establish an identity. I’m relying on the reality of who I am, so all of the compensatory mechanisms drop. This is why confession is so central.
Psychologists are inclined to agree with us. We have spent thousands of dollars for examinations. We know but few instances where we have given these doctors a fair break. We have seldom told them the whole truth nor have we followed their advice. Unwilling to be honest with these sympathetic men, we were honest with no one else. Small wonder many in the medical profession have a low opinion of alcoholics and their chance for recovery!
By the back door, we are told what to do: tell the whole truth and follow advice.
The difference between 99% truth and 100% truth is like the difference between a 99% leakproof bucket and 100% leakproof bucket. The 99% leakproof bucket does not hold 99% of the water. It holds, ultimately 0% of the water.
Whatever I hold back keeps me tethered to the past, tethered to my patterns of belief, thinking, and behaviour, imprisoned, separate from others, fearful of, hostile towards, and evasive of God, and re-enacting all of my efforts to evade responsibility and divert attention onto the shop window I want the world to see.
Following advice does not necessarily mean following another person’s specific suggestions on particular situations: it means adopting the gold standard approach to life. There’s more than one of those in the world, but in AA we have the AA one, and that’s good enough. Other people’s advice in AA boils down to (a) explanations of the system (b) exemplifications of its application (c) guidance on specific application in specific situations. It’s not coming from them, ideally: it’s coming from their acquired skill, and thus from a source beyond them.
Curiously, the telling of all secrets to one person allows one to be open to the requisite point with everyone else. I might perhaps not have to be more open with others, in terms of what to say, but I will have the sense I’m not holding anything back. When I have a secret, it feels as though that secret is between me and everyone, even though it might need disclosure to one particular person.
We must be entirely honest with somebody if we expect to live long or happily in this world. Rightly and naturally, we think well before we choose the person or persons with whom to take this intimate and confidential step. Those of us belonging to a religious denomination which requires confession must, and of course, will want to go to the properly appointed authority whose duty it is to receive it. Though we have no religious connection, we may still do well to talk with someone ordained by an established religion. We often find such a person quick to see and understand our problem. Of course, we sometimes encounter people who do not understand alcoholics.
Entirely honest with someone, not everyone. One does not parade everything that has happened in meetings. Sharing is not about shocking with one’s depravity, near-death experiences, or suffering. Confession and revelation are for Step Five. Public sharing is for carrying the message, illustrated with well-chosen, well-told stories to which people can easily relate. Banal. Ordinary. Even dull. Coffee table, not Saturday night at the Palladium.
Person or persons: sometimes the Step Five needs to be split because of certain material (e.g. criminal behaviour, particularly sensitive questions, matters concerning a person known to everyone in one’s environment). Sometimes one might share the whole thing with two, three, or four people. More than that is rarely beneficial.
Intimate and confidential: the person must be a suitable recipient, mature, able to hear whatever one has to say without flinching or being affected, and able to keep their mouth shut.
Religious confession I’ve done, but there simply isn’t the time to do even a half-hour confession in the confession box. I would be hesitant to impose on member of the clergy given we have AA members to share with.
The suggestions here about the clergy are made in the context of AA not existing as such and not existing at all in most places, so the reader will be on their own. The comments are therefore largely redundant today. I have found the clergy open to hearing a reasonably brief Step Five, though. Step Five is a summary. The confession-box Step Five is a summary of a summary. Necessary, perhaps—but we will still need to do a proper, full Step Five, at least the first time round.
Funnily enough, the only people I’ve seen not understand a request are AA members who do not approve of doing a Step Five with more than one person, with someone other than one’s sponsor, or a second or subsequent time later in one’s sobriety. If sharing with someone who isn’t one’s sponsor, it is best to pick someone who has used the same method (i.e. pretty orthodox Big Book), has completed the Steps themselves, continues to periodic three-hundred-and-sixty-degree reviews, and is happy to hear the Step Five of someone other than their sponsee without attempting to divert them from the particular path they are on and without telling them they’ve got it all wrong, which, unfortunately, is a surprisingly common experience.
If we cannot or would rather not do this, we search our acquaintance for a close-mouthed, understanding friend. Perhaps our doctor or psychologist will be the person. It may be one of our own family, but we cannot disclose anything to our wives or our parents which will hurt them and make them unhappy. We have no right to save our own skin at another person’s expense. Such parts of our story we tell to someone who will understand, yet be unaffected. The rule is we must be hard on ourselves, but always considerate of others.
Close-mouthed, understanding is covered above. I would add, however, that one must get clear whether one wants discussion or not. It’s fine not to want feedback. The ‘Steel on Steel’ approach of confronting people with probing questions is not really in line with how we generally do things in AA. All we have to do is the Steps, no more. If someone is not open to feedback, that’s absolutely fine. Their ‘sins’ are between them and God. We’re just the witness, the hearer. If you’re hearing a Step Five, they want discussion, and you’re able to provide discussion, that’s fine. But it’s not integral to the process.
Doctors or psychologists, as with clergy, won’t have the time, generally, unless we are paying privately for a session, but there’s a danger that the discussion will get sidetracked. Psychologists, psychotherapists, may well have worldviews, belief systems, structures for understanding the world and people that differ from the prevailing philosophy in AA. This is not to say that one system is wrong and one is right. They are merely different methods of coming at the same material. But coming at the material with someone who has not given their life to God in a manner that presupposes a purpose of establishing a relationship with God makes the conversation asymmetrical. Some but not all have good experiences with non-AAs. The exception is the clergy, because at least we’re on the same page in terms of the purpose of the Step Five.
Given we have AA, family are off the menu for hearing Step Fives. Generally, friends are off the menu as well, unless there is a very particular understanding. Step Fives between close friends can cause problems int he friendship.
Also be aware that there is certain material people will not want to hear. Ask the person whether there are any categories of material they are unwilling to hear. Do not give away whether or not any of those categories apply. Certainly do not ask the question by alluding to the categories of material that are there. Sometimes the mere fact of the potential hearer knowing of some type of behaviour, even if the specifics are not known, is enough to cause a difficulty.
Hard on ourselves: so, it’s not a gentle programme at all. It’s a programme of being considerate towards others but tough as nails with ourselves.
Notwithstanding the great necessity for discussing ourselves with someone, it may be one is so situated that there is no suitable person available. If that is so, this step may be postponed, only, however, if we hold ourselves in complete readiness to go through with it at the first opportunity. We say this because we are very anxious that we talk to the right person. It is important that he be able to keep a confidence; that he fully understand and approve what we are driving at; that he will not try to change our plan. But we must not use this as a mere excuse to postpone.
Unless one lives remotely or in a place with few meetings or with no one who has done the Steps, there will indeed be a suitable person. Such a person, to be qualified, really need only have gone through the Steps and meet the other basic requirements. They don’t need to be special, they don’t need to be wise, they don’t need to be a guru, they don’t need to be a guide. They just need to be another person. Personhood is the basic qualifier.
In practice, these days, one can do a Step Five on the phone or online to get the job done. Not ideal in various ways but it is better than nothing and does the trick. God can work with that if it is the best option available. One has the rest of one’s life to have face-to-face encounters, in order to gain the full benefit of face-to-face human interaction.
When asking around, if someone can’t meet up with seven days, find someone else, especially if this is first time round. There’s nothing worse than having this hang over one, and it can actually be dangerous to delay.
The possibility of having to wait was an issue only in early days of AA and is an issue now only for people who live remotely or in very small communities with little travel opportunity.
The remainder of the paragraph covers previous ideas (close-mouthed, understanding, on message with the purpose and the procedure, and not interesting in imposing their own agenda).
*When we decide who is to hear our story, we waste no time. We have a written inventory and we are prepared for a long talk. We explain to our partner what we are about to do and why we have to do it. He should realize that we are engaged upon a life-and death errand. Most people approached in this way will be glad to help; they will be honored by our confidence.2
So, first of all, get this done within a week. Secondly, aim for a single talk. Surgery split over multiple sessions is ill-advised. If you have more material than can be covered in one talk, condense it. Everyone’s repetitive. No one has more than an hour’s material, really. Fine, spin that out over two hours if you want an in-depth discussion, but no one has ten, twenty, or thirty hours of material; they have one hour’s material repeated twenty or thirty times.
If the person is an AA member there will be no need to explain what we are doing. The reason this line is there is because when the book was written AA really did not exist so the hearer would be unfamiliar with this process.
Note that survival depends on Step Five.
We pocket our pride and go to it, illuminating every twist of character, every dark cranny of the past.
There are two subject matters of the Step Five: twists of character (= defects) and secrets. The secrets are bad things one’s done, bad things one’s experienced, and anything else that might be classified as a secret. The twists of character would be a list of the defects of character plus a couple of good examples of each.
We have four pieces of work to discuss:
- Resentment: highlight the main areas of self affected and why: the plans and designs of self that the world is interfering with. The folly of this.
- The page 67 questions: the errors of belief, thought, and behaviour listed in response to these questions for each area, summarised.
- The list of fears. This is just a list. Read it out. It takes a minute.
- The sex inventory: summarise this into a list of behaviour patterns. That takes about three minutes.
Once we have taken this step, withholding nothing, we are delighted. We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. We begin to feel the nearness of our Creator. We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly. We feel we are on the Broad Highway, walking hand in hand with the Spirit of the Universe.
The condition for delight: withholding nothing.
To be honest, the looking the world in the eye for me came with the completion of Step Nine. I got something of a premonition of it, but the feeling was fleeting and required Step Nine to become a permanent state of affairs.
Similarly, a sober effort to learn to trust God is required for the fallen-away fears to stay fallen away.
The ‘nearness of God’ feeling does not come for everyone. It is also difficult to know precisely what one means by this. The eery sensation that God is actually present physically or immanent, the sense of the numinous so well described in Iris Murdoch’s novels, the extrasensory confidence of the existence of God and his universe reaching with His tentacles into every part of the material realm, and the dry, theological, intellectual assurance of the existence of God are three quite different conditions, though they are related logically and experientially and might one trigger each other, like the lighting of one match lighting adjacent ones.
Essentially, however, what was previously theory now becomes fact.
Confidence that the drink problem has been solved should not become cockiness: the remaining Steps remain required, and there will be a lot of lessons ahead, plus alluring opportunities for drifting.
Bill’s hyperbolic metaphor (the hand-in-hand image) may match some people’s experience, but if one’s temperament does not allow such experiences, one should not be offput: the success of the endeavour is not really measured in how one feels.
Returning home we find a place where we can be quiet for an hour, carefully reviewing what we have done. We thank God from the bottom of our heart that we know Him better.
An hour is about right: if nothing comes up in an hour, there’s nothing there. Stare too long and you start making things up.
What have we done? The first five Steps.
I didn’t feel that I knew God better after Steps Four and Five. I was just as clueless as before. After all, analysing my negative feelings, thoughts, behaviours, and experiences did not instruct me about God. Reading this out in Step Five: likewise. I learned about me, and I also learned from my sponsor’s reaction that I wasn’t half so bad a person as I had thought.
Some people do report something along these lines though: the realisation that God does not think ill of them for what they’ve done, although the mess will need to be cleared up.
What’s your experience?
Taking this book down from our shelf we turn to the page which contains the twelve steps. Carefully reading the first five proposals we ask if we have omitted anything, for we are building an arch through which we shall walk a free man at last. Is our work solid so far? Are the stones properly in place? Have we skimped on the cement put into the foundation? Have we tried to make mortar without sand?
To read the line about the book, the book, of course, must be off the shelf and in one’s hands, so the line is obviously figurative. Some people literally put the book back on the shelf at this point and then remove it, which, of course, they’re free to do, but I’m not sure of the value of this.
The job here is to check that the first three Steps have been properly understood and that the Steps Four and Five are complete.
Disconcerting individuals are forever scratching at themselves, sure that, if only they uncovered one more nasty little thing about themselves they could confess or make amends for, their lives would change and they would be free. Of course, if there is something one knows about that one is keeping secret or has not made amends for, one must promptly rectify this, but freedom comes from releasing the past not hoarding it, and lack of freedom comes from holding on to something known not the failure to grasp something unknown.
What we are looking for in this exercise, therefore, is low-hanging fruit of major problems that have not been brought to light.
I wouldn’t make much of the extended metaphor of the arch and its construction out of the various elements. Construction metaphors extend through the book but they do not really add up coherently and are not meant to be an elaborate and scientific representation of spiritual truths. I would take the images lightly to mean this: do your best and let it all out.
If we can answer to our satisfaction, we then look at Step Six. We have emphasized willingness as being indispensable. Are we now ready to let God remove from us all the things which we have admitted are objectionable? Can He now take them all—every one? If we still cling to something we will not let go, we ask God to help us be willing.
If the previous exercise brings up nothing, proceed. If it does, discuss it quickly with a sponsor but be done with it quickly. Don’t use it as a reason for resetting yourself back at Step One or infinitely dawdling.
Willingness in the Big Book concerns action not spirit: is one practically prepared to take the actions indicated?
Note that one does not need to do anything specifically to or with defects of character.
The analysis is over: it was completed in Step Four and rounded off in Step Five.
Sometimes people introduce extra exercises at this point, and I have done so, as though the people that wrote the book were incompetent and somehow missed important elements of the process which we have been clever enough to spot and fill in for them.
There is also the silliness that the Steps are like a staircase where each step should have the same height and depth.
Rather, the Steps are like a recipe with different ingredients, all of which are necessary. Just because you have a pound of flour does not mean you need a pound of nutmeg or a pound of baking powder. Step Six does not need to be expanded, therefore, to fill the same space as other Steps. Its necessity is not in proportion to its dimensions.
Essentially Step Six concerns the willingness to take the remaining six Steps, the result of which is that defects will be removed. ‘The things which we have admitted are objectionable’ is simply a fancy way of saying ‘defects’. I would not try to analyse this or make more out of it than that.
What does it mean to have a defect removed?
Well, a defect is a wrong belief or attitude, a wrong thought pattern in real time (e.g. the performance of fear thoughts or attack thoughts), or a wrong behaviour pattern.
Clearly the potential for any defect remains, so the removal of the defect cannot be the removal of the potential but the removal of the performance.
In other words, the removal is not like the removal of a wart or a dirty tissue but holding belief B instead of belief A or walking along path B rather than part A.
What one is giving up is not part of oneself but a belief that one is holding or a thing that one is doing, mentally or materially.
In other words, I do not need to change myself, and I do not need to be changed. When people say they have been changed by the programme, I do not know what they mean. They usually seem the same to me as before. But people, myself included, lose certain things and acquire certain things. The change is more like changing clothes than having a nose job.
When ready, we say something like this: “My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen.” We have then completed Step Seven.
‘Ready’ has previously been described on page 58 as being a combination of wanting the outcome and being willing to take the actions to achieve that outcome, despite the associated cost.
The establishment of God as Creator is helpful as it entails that I do not exist for my own ends but for God’s. That’s the end of self-centredness, imperiousness, ambition.
Step Seven really reiterates the idea of Step Three that the whole of me must be consigned into God’s safekeeping for God’s direction.
Defects are seen as obstacles. Obstacles to what? To doing God’s will. What would an obstacle to doing God’s will be? Any attitude that holds me back or directs me onto a course of anything other than God’s will, any thinking that is not to God’s purposes, any behaviour that is not directed by God.
The defects of character are therefore performances. They are attitudes, thinking patterns, and behaviour patterns that I perform.
The potential for those three categories therefore remains permanently capable of producing these performances, which means I will have to be directed by God for the rest of my life in order for this potential not to activate as manifest character defects.
What role do I play in the removal? In one sense, Steps Eight through Twelve. Eight and Nine can be completed but Ten through Twelve are the method by which all life is lived. My role in the removal of defects is therefore not marginal but central. What role does God even have if my role is so central? God directs me as to the attitudes, thinking, and behaviour I am supposed to perform.
Step Seven, as the reading indicates, can indeed be completed (as can Step Three). The follow-through, in implementation of the remaining Steps, continues in perpetuity.
Now we need more action, without which we find that “Faith without works is dead.” Let’s look at Steps Eight and Nine. We have a list of all persons we have harmed and to whom we are willing to make amends. We made it when we took inventory. We subjected ourselves to a drastic self-appraisal.
We do indeed have a list from Step Four, but, depending on precisely how we have written the Step Four, the items relevant to Step Eight will not necessarily be collected in one place. It may be necessary therefore to collate the elements of Step Four relevant to Step Eight in one place before one continues.
The text does not tell us to be willing: it presumes we already are willing, although it will revisit that question presently. How is this the case? In deciding to take Step Three, we have already decided to live a moral life, which entails making amends for everything in the past that necessitates amendment and then keeping the decks clear going forward, avoiding harm, and, if causing harm, amending it. No separate, special willingness should therefore be required for Steps Eight and Nine.
Now we go out to our fellows and repair the damage done in the past. We attempt to sweep away the debris which has accumulated out of our effort to live on self-will and run the show ourselves.
The damage falls into three parts. Firstly, there is reparable damage. Reparable damage can be repaired: this would include property damage, financial loss, the correction of misunderstanding or misapprehension, the restoration of reputation, and various other reversible ills. Sometimes the repair is compensatory rather than direct. You can't repair a destroyed sewing machine, but you can buy the person a new one. Secondly there is irreparable damage, e.g. nuisance, intrusion, interference, negative emotions. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, there is the fact of having done something wrong, the fact of having caused harm, which has not yet been admitted and apologised for. This can be repaired by admission, apology, and resumption of the relationship on a new basis.
If we haven’t the will to do this, we ask until it comes. Remember it was agreed at the beginning we would go to any lengths for victory over alcohol.
It is admitted that, whilst there might have been a general willingness to make amends in support of the Step Three decision, now we’re presented with the reality of making amends, it appears less palatable in general, or individual amends seem beyond the pale.
The remedy is twofold: firstly, asking God; secondly, recognising that making amends is part of the package deal of living morally, which is required to form a working relationship with God, which in turn is required to have a defence against the first drink.
Probably there are still some misgivings. As we look over the list of business acquaintances and friends we have hurt, we may feel diffident about going to some of them on a spiritual basis. Let us be reassured. To some people we need not, and probably should not emphasize the spiritual feature on our first approach. We might prejudice them. At the moment we are trying to put our lives in order. But this is not an end in itself. Our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and the people about us. It is seldom wise to approach an individual, who still smarts from our injustice to him, and announce that we have gone religious. In the prize ring, this would be called leading with the chin. Why lay ourselves open to being branded fanatics or religious bores? We may kill a future opportunity to carry a beneficial message. But our man is sure to be impressed with a sincere desire to set right the wrong. He is going to be more interested in a demonstration of good will than in our talk of spiritual discoveries.
Things one might or might not mention: being sober, being in recovery, being in Twelve-Step recovery, being in AA (or whichever fellowship), in a larger process of amends, taking Step Nine, forming a relationship with God, etc.
Generally, no one cares. They appreciate the admission, the apology, and, where rectification is possible, the rectification, but they’re not generally interested in the back story. Also, such revelations can make the endeavour of Step Nine appear to be self-serving. The amend recipient should be left with the idea that we are doing this because it is right and they are due an apology and recompense.
There are two reasons why it might nonetheless be suitable to mention one or more of the above.
Firstly, such admissions may establish greater credibility for the amend, especially if we have been in the habit of making gin-sodden and tear-soaked apologies during our drinking.
Secondly, if we make a good impression, this might put AA in a good light and serve to highlight us as possible resources should the amend recipient encounter a prospect for recovery.
A further principle: we are attempting to put our lives in order, of which this is part. A good exercise when taking Step Eight is to make a list of all of things that would have to be done to put one’s life in order. Consider each area of life, not just relationships, so diet, health, finances, etc. This can produce a hefty list of things to do, either things we are behind on or things we have never done systematically. Why is this to the good? Have a life that is entirely in order clears the mind of junk and establishes optimal conditions for doing God’s will.
Maximum service: to God first and to others second. One does not serve others as gods but as the directed way of serving God on the day of question.
Maximum service does not mean doing nothing but service but doing all the things that God wants us to do in service of him. This precludes neither working to set our own affairs in order nor enjoying our lives.
We don’t use this as an excuse for shying away from the subject of God. When it will serve any good purpose, we are willing to announce our convictions with tact and common sense.
We are thus to consider what elements of the back story (see yesterday) to reveal. This need not be done straight away: if the relationship continues, this can be done at a later stage.
The Step Nine passage not only sets out how to take Step Nine but also sets out general principles for interactions with others. This is the first Step where we are engaging with the world generally, which is why these principles are being set out now.
The two principles presented at this point are tact and common sense. In preparation for each amend, one must consider how to approach each individual. Tact and common sense both temper honesty. Of course what one says must be true, but honesty does not automatically entail candour, and not everything that can be said should be said.
Tact and common sense apply not just to content but to the manner of approach.
Note that Step Nine counsels making amends directly to people. This does not entail face to face. Sometimes this is asserted, but there is no basis for this. You can write directly to someone. You can make a direct phone call to someone.
There are four categories of amend recipient.
Firstly there are those in our day-to-day lives. These can be made amends to face to face by taking them aside or asking for a moment of their time.
Secondly there are those with whom we are on good terms but not in day-to-day contact. It is best to approach such people with a phone call or a message either making amends then and there or requesting to see them at their convenience, geography permitting, leaving the decision as to whether to receive the amend in person, on the phone, or in writing to them. Since we are going to be taking their time, the choice must be theirs. We cannot impose a particular mode of communication on them.
The third category comprises those who we are on bad terms with or with whom relations have been ruptured. Such people generally will not appreciate a phone call and certainly will not appreciate us turning up unannounced. The same principles apply as with the second category, though the approach must be in writing, and the approach letter should be formal and contrite in tone. Most such people absolutely will not want a phone call or meeting, so, to avoid pestering them with a second approach, write the amend in the message and offer a follow-up conversation on the phone or in person at their convenience. Such persons are also likely to receive the amend with less scepticism if a bit of background concerning recovery is provided in order to make clear that there are no ulterior purposes. Exes almost always fall into this category, and with these do not offer a face-to-face meeting, especially if they are now with someone else, though a phone call is usually harmless, but don’t natter. Sometimes it is best to simply write the letter and leave it at that.
The fourth category comprises those who are unfindable or dead. Write a letter, read it out somewhere meaningful or to an understanding witness, make alternative or substitute restitution if possible and appropriate, keep the letter to send should the person be unfindable for now, then recheck online once a year to see if a trail can be established. Sometimes people can be found even decades latter. Online information changes regularly.
The question of how to approach the man we hated will arise. It may be he has done us more harm than we have done him and, though we may have acquired a better attitude toward him, we are still not too keen about admitting our faults. Nevertheless, with a person we dislike, we take the bit in our teeth. It is harder to go to an enemy than to a friend, but we find it much more beneficial to us.
What someone has done to me has no bearing on whether I make amends to them. The only factor is whether I have harmed them.
To take the bit in your teeth, if you are a horse, is to prevent the rider from continuing to control you by tugging at the reins to pull on the bit and direct the horse’s movements. This is a metaphor for taking control of one’s life and no longer being haunted and directed by one’s past wrongs.
We go to him in a helpful and forgiving spirit, confessing our former ill feeling and expressing our regret.
Two more general principles: be helpful, adopt a forgiving spirit (which means the dropping of the charges, the issuing of an amnesty, the overlooking of faults).
The confession of former ill feeling applies only where the ill feeling is well known. It is the statement of a known fact as a springboard to the expression of regret.
Remember the context here is the making of amends to someone who an enemy with whom there has been overt warfare. In such cases, the confession is not a revelation. If the person will be aware only that there is something up or is quite unaware of the ill feeling, then, of course, nothing should be said on such matters. One does not break people’s arms in order then to set them in plaster.
Under no condition do we criticize such a person or argue.
Two more general principles: do not criticise; do not argue.
Of course, this goes for the amend as well; sometimes the context of a particular harm is something the other person did wrong. Never mention the wrongs of others, even if merely to present those as the context in which one behaved badly. One sometimes has to be imaginative to bring up one’s wrongs in a complex situation without referring to the other’s conduct.
If one invites the person to expand on their experience of one or recount any bad behaviour we have missed, there is the temptation to argue with what comes back. After all, the reason there is a response at all is usually because there is a difference in recollection. One might correct gross misstatements of fact, particularly if the truth defuses the situation (for instance if one had acted out of ignorance not malice), but if they refuse the correction, it’s best to just leave them in error. After all, one might indeed be wrong in one’s recollection. In any case, it’s best to just take whatever they have to say on the chin. If we had not harmed them in the first place, we would not be in this position in the first place, so this is no time to get hoity-toity.
Simply we tell him that we will never get over drinking until we have done our utmost to straighten out the past.
The idea here is that our interlocutor will refuse to see us, so we are to emotionally blackmail the chap to act against his impulse or conscience. I’m not sure this is a good idea. If we offer an amend to someone and they refuse, that’s their prerogative.
However, there can be an asymmetry between the minor nuisance to them of accepting a phone call or brief visit and the benefit to us, so a more temperate approach can be helpful: one might say, ‘I know it’s a nuisance, but I’d really appreciate a couple of minutes of your time, as this is quite important to me.’ Most people will relent. Those that do not can be sent a letter.
There is an important point, here, though: permanent sobriety requires the completion of amends.
In nine cases out of ten the unexpected happens. Sometimes the man we are calling upon admits his own fault, so feuds of years’ standing melt away in an hour. Rarely do we fail to make satisfactory progress. Our former enemies sometimes praise what we are doing and wish us well. Occasionally, they will offer assistance.
There is an important principle here: I am poor at predicting the future. Worry is largely based on false predictions.
People receiving amends are generally gracious, and most matters are swiftly resolved in their entirety. The only really frosty or ornery responses have been from people in recovery. I steel myself before making those amends, just in case.
It should not matter, however, if someone does throw us out of his office. We have made our demonstration, done our part. It’s water over the dam.
Other people are entitled to be angry, to remain angry, and to act on that anger.
After all, if we do not want to be on the receiving end of such reactions, we might think more carefully about behaving badly in the first place.
This is a good indication that not everything can be fixed, or that the fixing, if it takes place, takes place not on our schedules.
A positive note is that even when people are frightfully cross in the moment, they usually clamber down within days or weeks and return to a more cheerful status quo than before the amend.
In other words, the amend worked, but not right away.
There is no indication in the text that making an amend that elicits anger in response to the original offence is somehow harming the person or injuring them afresh. An apology, if done sensibly, cannot elicit fresh anger, only release bottled anger. The fact of an angry response does not indicate that the amend should not have been made.
This overturns the presumption that an anticipated negative emotional response should cause one not to make the amend in the first place.
Most alcoholics owe money. We do not dodge our creditors. Telling them what we are trying to do, we make no bones about our drinking; they usually know it anyway, whether we think so or not. Nor are we afraid of disclosing our alcoholism on the theory it may cause financial harm. Approached in this way, the most ruthless creditor will sometimes surprise us. Arranging the best deal we can we let these people know we are sorry. Our drinking has made us slow to pay. We must lose our fear of creditors no matter how far we have to go, for we are liable to drink if we are afraid to face them.
Firstly, list all the creditors. These fall into three categories:
- Legal debts (banks, credit cards, tax authorities, suppliers)
- Informal debts (friends, family)
- Unwitting creditors (we owe them but they don’t know).
Total the amounts.
Then analyse your spending. Record all spending and categorise monthly. Budget to the end of the current year and the whole of the next. Consider everything. Distinguish carefully between necessary spending and unnecessary spending.
Work out the amount available for amends, from savings and from ongoing surplus. Do not allocate every last spare penny, because a buffer is required for emergencies. Consider the needs, also, of dependents.
If it is impossible to pay everyone off in one go, prioritise the legal debts. Come to the best arrangement (perhaps through consolidation, perhaps through a consolidation agency that will do the haggling for you). This is important in particular to stop the haemorrhaging of money in interest, penalties, dunning fees, collection costs, etc. If the repayment can be extended over time, all to the good, as long as the interest is not prohibitively above inflation, in order to pay back informal debts. If the interest rates are high, bite the bullet, pay these off as soon as possible, and friends and family will have to wait.
Ideally it is possible to arrange a debt repayment plan for the legal debts and have some money left over for friends and family. Once an arrangement has been arrived at for the legal debts, divide the remaining monthly amount between the friends and family in proportion to the debt and approach all in this way. Almost invariably this is found acceptable. Some is better than nothing, if nothing is what has been forthcoming.
One should not avoid approaching people on the basis one does have any money to pay them or one does not have enough money to pay them off altogether. Approach them anyway. If they’re angry, they’re angry. They won’t be more angry than they already are. But the fear will go.
God is a following wind that seems to help people sincere in paying back all the debts. Windfalls, opportunities to spend less and earn more. Good breaks.
If a debt is forgiven, accept the forgiveness graciously but note the amount. The amount is still owed, and one will have to pay it to a charity or good cause instead.
Leave such payments to the end and start to deal with those once the unwitting creditors are approached (either directly or through payments to charities or good causes where they cannot be approached or identified).
Gross up long-standing debts to reflect the change in the value of money over time. Websites help you do this.
The important thing is: face everyone now, and arrange the best deal possible, spreading the repayments across everyone.
Here is another case of: do this or drink, and drinking means death, so do this or die.
Perhaps we have committed a criminal offense which might land us in jail if it were known to the authorities. We may be short in our accounts and unable to make good. We have already admitted this in confidence to another person, but we are sure we would be imprisoned or lose our job if it were known. Maybe it’s only a petty offense such as padding the expense account. Most of us have done that sort of thing. Maybe we are divorced, and have remarried but haven’t kept up the alimony to number one. She is indignant about it, and has a warrant out for our arrest. That’s a common form of trouble too.
Possible consequences: criminal, administrative, disciplinary, or professional body proceedings; sacking; eviction; other removal from office or position; deportation; barring of entry to countries; ruining of reputation.
Reminding ourselves that we have decided to go to any lengths to find a spiritual experience, we ask that we be given strength and direction to do the right thing, no matter what the personal consequences may be. We may lose our position or reputation or face jail, but we are willing. We have to be. We must not shrink at anything.
Personal detriment arising from making the amend is not, in itself a reason not to make amends. There is no squaring off the benefit to the amend recipient from the amend against the detriment to me.
The reason for all of this is going to any lengths to find a spiritual experience, because, without a spiritual experience, it’s Death By Alcohol.
No personal detriment is as bad as Death By Alcohol, so, given a choice between the two, personal detriment is chosen.
Note that the not making of a single amend can constitute a singular block to the entire spiritual experience.
If a balloon is tied to the ground by a hundred strings, the one remaining string is enough to keep it tied.
That this is true is made clear by the book but almost no one in AA believes it. Who does? Firstly those who have cleared amends, and secondly those who are working for hours a day, diligently, in every spare moment, to get to the end of Step Nine.
The universal principle is also presented: strength and direction to the right thing. This contains our objectives plus the means of achieving it.
Incidentally, direction really should come first; you plug in the address before driving off.
Usually, however, other people are involved. Therefore, we are not to be the hasty and foolish martyr who would needlessly sacrifice others to save himself from the alcoholic pit.
‘Usually’ is an understatement. I am not sure I have ever encountered a situation where personal detriment is envisaged but others are not involved. This is probably a case of hedging.
If making an amend risks one of the aforementioned consequences, it is almost always the case that the harm is not known about, and it is the revelation of a previously unrevealed harm that triggers the proceedings resulting in the detriment. With very few exceptions, if the person does not know about the detrimental act, the harm has not actually touched them. They have been preserved. To make amends would be to cause the harm to touch them, and actually make that harm operative. Do not do that. Such are cases of potential but not actual harm. Do not turn potential harm into actual harm in order then to amend the harm. This is like breaking someone’s arm in order to then set it in plaster, saying ‘there, there’ as you go. There can be exceptions to this with financial harm or where they know of the harm but are unaware of the identity of the culprit or are blaming someone else. Particularly in the latter case, one might have to come clean.
If the above does not relieve one of the obligation, there is the fact that such an amend comes not just at the cost of the individual, the person making amends, but the person or institution in question. The proceedings cost considerable time and money, and no one benefits from someone who is now harmless being sacked, removed, jailed, deported, or barred entry. The costs of the criminal justice system usually dwarf the monetary value of the harm in question.
Lastly, most people have dependents, and even those who do not, if they are imprisoned or lose their position, can no longer work or can no longer work at the same level. They pay less tax, have less available money for good causes, or even become a burden to the state. No one is benefited by this, and the common good is harmed. That is before one even considers the non-monetary harm of someone trained for a career being no longer permitted to practise that career, and all the people that could have been helped by that person’s work in the future being deprived of its benefit.
In these cases, an alternative way has to be found to make good.
A man we know had remarried. Because of resentment and drinking, he had not paid alimony to his first wife. She was furious. She went to court and got an order for his arrest. He had commenced our way of life, had secured a position, and was getting his head above water. It would have been impressive heroics if he had walked up to the Judge and said, “Here I am.”We thought he ought to be willing to do that if necessary, but if he were in jail he could provide nothing for either family. We suggested he write his first wife admitting his faults and asking forgiveness. He did, and also sent a small amount of money. He told her what he would try to do in the future. He said he was perfectly willing to go to jail if she insisted. Of course she did not, and the whole situation has long since been adjusted.
A good example of where the tactful approach is a letter. This allows the amend to be made, or at least initiated, without placing the other person in the unenviable position of having to respond on the spot to being Amend Mugged (‘ammugged’). It’s nonsense to say that, if the harm was in person, the amend must be in person.
Some reasons to write instead:
- We’re no longer in regular or daily contact. It is a breach of etiquette to visit or call someone out of the blue. If contact has been broken, it is for good reason, and we politely request in writing that others allow us to visit or call. We cannot presume.
- Hard-to-word amends should be in writing to make sure the amend has the best chance of being received as intended.
- In sensitive situations that could give rise to heavy emotion, the amend should be made in writing, with a follow-up in person or on the phone offered.
- In situations where the person was embarrassed or humiliated by our behaviour, the amend should be made in writing, again with a follow-up if applicable.
- In sexual or romantic situations, the approach should be in writing. In particular here we cannot presume the other person wants vivid contact.
- Volatile people and people who have trouble taking in information should be approached in writing, so they have time to understand and assimilate the material before responding.
- People who are geographically distant are usually best approached in writing.
This list is not exhaustive.
This does not mean there will not be a call or visit. If discussion is warranted and desired by the other person, a call or visit often takes place.
This is not avoidance; this is etiquette.
This paragraph is also a good worked example of where the fact of making the amend or the manner in which the amend is made is decided upon bearing in mind the risk of harm to others.
Before taking drastic action which might implicate other people we secure their consent. If we have obtained permission, have consulted with others, asked God to help and the drastic step is indicated we must not shrink.
The need to secure consent of anyone affected speaks for itself. The ‘indication’ of the drastic Step is discerned internally, after assessing the situation, making sure any prerequisites are met, consulting, and praying.
The ultimate decision depends on this internal indication, not on others. We will have to bear the consequences, so the decision must be ours.
This line is an excellent piece of advice for life generally in terms of decisions that might affect others.
This brings to mind a story about one of our friends. While drinking, he accepted a sum of money from a bitterly hated business rival, giving him no receipt for it. He subsequently denied having received the money and used the incident as a basis for discrediting the man. He thus used his own wrongdoing as a means of destroying the reputation of another. In fact, his rival was ruined. He felt that he had done a wrong he could not possibly make right. If he opened that old affair, he was afraid it would destroy the reputation of his partner, disgrace his family and take away his means of livelihood. What right had he to involve those dependent upon him? How could he possibly make a public statement exonerating his rival? After consulting with his wife and partner he came to the conclusion that it was better to take those risks than to stand before his Creator guilty of such ruinous slander. He saw that he had to place the outcome in God’s hands or he would soon start drinking again, and all would be lost anyhow. He attended church for the first time in many years. After the sermon, he quietly got up and made an explanation. His action met widespread approval, and today he is one of the most trusted citizens of his town. This all happened years ago.
This is simply a worked example: consider others, get their consent, and take the risk if the risk is warranted.
Note that the situation resolved itself well, perhaps unexpectedly so.
The chances are that we have domestic troubles. Perhaps we are mixed up with women in a fashion we wouldn’t care to have advertised. We doubt if, in this respect, alcoholics are fundamentally much worse than other people. But drinking does complicate sex relations in the home. After a few years with an alcoholic, a wife gets worn out, resentful and uncommunicative. How could she be anything else? The husband begins to feel lonely, sorry for himself. He commences to look around in the night clubs, or their equivalent, for something besides liquor. Perhaps he is having a secret and exciting affair with “the girl who understands.” In fairness we must say that she may understand, but what are we going to do about a thing like that? A man so involved often feels very remorseful at times, especially if he is married to a loyal and courageous girl who has literally gone through hell for him. Whatever the situation, we usually have to do something about it. If we are sure our wife does not know, should we tell her? Not always, we think. If she knows in a general way that we have been wild, should we tell her in detail? Undoubtedly we should admit our fault. She may insist on knowing all the particulars. She will want to know who the woman is and where she is. We feel we ought to say to her that we have no right to involve another person. We are sorry for what we have done and, God willing, it shall not be repeated. More than that we cannot do; we have no right to go further. Though there may be justifiable exceptions, and though we wish to lay down no rule of any sort, we have often found this the best course to take. Our design for living is not a one-way street. It is as good for the wife as for the husband. If we can forget, so can she. It is better, however, that one does not needlessly name a person upon whom she can vent jealousy.
Another worked example. Some principles to derive:
- Confess and express regret for what is known.
- For what is not known, (probably) say nothing.
- Confessing and expressing regret for what is not known is probably a bad idea.
- There may be exceptions to 3.
- Do not reveal unnecessary details.
- Do not reveal anything about third parties.
A general principle is that there are only principles, which require intelligent and thoughtful application, not rules, which are applied blindly.
Perhaps there are some cases where the utmost frankness is demanded. No outsider can appraise such an intimate situation. It may be that both will decide that the way of good sense and loving kindness is to let bygones be bygones. Each might pray about it, having the other one’s happiness uppermost in mind. Keep it always in sight that we are dealing with that most terrible human emotion—jealousy. Good generalship may decide that the problem be attacked on the flank rather than risk a face-to-face combat.
A reiteration of principles set out above:
- The person making amends, whilst consulting, still has to make the final assessment and the final decision.
- Pray and do what seems right.
- Put the other person’s welfare above one’s own.
- Consider indirect methods if the direct method is too risky.
If we have no such complication, there is plenty we should do at home. Sometimes we hear an alcoholic say that the only thing he needs to do is to keep sober. Certainly he must keep sober, for there will be no home if he doesn’t. But he is yet a long way from making good to the wife or parents whom for years he has so shockingly treated. Passing all understanding is the patience mothers and wives have had with alcoholics. Had this not been so, many of us would have no homes today, would perhaps be dead. The alcoholic is like a tornado roaring his way through the lives of others. Hearts are broken. Sweet relationships are dead. Affections have been uprooted. Selfish and inconsiderate habits have kept the home in turmoil. We feel a man is unthinking when he says that sobriety is enough. He is like the farmer who came up out of his cyclone cellar to find his home ruined. To his wife, he remarked, “Don’t see anything the matter here, Ma. Ain’t it grand the wind stopped blowin’?”
There’s little new here. Essentially: we have done harm and we have to make amends. Being sober is not enough.
Yes, there is a long period of reconstruction ahead. We must take the lead. A remorseful mumbling that we are sorry won’t fill the bill at all. We ought to sit down with the family and frankly analyze the past as we now see it, being very careful not to criticize them. Their defects may be glaring, but the chances are that our own actions are partly responsible. So we clean house with the family, asking each morning in meditation that our Creator show us the way of patience, tolerance, kindliness and love.
Whilst we may make amends in a single conversation, the post-amends follow-through of action in accordance with the new principles by which one is living will have to go on for a long time before the relationships are mended.
There’s nothing wrong with saying ‘sorry’ as part of an amend. It’s remorseful mumbling that is the problem.
The past we are analysing, once we eliminate criticism of others, is our own past actions.
Some good general principles here:
If other people behave badly towards us, we often elicited it.
This is one of the three passages outside the scope of Step Eleven that contains instructions on Step Eleven, namely the prayer to be shown the way of patience, tolerance, kindliness, and love in relation to the family, but not exclusively so.
The spiritual life is not a theory.
It’s not a theory but it’s based on a theory: the most satisfactory available understanding and explanation of what is.
Live it when?
All day every day. Room only for God’s directed actions and God’s directed thoughts. There’s nowhere to slide oneself into, unseen. You might say: not for the fainthearted. It’s precisely for the fainthearted. The boldhearted still have some oomph left in them. Best leave them to it. Best leave the mechanism to wind itself down like that organ piece by Arvo Pärt where the organ’s power is literally turned off as the player continues to play and the piece collapses like a slowly deflating bouncy castle [Annum per Annum]. When you’re so faint that you’re about to expire, that’s when the spiritual life starts to seem like the only viable proposition. The trick is to catch it just before you die. Overshoot, and it’s the end. Just like in that piece, when the power comes back on, the faint wheezing is replaced by some quiet, intricate work that gradually builds into a wall of sound.
We have to live it.
The ‘how’ of this should not be a mystery: one cannot outgrow the programme set out in the basic text. As an example, there is an injunction, on more than one occasion, not to criticise, and there is another injunction to say many times each day ‘Thy will be done!’ No one has mastered these completely. All upset comes from criticism on the basis of self-will. There’s still work to do, and likely always will be, to fully implement these two principles consistently. And those are just two. There are hundreds of others.
The spiritual life is not something I do over there as opposed to over here, although there are definitely actions over there as well as over here. More than that, and in a different category, the spiritual life is a method of doing all things, so its scope is maximal.
Unless one’s family expresses a desire to live upon spiritual principles we think we ought not to urge them. We should not talk incessantly to them about spiritual matters.
This goes for people in AA, as well. One shouldn’t hector in meetings (although, of course, one does, with greater or lesser subtlety). When describing, one should avoid the ‘you’ and the ‘we’ and stick to ‘I’, without implying ‘you’ or ‘we’. The only situation in which one can urge someone is where they actively ask for a suggestion. And even then, sticking to ‘I’ is usually best until the relationship of guidance-seeking is well-established and the person well understands their own responsibility for taking on board the programme.
One can talk about spiritual matters but only to people who are just as engaged.
But the spirituality of AA seems to have more to do with negation of self and usefulness than spiritual ideas per se.
They will change in time. Our behavior will convince them more than our words. We must remember that ten or twenty years of drunkenness would make a skeptic out of anyone.
They will change in time if at all. Some people don’t, but I have found even those people who haven’t changed have got used to me.
I know I’m shy of someone who has misbehaved even once, for months or years, because, even if the behaviour has stopped, the behaviour occurred because the capacity for the behaviour was there and there was a lack of self-control. Capacities change only slowly and self-control is acquired only slowly. I’ve had to learn to let others come round, if at all, in their own time, and to recognise that, for many people, the gamble isn’t worth it, and they won’t give me another try. Fair enough. There are plenty of other people around. No good mournfully chasing around after lost causes. Find some new ones instead.
Example (quiet acceptance plus maximal diligence) works better than banging on.
There may be some wrongs we can never fully right. We don’t worry about them if we can honestly say to ourselves that we would right them if we could.
There are four reasons.
The first: they refuse the amend. Sometimes circumstances permit and warrant a second or subsequent go, and this second or subsequent go can be successful. One must judge each situation on its own merits. But the duty is discharged by the first attempt. One need not carry such harms around as unfinished, even though one continues to do one’s utmost to finish them.
The second: we cannot find them. Keep a list, give it a go once every few months, as research opportunities are constantly changing, and people’s online presence is constantly changing; pursue every avenue, then, when the exercise is exhausted once again, let it go to be resumed a few months later. In between: no worries; the duty has been discharged.
The third: they accept the amend but they’re still cross or uncooperative. Sobeit. We can’t fix everything. Like with communicating doors, we keep our side open, and sometimes, eventually, their side opens fully, and communication can resume.
The fourth: we can’t make amends directly because that would entail harmful revelation of unknown information. In this case, the status quo is already the best outcome available.
In any case, in all four, we can write out a full and candid amend letter and read it to someone or in a special place and maybe hold it in store for such time as the amend, if ever, can be deployed fully.
Alternative, compensatory actions can be useful, too, which can take innumerable forms. Ask God how to settle the scores with the universe, pay off one’s account, and one will be shown.
If one has done and is doing one’s utmost, that’s all that can be asked of anyone, and we’re off the hook at that point.
And there may be a valid reason for postponement in some cases. But we don’t delay if it can be avoided.
Postponement by up to two weeks is reasonable. Reasons I’ve encountered are court cases, waiting for the other person to be the other side of a trying experience, making amends to A before B can be approached. It’s rare for there to be good reason to delay longer than that. It might be weeks, months, or years before one can make amends in person and certainly weeks or months before someone is available to speak, in which case write the letter and start the ball rolling now, offering them a conversation on the phone or in person at such time is convenient for them, if, by the time they have finished processing the letter, there is anything more to say from their point of view.
We should be sensible, tactful, considerate and humble without being servile or scraping. As God’s people we stand on our feet; we don’t crawl before anyone.
Four more positive principles and two negative ones.
Sensible: practicality; a sense of proportion; not taking oneself too seriously but not letting oneself off the hook, either; approaching people in a way that makes sense for the relationship and situation; wording an amend that makes sense for the relationship and situation.
Tactful: getting the job done without necessarily saying everything that might be said; coming at certain things on the flank; being specific without being explicit.
Considerate: putting them first, considering how you would want to be approached if the tables were turned.
Humble: we get points from God for making amends, but making amends, far from placing us above others, brings us up to the same level as others.
The rationale regarding not being servile or scraping: we are answerable to God not others. God has dominion over us; others do not. We’re cooperative and compliant, when that’s warranted, but because that’s God’s will particular will in that instance.
Standing on our feet also means not being dependent on others. We make use of what they offer, but we depend on God.
How does God help? Chiefly by showing us how to activate the resources placed at our disposal within us and without.
If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through.
What phase is this? Making amends. Track down every single glitch in the consciousness. Scour the past back and forth. Extract every questionable situation. Analyse it carefully and coolly. Steel oneself.
Then go to any length to find people. Try again, try again, try again.
If you get through and they don’t reply, send something in writing. Be done with it.
Even fairly nice people find seventy to a hundred people to make amends to.
That’s a lot of conversations, a lot of rectification.
Each one, each one, changes the whole picture of the past.
We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
The new freedom: there’s nowhere one can’t go; no one to avoid. And there’s nothing to prove by way of compensation for one’s guilt and shame.
The new happiness: recognising being OK comes from not resisting reality plus doing one’s best.
Step Nine enables both.
We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
I don’t know. Unless one’s a monster, of course there are things one wishes hadn’t happened, especially those things where innocents suffered.
But regret in the sense of being emotionally whacked over the head by things from the past does indeed go. Regret retreats into being a technicality.
One can haul out any past experiences to benefit others, and this is part of the rectification process: the more times something awful is redeployed in Step Twelve, the more the emotions are neutralised, until one eventually breaks even.
We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.
Serenity and peace. The same, I think.
Two components:
Cheerful non-resistance of reality and embracing of it at best.
The optimal deployment of time per God’s will.
No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
Two ideas, here.
Everything awful that has been overcome becomes an asset to help others.
There’s a wrench for every nut. This entails: one isn’t designed to be able to help everyone. Some people, someone, yes, but not everyone. Some people should and must be left to others to deal with.
That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
Two ideas, here:
One finds something useful to do. Sometimes that’s just the laundry, and that’s enough.
The good way outweighs the bad, and the bad is instructive, if I let it be.
We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
Selfishness, like control, has a bad side and a good side.
The bad side of selfishness is seeking sex, money, power, prestige, comfort, thrills, and appearance for their own sake.
The good side of selfishness is looking after yourself, developing your skills, clearing space in the schedule to retain equilibrium, poise, and thoughtfulness, engaging in intellectual, artistic, or aesthetic pursuits, and taking the time to enjoy all of the above. All of these will invariably come at the cost of overt usefulness and service to others and so could be construed as selfish, but such carvings out are not detrimental; quite the reverse: they are necessary. Thus, the good side of selfishness is not really selfishness at all.
Taking an interest in others is good.
Taking an unhealthy interest in others is, well, unhealthy.
A healthy interest is showing an interest in others’ concerns and pursuits and taking the time to listen and observe.
An unhealthy interest is preoccupation with others, particularly their internal worlds, what they think and feel, and the desire to fix, change, regulate, and control, to save, rescue, and caretake, to blame, shame, and punish, or to idolise, to pedestalise, and then to attack when the statue crumbles.
Ideally, thus, one is aiming to lose the wrong type of selfishness and take the right type of interest.
Self-seeking will slip away.
Slipping away is not quick. It goes in behaviour before it goes in heart. It’s possible to be self-seeking in behaviours that are in themselves legitimate and in others’ interests.
It mostly goes through disillusionment: the illusion that what one is after can make one happy is what slips away, and with it there goes the self-seeking.
Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
The new attitude and outlook: to accept everything as it is, without condemnation or fixing, yet to seek to contribute to its betterment.
Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
Most dis-ease is attributable, I find, to these two. It’s often masked by other things, but, when one lifts the stone of preoccupation, one finds one of these two culprits wriggling beneath. The latter is often the reason for the former. If one is sufficiently disapproved of in an occupational context, then penury threatens.
These two both go completely, but not durably. They both recur and need to be re-banished.
We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
Intuition remains the chief method of handling situations. Mental walkthroughs of scenarios, of pros and cons, can help. The procedure: understand the question, marshal and organise the facts, then let go completely, place the matter in God’s hands. Thus, the channel of intuition is activated, and good—often surprising—solutions appear as if out of nowhere. Is this not how ordinary people operate, though? Yes, the fishing rod is the same, but one’s fishing in a new pond.
We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
This does not preclude us doing something: God provides direction and strength; we provide attention and action.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.
In other words:
These good results will inevitably follow.
Timing may vary: this means some results may take a while to show up, whilst others come and go.
One should not therefore be disconcerted by setbacks, apparent failures, etc. We have to go round the merry-go-round a few times before certain changes take place.
The job, therefore, is to continue working for these results by simply doing the things we have been doing in applying all Twelve Steps.
The danger is getting impatient, frustrated, or disillusioned and looking for shortcuts or upgrades via therapies, religions, philosophies, spiritualities, approaches, procedures, and practices, which have their own merits but are designed to perform their own, particular functions, not to perform the very specific functions of moral inventory, confession, amendment, reliance on and seeking direction from God, and serving God, chiefly through the carrying of the message. The aim is the annihilation of self. Only a system designed to annihilate self will do that.
This thought brings us to Step Ten, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory …
This operates at three levels: in the moment (pages 84–85), daily (page 86), and periodic (some form of inventory using instructions from 63 to 71 to perform a 360-degree review).
… and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along.
This primarily means adjustment in the moment (pages 84–85). The fallback net is the daily review (page 86). The safety net of last resort of is the periodic review (quarterly, six-monthly, no less frequently).
But ideally one catches everything in the moment and adjusts instantly to the right thinking and behaviour then and there.
It is not good to let things slide. If things have to wait until a quarterly, six-monthly, or yearly review to be caught, there’s no knowing what untold damage they have been wreaking in the meantime.
The most important part of Step Ten, therefore, is not any lengthy analysis but catching ourselves in the moment and doing something about our problem then and there. See it, say it, sorted. No self-indulgence. No room for rumination. Adjust the steering wheel before you hit something.
The Doctor’s Opinion refers to the spree from which one emerges remorseful. The sign of the out-of-control ego: spending 95% of the time running amok and 5% of the time remorsefully calling one’s sponsor or going to a meeting to confess. But this is simply purging to make room for more. It’s emotional bulimia.
Better to contain oneself in the moment. Self-control and restraint are skills that have to be learned early in recovery. When there’s a pattern of bad behaviour punctuated by gasps of remorse, like those fish that surface and snap at air, I’m not ‘setting right new mistakes’, because these are not new mistakes I’m making: the behaviour is a deliberate pattern of trouble making paid for by performative displays of contrition.
We have entered the world of the Spirit.
The world of the physical is only a portion of reality. Lots of human experiences are metaphysical but operate through the physical. Thought, logic, reason, emotion, love, aesthetics are all metaphysical but operate through the physical.
The realm of the physical, I would hold, is enclosed within the metaphysical—the metaphysical is not an extension of the physical, dependent on the physical for its existence, but the primary state of being, with the physical dependent on it.
Practically, this means that the metaphysical is the more real of the two.
In a theatre, the theatre is more real than the play. The theatre is there to put on a play, but the play is not for the characters in the play; it is for those putting on the play and those watching the play. These are not characters in the play. The characters are unaware of the play’s status as play.
Thus the material is the focus of operation but neither the originating realm not the container of purpose. Identity, value, purpose, and everything important really lie in the metaphysical.
Of course, we are also all in both realms. To enter the world of the spirit is to enter it in consciousness, in other words to recognise that is our real home, the source of our guidance and strength, and the home of identity, value, and purpose, with our material lives simply the venue of operation.
This takes the pressure off the material to ‘perform’, to ‘deliver’, because the material is no longer the measure of success, and this also spells the end of insecurity, as there is no death, and, whilst the material experience can be ropey at times, it is a fraction of an individual’s reality.
Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness.
This means understanding what is going within us and outside us, the interaction between the two, and getting better at doing God’s will. I would expand this to effectiveness (getting the job done), efficiency (getting it done whilst minimising the use of resources), and harmony (ruffling the fewest feathers, causing the least disruption or consternation, remaining at internal peace).
This is all based on the idea that my effectiveness flows from my understanding. In other words, how I live is dependent not on my circumstances, genetic conditioning, or biology but my development as a conscious human being. As a human being—not a machine—I am able to assess circumstances, draw conclusions, apply principles, access power, and change, and, as I change, I become more effective. In other words, the mental is upstream of the physical. My physical experience is driven by my mental experience. I’m not a robot, a cuckoo clock, an HPLC column, merely outputting what is input into me, but the actuator of my life. I’m not a victim of the world, my body, my brain. Understanding counts, and it counts for everything.
This is not an overnight matter.
That’s an understatement. Any progress, any, is welcome. A little here and a little there will do. Some things do improve very quickly, but some things are a long haul. Hang in there.
It should continue for our lifetime.
There will never be a time when I will not need the Steps, since they are a design for living, not something to get over and done with, in order to get down to more serious matters.
One need never despair, therefore, if one wakes up desolate, behaves like a pig, or lapses into worry. These are supposed to happen. The fact of laundry needing to be done does not mean one has done anything wrong: there is laundry because there is living.
Furthermore, the curriculum is a curriculum of change, so the need for change is the basis of each day’s set of lessons.
It is impossible, therefore, to conclude failure: since the match is never over, one can never conclude one has lost. If a problem persists, I can never conclude the programme has never and will never work, because I never reach a measuring point. This is why, even in periods of great and prolonged distress or recurring bad behaviour, I have never lost hope and have never resorted to a pill to take away or mask my character defects, and I haven’t sought any other ‘slow fixes’ for a long time, either. AA’s track record is brilliant, and more universally effective without exception than any other individual or collective programme I have seen.
Eventually, every period of glumness or fretfulness, every period of bad behaviour has abated or resolved.
Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear.
‘Continue to’ implies that the four things I am watching for are the four things that the inventory to date has identified. The quartet thus summarises all that has been and can be found.
Resentment: upset at a fact.
Fear: upset at a speculation.
Dishonesty: deception.
Selfishness: all other defects.
Whilst I’m watching, I’m not what I’m watching. Detachment turns me from patient, undergoing my life, to agent, directing my actions. What I’m watching thus becomes optional, each belief, thought, and behaviour one of many possible beliefs, thoughts, and behaviours. It also ceases to be my identity. I am not the belief, thought, or behaviour. I’m the chooser of such things.
Watch for, not analyse.
Birdwatchers note the birds they see. They do not dissect them.
When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them.
“When”, not “if”.
We have been asked to continue to take inventory, but, on these pages (84 and 86), there are two new forms of taking inventory: in the moment, and once a day. The Book does not suggest we employ the method used in Step Four but instead suggests two new methods.
This method on page 84 entails merely spotting when the defect has cropped up followed by the request for removal.
“At once”: we do not stop to analyse. Certainly no pen and paper is required for the activities of “watching” and “asking”. There is no gap between the two. “When” can be taken to mean “at the precise point at which”.
Since there is no such thing as a vacuum, removal entails replacement of the defect.
What does the defect get replaced with? Acceptance (resentment), trust (fear), straight-dealing (deception), and virtue (selfishness).
God shows me what to replace the defect with and gives me the strength to do it.
My job is to do the active part of the replacement. God does not remove my defects without my cooperation, which means taking the initiative and making an effort.
As with Concept VI, God makes the final decision on large matters of general policy and finance, and I take the chief initiative and active responsibility. God’s still in charge, but I have to do the work, in the same way that Conference is still in charge, but the Board has to do the work.
In other words, it is up to me to accept, trust, be straight with myself and others, and act virtuously.
No one can do it for me, not even God.
We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone.
Discuss: in the case of necessary confession, overwhelming distraction, or substantial doubt requiring immediate resolution.
If something needs to be confessed and I do not confess it, it starts to become a secret the mind constantly returns to. If something so bothers me I cannot get on with the day, even though I ‘know the answer’, I might need to talk it through to cement the answer in place. If something might have to be responded to now, that’s due cause to call someone when I have doubt.
Otherwise: starve the matter of oxygen; pause to allow clarity to emerge; continue driving. Almost everything subsides or clarifies itself automatically.
Repair damage immediately:
Fall on one’s sword. Admit wrongs without explanation or criticism of the other. Express a wish to have cordial relations. Clean up the mess or adjust the procedures. Adopt measures to prevent a recurrence. Continue normal operations. Do not signal the start of a cold or hot war.
Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help.
The problem, therefore, according to this passage, is not that the world has been wrong and needs fixing, but that what I have been thinking about has been wrong and needs fixing.
Who is responsible for the turning of thoughts? I am, apparently.
I have asked God to remove these defects, and God, in response, has already given me a book that tells me precisely what I am to do as part of the removal: resolutely turn my thoughts.
That puts paid to the idea that the responsibility is all God’s and, if the defect is still active, God has not seen fit in His great wisdom to remove it. Rather, if my thoughts are dwelling on something rotten, that’s now down to me. That’s not God’s fault. There’s no getting away from this. The programme starts with my powerlessness, not in order to leave me there, but to give me power. If I’m presently sitting in the dark, it’s not because I’m lightless, it’s because I’ve not switched on the light.
The plan for the day automatically entails helping people. The whole shooting match, include the elements of looking after oneself and enjoying God’s world, in addition to the fulfilment of explicit obligations that have others as their chief beneficiaries, is about doing God’s will, and doing God’s will serves God’s plan, and God’s plan is for the good of all, so whatever I do under God’s direction is directly or indirectly helping people.
If I have gone off the plan, I need to get back on it, pronto.
If I am on the plan but my mind has wandered, I need to bring it, too, back on the plan.
If I have a good plan but the plan needs adjustment to include more tasks overtly helping others, then I adjust the plan.
In all cases, however, I can mentally frame what I am doing as the service of God and people, in line with the passage on page 85, and that will keep me out of mischief.
The virtue to be fostered in pursuit of these goals is resoluteness, or stick-to-it-ness, as I think Dr Bob called it.
Love and tolerance of others is our code.
Love = wishing others well (benevolence) plus acting in their interests (beneficence).
Not desire, attraction, attachment, fawning, sentiment, possession, preoccupation, control, contract, or expectation.
Tolerance = leaving people alone, both mentally and practically; no attempts to fix, change, control, or regulate.
The Al-Anon eyes are ever prying. The Al-Anon prayers are ever winging towards others, a spiritualised spider’s web of monitoring and control, of presumptuous do-gooding.
I don’t pray for others beyond a simple blessing. Firstly: they’re their business; I’m my business. Secondly: Step Eleven is about seeking knowledge of God’s will for me and the power to carry that out: only that. Thirdly, I’ve used up my intrusion vouchers. Time to leave everyone else alone. Time to put the focus on me and what needs to change in me.
And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone—even alcohol.
So, no politics or activism for me. I either do what the book says or I do not!
Fighting mentally is where the mischief starts (although rarely stops), so that’s where the job of ceasing fighting starts.
Accept everything the way it is.
If I can’t receive incoming information about the world neutrally, maybe give it a rest for a while.
Remarkably, the world continues to turn and unfold without my surveillance.
I can’t fight alcohol. I can’t fight the world. I can’t fight others. I can’t fight the past or the future.
I can’t fight myself, but I can strive for something, for the implementation of God’s will, in belief, thought, word, and deed.
This displaces what can’t be fought.
For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality—safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience.
Sanity in this context is sane action = not drinking.
The sanity to which one is restored is thus principally physical, although one will be mentally sane most of the time, in alignment with this. Regarding the occasional interest in liquor, this is clearly insane for an alcoholic, and to be tempted by liquor is also insane. There is no promise that there will be neither interest nor temptation, only the promise that, when these arise, the right action occurs anyway. Accordingly: most of the time one will be sane in thought, and one’s actions will accord with this, but occasionally one’s thinking will be insane, but one’s action will be sane anyway.
If one’s merely having some insane thoughts in a mind that is fundamentally sane, one can certainly have a stiff talk with oneself and make the mental effort to see through the fallacious reasoning, which ensures one does not give such thoughts credence, and that itself can send them packing. However, the nature of most insane thinking around alcohol is that it is really a cloak for a desire to drink, which has nothing to do with reason or thought. In many cases, this thinking can easily colonise the mind and win a majority of seats, as it were, in the mind’s parliament. By the time this process is underway, no mental defence will work. The mind cannot think itself sane.
The hope is that, if this happens, sufficient surrender to God has taken place that right action is, as it were, imposed by God over the top of the insane mind, and then the mind is reset.
The resting state after sufficient progress in the programme is a new, general indifference towards alcohol, which prevails most of the time.
There is indeed considerable thought or effort aimed in this direction, but it is aimed at the Steps, which bring about this desired condition secondarily.
The position of neutrality relating to alcohol echoes the more general idea in the programme of neutrality (Tradition Ten, no opinion on outside issues, AA opposing no one, the relinquishment of one’s own will, ceasing playing God). What a relief, not to take a side in anything. I adopt the position God wants me to have in my own life, and that’s that. Not even passive resistance: non-resistance, the biblical turning the other cheek. You can’t hit air, only an object. Not colliding and not being ‘collidable with’.
That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.
What is fit spiritual condition? It’s relative. More dependent on God for direction and less dependent on self. Backlog of resentment, secrets, and unmade amends cleared. Obligations generally being fulfilled. Harm generally avoided. Order or the gradual establishment of order. Less self-indulgence.
The aim is not to be perfect but to be ‘above the line’.
God seems particularly generous: once the first nine Steps have been completed, with nothing left over, it’s not the absolute level of spiritual condition that matters but the relative level, relative to where one might otherwise be. Up until the point of the completion of the first nine Steps, it is progress towards the fit spiritual condition that counts, not the absolute level of attainment.
The maintenance of sobriety is thus dependent on the solidity of progress towards that point and then on the daily efforts to clear a space for God.
That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.
What is fit spiritual condition? It’s relative. More dependent on God for direction and less dependent on self. Backlog of resentment, secrets, and unmade amends cleared. Obligations generally being fulfilled. Harm generally avoided. Order or the gradual establishment of order. Less self-indulgence.
The aim is not to be perfect but to be ‘above the line’.
God seems particularly generous: once the first nine Steps have been completed, with nothing left over, it’s not the absolute level of spiritual condition that matters but the relative level, relative to where one might otherwise be. Up until the point of the completion of the first nine Steps, it is progress towards the fit spiritual condition that counts, not the absolute level of attainment.
The maintenance of sobriety is thus dependent on the solidity of progress towards that point and then on the daily efforts to clear a space for God.
We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe.
Really: it is alcoholism that is a subtle foe, specifically the impulse to drink. Alcoholism seems to create the conditions slowly and steadily in which (a) the impulse is activated and (b) the defence has been so eroded that the impulse wins out: the dyke gives way.
Subtle: because one does not notice it happening; the manifestation of defects is the presence of traits considered quite normal: anxiety about the plumbing; irritation at the prime minister; skiving off work 5 minutes early; all the faults of a good person, apparently. And defects presented as virtues: the indignation of the citizen, the scheming of the ambitious, the scruples of the self-improver.
We are not cured of alcoholism.
Neither aspect: the thirst that grows with each drink from the first onwards; the impulse to drink and the defencelessness against it.
There is no treatment for the first aspect except entire abstinence, which is why the focus shifts to the second aspect.
Treatment needs to be distinguished from cure. Treatment can reduce a condition to subclinical levels without entirely eliminating it. Treatment can also require considerable work, vigilance, self-sacrifice, and other qualities. This is the case also for alcoholism: the programme is there to treat the second aspect, to invoke God to produce a defence against the impulse to drink. In the same way that a diabetic cannot produce their own insulin and needs insulin to be introduced into the system to break down sugar, the alcoholic cannot produce their own defence and needs a defence to be introduced into the system. The whole purpose of the programme is not to improve my life or resolve my psychological difficulties; it is to introduce this defence. If anyting else is thereby resolved, that’s wonderful, but the sole measure of success is sobriety. If there is no sobriety, there is no success, and I have done something wrong in the process.
What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.
A reprieve is a deferral of a death sentence. All people are under a death sentence. Alcoholics have a second one, alcohol-related, and that death sentence usually gets executed before the general, human death sentence.
Whose maintenance? My maintenance. I have to do the maintaining.
I'm back at square one each morning: today requires its own maintenance, on top of anything allowed to drift over from the previous day.
The maintenance concerns the elements contained in Steps Four through Nine: elimination of resentment, identification and elimination of defects, cessation of harm, amends for harm, appropriate candour.
This deflates my self-concern and allows me to orient my life around usefulness to God.
Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God’s will into all of our activities.
Every day: no days off. I re-assume this obligation each morning.
No musts in AA? No musts for membership; the programme is full of musts.
Carrying the vision of God’s will:
Naturally, only those activities that themselves fall into the category of ‘God’s will’ can have the vision of God’s will carried into them.
I’ve tried to ‘bring the vision of God’s will into’ activities that themselves are out of bounds, as though God’s presence will transform bad into good, as though there’s a way of doing the bad thing to make it a good thing.
This is like trying to stick a plug into the wrong type of socket. It simply won’t go, and there’s no forcing it.
It is best to stick only to activities that themselves are permitted, which avoids this problem altogether.
The vision of God’s will:
The closest I can get to God’s will is my vision of it, my perception of it. My obligation is not to get it right, though getting it right is obviously desirable; my obligation is to proceed with sincerity, to do my best to discern God’s will, and then that’s what I am to carry.
What’s God’s will in relation to the activities?
The fact of which activities are to be carried out has already been discerned in Step Eleven, when one is considering one’s plans for the day.
Here, we are concerned with the ‘how’ of the matter: what attitude to take.
The fallback position if one has difficulty discerning anything specific: firstly, a position of humility, the intelligent agent who deploys his resources on behalf of God, with no agenda of his own; secondly, patience, tolerance, kindness, and love in relation to others, which, in practice, I take to mean be quiet, be cooperative, leave other people alone, don’t take up too much space, don’t grumble, be cheerful, be of help when asked without becoming a nuisance.
God’s will: the what and the how. What am I to do? How am I to do it? How am I to see it?
One is cornered by this: there is no way around it; God’s to be in total charge of everything at all times.
“How can I best serve Thee—Thy will (not mine) be done.”
I’m to be a servant of God, therefore, all day every day, and I’m to maximise my performance as servant.
This involves discarding everything I want, both for me and for the world. That’s the end of all of my stipulations and indignations at the way the world is. That means I do not even need to monitor the world or other people. I’m to shoot for a cheerful acceptance of all states of affairs.
The doing of God’s will is thus twofold:
Firstly, I’m to accept that God’s will is already being done in the world. God wills certain things, and some of those things happen. God wills that there be free will on the part of man, and free will entails actions that are against God’s will. Such unwilled actions are, however, permitted.
Secondly, I’m to seek God’s will for me, namely where I should go, what I should do, and what I should say to whom.
I’m still on the hook, but it is a very ‘small hook’: I need only seek God’s will today and execute it, one small task after another. Small? Almost all acts are, in themselves, small.
I do not even need to get it right: although it is infinitely preferable that I get it right, sincerity in seeking God’s will is sufficient as far as my relationship with God is concerned, and, as long as I admit it promptly when I discover I am wrong, my course can be corrected; God can take overall charge of clearing up the mess provided I am willing to play my part.
These are thoughts which must go with us constantly.
There’s no time off for good behaviour. The principles of Step Ten (these positive principles of page 85 as opposed to the things-to-avoid on page 84) are the wallpaper, the warp for the weft, the language, the medium, the context for everything.
We can exercise our will power along this line all we wish. It is the proper use of the will.
The programme is not about the suppression of the will but its redirection. It’s been given to us for a reason, and, if it is not channelled in the right direction, it will have to go somewhere, and that’s where the mischief comes from.
Will and will power are certainly required to stay sober and to perform the programme actions. The commitment cannot be: I will stay sober and perform the programme actions if I feel comfortable when doing so. These entail considerable effort, discomfort, sacrifice of other things, and uncertainty. They also require patience: some results are slow in coming, and some moods or emotional conditions pass only after a long time. It’s no good acting right only when the weather is fair: the exercise of will power is required particularly for when the weather is foul.
God will do for me what I cannot do for myself but God will not do for me what I can do for myself, and the more will and the more power I have, the greater the responsibility for me to take for my own recovery and life. Only the entirely feeble will be entirely carried. The headstrong and self-reliant will have to continue having to use those qualities in sobriety but under the new management of God.
Much has already been said about receiving strength, inspiration, and direction from Him who has all knowledge and power.
A good starting point for a definition of God: Him who has all knowledge and power.
Note the use of the masculine pronoun is not intended to indicate that God is male in a physical or metaphysical sense but is merely a convention (in the same way that ships are female grammatically).
God could be many things but the aspects of God we are interested are the two faculties of knowledge and power, which are precisely the commodities which we need and which are referred to explicitly in Step Eleven as what we are to seek.
No other theological aspects are required.
One can really have whatever Higher Power one wishes, although, to be effective, it must have these faculties, or Step Eleven cannot function, let alone any of the other things that God is said to do in the first 164 pages.
If God is a potato, a bus, or nature, unless one considers these to have both knowledge and power and the ability to convey such, one might have something of value, but one is still left without the power necessary for the basic function of staying alive by staying away from alcohol, let alone anything else God is supposed to do. One is no further ahead. Try having such a God when tragedy or depression strike!
The three things received: direction (knowledge), inspiration (a channel for that direction and knowledge), and strength (power).
The commodities received are matched to the faculties on offer.
If we have carefully followed directions, we have begun to sense the flow of His Spirit into us. To some extent we have become God-conscious. We have begun to develop this vital sixth sense.
There is direction generally; there are directions in the sense of what we are asked to do.
The casting of the latter as suggestions shows their nature in the eyes of the offeror, who cannot oblige the hearer.
On receipt, they are seen as directions: to be followed.
Some people have a florid experience of His Spirit.
Others, less so, or none at all, save the mundane sense of knowing what to do and what not to do and finding that the power is there to act accordingly. That is also the sense of the flow of His Spirit into us, but without the metaphysical bells and whistles, without the branding.
If one intuits something startling and that proves correct, if one summons uncommon strength, identifying the source as God is easy; those examples allow the inference that common understanding and strength also come from God.
But we must go further and that means more action.
Step Eleven consists in action to actively foster such communication from God and the flow of power from God (‘wit and wherewithal’).
More action when? Every day. For how long? Forever.
Step Eleven suggests prayer and meditation.
The Book is not leading us up the garden path. When it says it is going to talk about prayer and meditation, that means that the material that follows, although it might well include other matter peripherally, will indeed set out precisely what the authors believe the reader needs to know in order to pray and meditate. The purpose of the Book, as it says, is to instruct, and the authors are not going to be mocked.
I’ve heard it said that the Big Book does not set out any information on meditation, and the speakers are quite confident in this assertion. What they mean is that it contains no information on Buddhist or other eastern meditation, which is quite right, and so they conclude that it is altogether silent on the matter of meditation. The error is to take a contemporary sense of meditation, look for that sort of meditation in the Book, fail to find it, and conclude that no meditation of any sort is there, that the authors have simply forgotten to follow through.
Let’s look at the US American Webster’s dictionary from 1927:
“Meditate: To keep the mind in a state of contemplation; to dwell in thought; to muse; cogitate; reflect.”
“Meditation: Act of meditating; thought; esp., close or continued thought; turning or revolving of a subject in the mind; serious contemplation. Specifically, a private religious or devotional exercise consisting in a continuous application of the mind to the consideration of some religious or moral truth, or the like, in order to promote personal holiness and love of God.”
You will see from this that what is described in the pages that follow is the close, continued thought variety.
In other words, meditation is thinking about things, but in a deliberate, guided manner. It is not, in this context, about relaxation, mindfulness, detachment, or the dissolution of self. We will even see that the subject matter of the meditation is the nuts and bolts of everyday life, about reality rather than non-reality.
We shouldn’t be shy on this matter of prayer.
One does not need training. If one can talk, one can pray; if one can think, one can meditate. All prayer is is talking in particular ways to a particular interlocutor. All meditation is is thinking in a particular way about particular things.
One can also start anywhere, and there's no time like the present.
Better men than we are using it constantly.
And people further down the line in terms of progress in the programme are using it constantly, too. If such good people need and want and use prayer in that way, how much more should I, who am in so much more need!
It can be begun, and perhaps should be begun on the first day of sobriety, as it may be the only thing that guarantees arriving at the second day of sobriety. Of course, some basic facts about alcoholism and the necessity of a relationship with a Higher Power to block the impulse to drink must be explained, but, once that has been explained, there’s nothing standing in the way of seeking that power now, and direct contact is the quickest way to do that.
‘Constantly’ is not used accidentally, here. I do meet people who use prayer pretty much the whole time they’re not engaged in some other mental activity that consumes their focus. This is like having a phone line open to someone and the headset on even if nothing is being said, and each side is simply getting on with their own business; the relationship is constantly active, and presence is constantly felt.
It works, if we have the proper attitude and work at it.
Works in what way? Keeps me sober, produces peace within me, and generates effectiveness, efficiency, and harmony in my life, through following the direction from God, powered by God.
Also: if it’s not working, I can adjust the attitude, increase the work (the time spent), or adjust the Step Eleven mix of activities until it does work, which it always does.
It would be easy to be vague about this matter. Yet, we believe we can make some definite and valuable suggestions.
Suggestions: offered, not imposed, but without them there’s nothing.
The suggestions are definite: we do not need to interpret deeply or add. What follows therefore constitutes prayer and meditation in the eyes of the writers. The descriptions of prayer will appear familiar. The meditation described is so far from current notions of meditation, one might not realise that is what it is.
Page 88 will set out some optional activities, but these are genuinely supplementary: the spiritual ideas and practices from other sources are not there to plug gaps in Step Eleven but to reinforce an already sufficient and satisfactory system.
They are valuable: they work.
When we retire at night, we constructively review our day.
‘Retiring’, here, means not going to bed but withdrawing from the business of the day to the home.
‘Night’ is defined in a 1930s US American dictionary as sundown, not bedtime.
This therefore means at the end of the working day and before one settles down to relax for the evening.
Firstly, this makes for a much nice evening.
Secondly, the mind is working better at teatime than before going to sleep.
Thirdly, churning up contentious matter immediately before going to sleep makes for bad sleep.
Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid?
This is the same quartet we encountered in Step Ten. Resentment and fear are the two ends of a disagreeable situation: resentment focuses on the culprit; fear focuses on the effect on us; resentment focuses on facts; fear on speculations. Dishonesty is deception of others or self or scheming. Selfishness covers any other defects.
The question is phrased as a ‘yes/no’ question. This means that the answer is ‘yes’ or ‘no’. To answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’, one must scan the day and, for a moment, call to mind those situations that have left a negative trace. No rumination, no rehashing, no analysis, no pen and paper, no typing, no sending to another person. The last thing one wants to do at the end of the day or immediately before sleep is meditate on error and darkness. The aim of the meditation is to expel the bad, be forgiven, and be given a fresh blueprint from God. The meditation should not be on the bad but on the good that will take its place.
Regarding the writing and sending: you can spoil a recipe more by adding something that does not belong than by omitting something. Such activities are almost invariably morbid and counterproductive. They fish out the bad and place it on a pedestal. This has the opposite of effect of what we want, which is healing and improvement.
I have known people who, rather than doing a Reader’s Digest of the day, produce reader’s indigestion with a review that runs to several pages.
Do we owe an apology?
As with the quartet from yesterday, the positive output of consists in one or more yeses. One might jot down the name on a to-do list in order not to forget it, but no writing is needed per se: the incident does not need to be catalogued. One might even stop the review to write the apology note and send it, to then return to the review.
Whenever this question prompts an apology, two things have gone wrong: firstly, I did something wrong; secondly, I did not immediately clear things up. This is a sign that I need to get quicker at rectifying mistakes rather than relying on the evening review as a safety net. It is also a sign I might need to stop doing things that necessitate an apology. The need for an apology is almost always the result of me losing my poise or leaking something I should have kept shtum about.
Note the verb ‘owe’: an apology is not me being nice or generous. It is doing what is required.
Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once?
As with yesterday, one might jot down the name or the matter on a to-do list, but no writing per se is required.
What might need to be discussed? A repeated grave or dispiriting sin that requires confession in order not to become a secret. A contentious matter that requires a new point of view or a different action. An entanglement that requires a fresh or more experienced pair of eyes.
Discussion is a serious matter. One might also need to chat through the catalogue of the day’s trivia, and for that there are friends, of which one should have at least one. Until that point there are willing fellows, but best to spread that particular burden thinly; only a real friend wants to listen to your trivia daily. But discussion has a real objective. It is not merely chewing the cud but seeks to solve a particular problem. Most of what arises on a review does not need to be discussed in this formal sense, though it might have been the subject matter of the stable-cleaning conversation with one’s friend.
Were we kind and loving toward all? What could we have done better?
I take ‘kind and loving’ as a general doublet suggesting benevolence and beneficence towards others. I would not approach the question technically by trying to separate the two artificially.. I do not think the suggestion is that we be intrusively kind and loving, making a nuisance or spectacle of ourselves with great acts of generosity or heroically going out of our way without being asked to do so. The ideal, I think, is to be pleasant for others to deal with, neither theatrical nor frosty.
These two questions work together. The first part is another ‘yes/no’ question, with a momentary dwelling on the situations supporting the answer ‘yes’. The second part forms a basis for meditation in the sense of deliberate and orderly contemplation. We are asked to think about different actions that might have been taken. Again, no writing. Simply visualise, for a moment, the situation where something went wrong, and run through the alternative course of conduct. The bulk of the time is spent not rehashing what went wrong but visualising what should go right in future.
Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time? Or were we thinking of what we could do for others, of what we could pack into the stream of life?
These two work together as a single question with an answer that lies along the spectrum between the two ends.
The line also instructs us what not to be thinking about (ourselves) and what to think about (what we can do for others, what we can pack into the stream of life).
People sometimes write a list of what they packed into the stream of life. Apart from the fact that this is surplus to requirements, the question is not asking what we packed but whether we were considering the packing of things into the stream of life as an objective. It concerns focus of mental activity, not content of practical activity.
There are two types of thought: there’s the thought that occurs and then there is thinking. The thought that occurs is beyond my will and in fact a mere production of the physical brain (unless it’s come directly from God, in which case it comes via not from the physical brain). I’m responsible only for the thinking, but that constitutes the lion’s share of mental activity. My condition stems largely from the latter. Occurring thoughts do no harm if not taken up and nurtured.
From Plato (Cratylus, 402a):
“λέγει που Ἡράκλειτος ὅτι πάντα χωρεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει, καὶ ποταμοῦ ῥοῇ ἀπεικάζων τὰ ὄντα λέγει ὡς δὶς ἐς τὸν αὐτὸν ποταμὸν οὐκ ἂν ἐμβαίης.”
“Somewhere, Heraclitus says that everything is in flux and nothing remains static, and compares this to the flow of a river, saying ‘you cannot step into the same river twice.’”
If I do not pack something into this flow right here, the flow is gone forever, and nothing can make up for the loss. Even if I do take up some opportunity I missed, I will have to forego something else, robbing Peter to pay Paul. I’m no further ahead in that case. Wasting time is therefore one of the chief moral ravages.
But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others.
Good advice for the Step Eleven review and good advice for life.
Worry: fretting about the future.
Remorse: fretting about my own past behaviour.
Morbid reflection: general negativity.
All I need to do is watch out for such drifting and then pull myself back on track. This will need to be done repeatedly on occasion, both during the Step Eleven review and as the day proceeds.
With the Step Eleven review, if the pull of the negative is too strong, I might need to drop the review for now, recognise I am in God’s good hands, and get on with the rest of the day. If I’m not in a fit condition to perform the review, there’s nothing I can do about that in the moment, and I have to work with the material available.
With the day, I’m afraid there’s no getting out of it: I might well go through phases for the rest of my life where the drifting is relentless, and I have to seek God’s help repeatedly to come back to the moment and the task at hand. There is no time off.
The question of these three pests is not psychological. The specific focus of the negativity is irrelevant; it is the fact of the negativity that is relevant; the ego is inviting me back into its theatre box. It is no good trying to unpick the ‘issues’: that’s exactly what the ego wants, and, as soon as I’m looking at the content, the ego has won. The job is to go to God first, and only once I’m happy and at peace again can I dare look at any content.
The question here is moral: God first, and that takes the form of usefulness to others.
After making our review we ask God’s forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken.
This is the important part. Firstly, in asking for forgiveness, we are zeroing out the day and setting before us a clean page for the next 24 hours. There is no indication of whether forgiveness is received and how. Since there is no indication, we need not concern ourselves with that. The job is to trust that it will be forthcoming in due measure.
The inquiry as to the corrective measures is a prayer; answers pop into the mind, sometimes now, sometimes during the course of the day. The consideration of what comes is the meditation: concentrated thought about such matters.
Corrective measures to what? To the situations called to mind in response to the preceding questions.
Most of the review so far has been a simple calling to mind; this point of the procedure is where the real concentration and meditation starts. If there is any protracted dwelling at all, it is here, on the solution, not the problem.
If these corrective need to be written down so that one does not forget them or so that one can review them several times during the day, so be it.
It can be more useful to simply contemplate these, however. It is after all in the mind that these belong, and that is where one must make an effort to record them.
On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead.
This tells us the subject matter of the meditation. Not God. Not the abstract. Not the ethereal. My actual day: what I’m going to do with it. Consequently, the past and future are out of bounds, except in as far as their consideration bears on the actions of today (e.g. writing a memoir or booking a flight). This is unambitious but more than enough for a poor soul like mine. A further implication is that it is my twenty-four hours ahead, not anyone else’s, that are to be the subject matter of my contemplation.
Thus: concrete, not abstract; now, not then; me, not them.
It also could not be clearer that meditation means thinking, not posture, breathing, awareness, concentration on physical sensations, coming back into the body, or passive observation of thoughts. Such excellent practices in other forms of meditation are not what the authors here meant.
This is part of a bigger plan. When I put my life in God’s hands, first of all God confines me in the day, then directs the course of that day from start to finish. If I commit to this and follow through, I cannot relapse. I wake up, I grab the rope, and I feel my way along the knots tied along it, until I get to bed tonight. I need not understand much in the fog of reality: I need only plan the day under God’s aegis, as the next passage will go on to explain.
We consider our plans for the day.
The wording presupposes we already have plans. It’s a good idea to have an idea of the year to eighteen months ahead, the month ahead, the week ahead, and the day ahead. Different types of activity and event require different planning timelines. This means I do not wake up with a blank canvas. I wake up with a job to do. The task here is to consider the plans already laid and see what needs adding, removing, postponing, rejigging, or altering, plus to consider the ‘how’ as well as the ‘what’: the attitude, the strategy, the approach, the dos and don’ts.
You could do ten hours of transcendental meditation or go to mass three times, and not a jot of the meditation will have been done.
The meditation of Step Eleven has only to do with guidance from God, on how to look at things, on what to do, and summoning the strength to get on with it.
Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.
This should really come first, but it does not.
The first thing to do on awakening is therefore to ask God to direct our thinking. The way to do this is to address God and ask: ‘Please direct my thinking.’ This is a prayer.
There is then a second prayer. Divorce implies remarriage. Daily divorce implies daily remarriage: in this case, one has eloped overnight to Gretna Green or Las Vegas to remarry the three ugly siblings of self-pity, dishonest, and self-seeking motives.
This tells us a lot about the principles of the programme. We must be honest with ourselves and straightforward with others. We disclose information to others as required, plainly, and without deception. We are to be grateful rather than self-pitying and seek to do God’s will rather than our own will.
Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use.
The mind is thus to be used, not distanced from, not disregarded, not demoted. There’s a lot of talk in spiritual circles about getting away from the thinking mind, as though the thinking mind is the problem. People will also say that there is no one too thick to be successful in AA but there are people who are too smart. Nonsense. The problem if there is one is not intelligence but arrogance: the refusal to admit one’s own failings and to take appropriate guidance from people who know better.
It is also the case that we are to think systematically about our life, our responsibilities, and our problems. The usual division of duties between God and us is that, if we are capable of something, that is our job, and, if we’re not, that is God’s job. That means much of the heavy lifting of working through problems is up to us: gather and assess the facts, assemble a picture, establish the purpose, establish a course of action. God guides and facilitates this but does not do it for us. Occasionally God cuts through and simply directs, but even then we have to prepare the ground.
There are approaches to prayer and meditation that strip the individual of any responsibility and view the individual simply like a radio receiver. One is then encouraged to do automatic writing, to allow God to literally dictate to us, without editing, what God’s will is. This is at odds with the AA programme and should perhaps be avoided as an occult practice.
Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives.
Humility and right relationship with God, together with the daily sweeping of the mental floor to eliminate tripping hazards places one in an optimal position to think clearly.
Sometimes the elevation to a higher plane can be fostered by spiritual reading and listening.
Contemporary meditation practices, such as mindfulness, whilst not being intended by the authors to form a formal part of Step Eleven, can indeed be useful, too, in the raising of the consciousness. They are not the activity of Step Eleven itself but can be helpful in creating the right atmosphere. Wearing formal clothes for a musical performance is not the performance itself but improves its conditions.
A note on thought-life. All life is thought, in the broad sense of consciousness. When drugged, sedated, or over-stimulated, there is no consciousness, no thought, only direct perception. This is not life. Even a dead frog twitches if you pass current through it. One has become a sensory panel, little more than an animal with senseless verbalisations. The job is to remain genuinely conscious, not to be dragged into and trapped within the physical world of sensations alone with no critical distance, with no understanding, with no elevation.
In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take.
There are lots of things that cannot be known at all or right now. Much of such fogginess and confusion is right and proper: we are not supposed to know. What we are interested in is the course of action to take today. People will rack their brains trying to work out whether to become a nurse or move to Mozambique. They cannot find the answers to these questions. By the time they have read a brochure about nursing or studied some basic Portuguese, they discover they have a clearer view. Most big questions cannot be answered directly; rather, one must follow a course of action and be patient, and eventually an answer becomes obvious.
Sometimes one follows a course of action and life takes a particular course and one still never works out ‘what to do with one’s life’ or ‘what the purpose is’. These questions really may never be answered. All there is is the past reality plus the next right action.
Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision.
The three channels for communication from God are these: inspiration, intuitive thought, and decision. Note the order: spirit, mind, body (since decisions are a commitment to a course of action).
Note that, whilst inspiration and decision are not qualified, thought is: it is intuitive thought rather than synthetic, hammering, circular, attritional, furious, fevered, or meandering thought.
Spirit pulls rank on the rest—it is the highest of the three and the first to be mentioned. This is the order in which we get well: spirit first, i.e. proper alignment with God, mind second, and life third.
The ego uses these three channels too. The feeling that one of these three has been activated is no evidence at all that it is God who has activated the channel in question. It might equally be the ego.
How does one tell?
- Experience.
- Reason.
- Principles—moral and spiritual.
- Consultation.
- Further prayer.
- Patience.
If an action has failed a hundred times before, it's unlikely to work now.
Careful systematic thought usually reveals whether a proposed action will be effective, efficient, and harmonious.
Reviewing the action in the light of moral and spiritual principles usually reveals bad motivations and rationalisation.
Consultation with someone wise and detached can help, although one must never outsource. Sponsorship is not dictatorship, and sponsors are not gurus, guides, or special practitioners.
If I’m unsure, I can always pray again.
If I do not need to act now, I can be patient. I leave it until later for final discernment. I leave things as long as necessary, and that sometimes means months or years.
We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle.
If I ask and I do not hear an answer, it is typically because I am not supposed to hear, yet. Nothing has gone wrong. More time must elapse, the situation must heave into view more clearly, more jigsaw puzzle pieces have to be in place, first. God can be slow but is never late. I have become much more comfortable with postponing decisions where there is no clarity and simply waiting.
If some action is required right now or today, I find that God does give me direction straight away, and, if not straight away, later on that day, when one simply must decide between (a) and (b).
These principles of relaxing and taking it easy are good for life generally.
How? God’s in charge, God’s in control, nothing happens in God’s world by mistake, everything is manifest or concealed good, the plot will always resolve itself in the end, so there is literally nothing to worry about and nothing to upset oneself about. If I’m unhappy, I’m relying on self, and self always fails, so give it up and rely totally on God instead. Then I can relax and take it easy.
Take it easy does not mean being indolent; rather: not treating everything as a crisis, proceeding stately as a galleon, seeing things in perspective, being poised, cheerful, insouciant, and deliberate without being forced or rigid.
We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while. What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind.
This is one of the Step Eleven promises. These days—when I am in my right mind—I do not experience ‘racking my brains’ or being bothered because I cannot work out what to do. I ask God, If I get an answer, I proceed. If I don’t, I wait. I don’t try to force it, and I don’t upset myself or feel guilty if I simply do not know what to do.
I’ve had a work situation recently that has troubled me, and, after mistakenly thinking about it a lot like a dog with a bone, I realised: spotting the situation is valid, but all I needed to do is say: “God, is there anything I need to do about it today?” That is then what I proceeded to do. So far, either there has been no answer at all, or the answer has appeared to be ‘no’. I do not need to ruminate. Once the question has been asked once that day, that’s the end of the discussion for another 24 hours. The topic can then be quarantined. If it knocks on the door trying to come back in, I can say, ‘We’ve dealt with you today. If you must come back, come back tomorrow.’ This is a good approach to any topic and can become the automatic way of dealing with troubles, difficulties, problems of any hue.
The reading says this is often surprising. What is surprising is how simple and economical this approach is, and how it works even with people, like me, who are fundamentally neurotic and a frightful nuisance to themselves.
Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it.
In other words, we will get this wrong a lot, but that’s no reason to abandon the approach or lose trust in it.
Measures to minimise this:
- Think carefully about any action; use experience, reason, spiritual principles, and consultation to review guidance that appears to come from God.
- Pause as long as possible before enacting such guidance.
- Be extremely cautious about actions that might affect others.
- Do not make hard-to-reverse or irreversible decisions lightly.
- Take the minimal action possible, review its effect, then proceed further or escalate as necessary: don’t deploy everything all at once; ‘keep your powder dry’.
- If wrong, promptly admit it.
- Do not stick with something that is clearly wrong merely because one was ‘guided’ or embarrassed to admit error.
The bigger picture is that one gets better at this the more one practises it.
What does reliance mean? It becomes the standard, automated way of dealing with everything.
We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems.
This indicates that the preceding section is indeed the meditation section, in case we had any doubts.
The prayer: ‘Show me all through the day what our next step is to be; give me whatever I need to take care of such problems.’ It does not need to be reworded. It works as it stands.
One trusts that this prayer, having, as it does, the scope of the whole day, will in fact work for the whole day. That means one does not need to incessantly beg, nag or bother God throughout the day, although there will be instances where one should indeed overtly contact God, either due to a new situation arising or because the bulwarks against the devil are being eroded, the seawall is being lapped at, the protective fabric is becoming frayed. In other words, we have asked for a day’s supply of guidance, and we should expect to get it. The fact that one has not prayed at 2.00 p.m. for guidance does not mean that what comes into the mind at 2.00 p.m. is not from God. As the previous passage said, the channel through which guidance is received from God becomes a working part of the mind.
The concern is always the next step—our next step—not others, the world, the past, the future, or even the ‘why’ of the next step.
The prayer implies we can trust that we will always be given the resources we need to handle whatever comes up. The resources might be active or merely the grace to accept with cheerfulness, poise, and good temper the ineluctable.
We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn’t work. You can easily see why.
Here is a specific prayer for freedom from self-will, to be included in this part of the Step Eleven.
The injunction not to make requests for ourselves only implies we may make requests. Elsewhere in the Book, prayer is suggested, e.g. the placement of everything in God’s hands, the putting of ourselves in God’s hands, approaching God in respect of any tricky or questionable matter. In other words, we can and should pray for guidance not just on what tasks to perform today and how to perform such tasks, both in principle and practically, but also on any other matters that fall within our responsibility, otherwise concern us, are disturbing the internal equilibrium or our relations with others, or are simply bothersome and have attracted our attention.
One can pray for resolution, but the ideal is to pray for resolution in a general way, specifying that we be shown what role—if any—we are to play in such resolution, but without praying for particular resolutions. One does not pray, therefore, for specific outcomes. One does not pray that someone else get sober, recover from an illness, etc. One prays that they be helped through one’s actions. Help does not always come in the form of a path that is agreeable to the person or those around them. Maybe the worsening of someone’s alcoholism, the collapse of their affairs, the continuation of the war, are part of God’s plan. To presume, for instance, that God’s plan for a particular person is sobriety, on our terms, right now, and to pray for that, is arguably open rebellion against God. We are telling God what to do. Instead, one prays simply that others will be helped.
What is a selfish end? One that benefits me, or one that accords with my wishes. If I wish for someone to get sober, the fact that is my wish makes it a selfish end, even if such an end is apparently good. I do not know God’s will for others—I barely know God’s will for me—so I should pray for general good outcomes but without specifying such outcomes beyond their goodness. Goodness does not always look good to me, right now.
When I am praying for the resolution of my own internal or practical difficulties, placing them within the envelope of helpfulness to others is mandatory for such prayers to be despatched to heaven. In other words, any resolution is framed within the overall purpose of my service to God. The aim is not for me to be helped merely so I can bask in comfort and satisfaction. Everything is grist to God’s mill.
Why doesn’t it work to pray for selfish ends? The commodities available to me are knowledge of God’s will for me and the power to carry that out. It is God’s ends that are the basis for God’s will for me. If an end happens to serve me, that is a collateral serendipity. If it does not, God’s end would still be the end. God will not grant selfish wishes. That is not part of the system.
Whether or not God responds to my prayers for the good of others is not my business. I am asked to pray that others be helped, and that is a sufficient basis to proceed. That may be to alter my disposition, to reframe my actions, or it may be that God really does act differently on the basis of petitionary, intercessory prayer. That’s a theological question that one need not resolve, and, if one finds a satisfactory solution, that would pertain to prayers outside the scope of the programme.
The scope of the prayer remains circumscribed using the word ‘only’: knowledge of God’s will for me and the power to carry that out.
If circumstances warrant, we ask our wives or friends to join us in morning meditation.
What circumstances would warrant? The availability of others to participate.
In most geographical locations this is difficult. The Internet makes this possible.
Morning AA meetings are common in America, often with meditation sections and the reading of prayers and other spiritual readings.
Such meetings are usually well-ordered and focused on the AA programme, as opposed to the problems or narratives of the group’s members.
Morning meeting people, in my experience, slip less than evening meeting people.
Get the head on right in the morning, then the rest of the day is great. Run around all day like a headless chicken, to find that head again at the meeting, and you might get one, two good hours before you go to sleep. Such a “recovery” has a limited shelf-life.
Most people wake up disconsolate, desolate, and scrambled. Morning meditation or AA meetings set a person straight admirably. One need only show up, and the meeting does the trick. Of course, one should not thereby neglect one’s own practices, and these should be constructed in a sufficiently robust way to work on their own account, but such meetings double the investment, as it were, or more than double it.
I’ve found it useful to establish such an attendance as a fixed part of my schedule, so I know in advance which days of the week I will be attending. The last thing one needs early in the morning is a decision as to whether or not to go to a morning meeting. That’s stressful, and matinal inertia starts to win systematically. Those who give themselves the choice tend to stop altogether in a few weeks. Those who just commit (which means not thinking about whether or not one is going to attend: simply attending) get into the groove of attending, to the point they would not consider not attending. Of course, there may be a day or two when circumstances systematically prevent attendance, but that’s a different matter. The point is making a decision and going through with it, in contrast to a resolution, which depends on daily summoning the resolve.
If we belong to a religious denomination which requires a definite morning devotion, we attend to that also.
In this section, we are presented with options, with ‘bolt-ons’, which are not mandatory parts of Step Eleven but are found helpful by many people. These are in addition to the meat and potatoes of Step Eleven, the consideration of the disposition of time under the aegis of God, not instead of. A lengthy or elaborate religious routine each morning will not take the place of the earlier, core instructions. It’s perfectly possible, as illustrated by the story of the certain American businessman on pages 26 to 27, to have a respectable religious life and no programme whatsoever, for God to be kept out of the most important question, namely who is in charge of disposing of my schedule, who is in charge of what I do, where I go, what I say, and to whom, and precisely what I am to do, where I am to go, and what I am to say and to whom on the day in question, and, above all, what I think about and the values are that form the basis for my decision-making.
If not members of religious bodies, we sometimes select and memorize a few set prayers which emphasize the principles we have been discussing.
Note “sometimes”: the recital of set prayers is not to everyone’s taste. Some swear by it. Others prefer to talk candidly and freely with God. This memorisation and recital is by no means obligatory, and one should not feel that one is selling oneself short or skimping on the programme by not doing this. It is very much a matter of preference and temperament.
Of course, one is at liberty to say whatever prayers one wishes, but, for the purposes of these instructions and the programme, the prayers that count are those that emphasize the principles of the programme. Since Step Eleven is all about seeking God’s will, and other passages (for instances pages 67 to 68) concern forgiveness and trusting God, prayers that emphasize these principles are the most suitable. One will find to one’s consternation and disappointment that books of prayers, replete as they are with the wisdom of the ages condensed into anything from the most sublime poetry to awkward doggerel, largely dodge the question of the seeking of God’s will personally and only sometimes cover forgiveness, trust, acceptance, and so on. Rather, many concern worship or recount mythical histories, or are petitionary prayers for particular outcomes outside the scope of the individual’s responsibility. These won’t serve our purposes at all.
If a person sticks to the Serenity Prayer (in the version used in AA) and The Lord’s Prayer, one has quite enough to be getting along with.
There are many helpful books also. Suggestions about these may be obtained from one’s priest, minister, or rabbi.
I’ve been helped by a lot of books, but what I’ve invariably discovered is that the invaluable lessons of the helpful books were to be found written plainly and simply in the Big Book all along. That does seem to be the path, however, to look somewhere else, find it, and discover it was under your nose, for free.
The main caveat with books is not to get diverted onto other paths that take me away from this one. I need this one on account of being an addict, and the other spiritual paths available do not take account of this. Step Eleven is not common-or-garden spirituality but spirituality that focuses almost exclusively on the destruction of self and devotion to good works; this is a drop in the ocean of the world of spirituality.
What else I do spiritually is therefore in addition to rather than instead of this. I make sure what else I read is compatible with the programme. If there is a conflict, the programme automatically wins out.
Why bother with the books at all, then? They deepen and amplify. An example: page 28 refers in passing to us being children of God. If that could be fully understood in all of its implications, our problems would be over. You read other books on this question, and the other books set out the implications and provide a way of thinking further about and implementing the ideas that have their starting point in the Big Book.
Be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer.
And skip over where they're wrong. I don't need extra arguments in my life.
As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action.
Agitated = any emotional disturbance.
Doubtful = any doubt about the course of action to adopt.
All problems resolve into one or the other or both, so this is a solution to all problems.
The solution concerns the three things I can change:
Thought = attitude + thinking in real time.
Action = what to do.
It is entirely sufficient to limit my concern to this: altered attitudes = AA, altered actions = AA, attitudes + actions = AA.
We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day “Thy will be done.”
The injunction to constantly remind oneself one is no longer running the show suggests a constant return to the erroneous position that one is indeed running the show.
Humility: the restoration of my position as creature in relation to God as Creator.
Strictly, this should read, ‘humbly saying to God many times each day’, as the person addressed in the prayer is God, not oneself.
Leaving that aside, the catch-all prayer of ‘Thy will be done’ can be applied in response to any situation.
This prayer does two things at once: first of all, it represents a renunciation of one’s own will, and secondly it represents the hearty acceptance of God’s will.
We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions.
The reason for the presence of the second item to the sixth item on this list is clear. The first is perhaps surprising. Excitement heads the list for good cause: it gives rise to rash decisions, ill-advised commitments, excessive expectations. It often stems from the ego’s thrill at a particular course of events.
The characterisation of excitement and foolish decisions as dangers, as perils, may seem clear. The perilous nature of fear, anger, worry, and self-pity is perhaps less obvious. Apart from being unpleasant, all four lead away from God, into darkness, therefore into blindness, and into all sorts of other mischief. These must therefore be treated as dangers and treated as precipices or poisons, to be avoided at all costs.
We become much more efficient.
Not only efficient: effective and harmonious. The duo of effectiveness and efficiency is referred to in Bill W's introduction to his essays on the Twelve Concepts; harmony is referred to in the Big Book. Together they are the trio of parameters by which success of an endeavour or a life can be measured.
The programme adds a little but mostly cuts away. I cut away activities, people, places, things, beliefs, thinking patterns, behaviours, reactions, engagements with all sorts of things that are none of my business.
From a position of stillness and God-reliance I can choose what to voluntarily donate my time to.
We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves.
Most of the external cannot be changed, because we’re up against the laws of physics, chains of cause and effect, others’ will, and God Himself.
Some of what is external can be changed, and in fact the shape and content of one’s life can be changed substantially, radically, and lastingly. However, it cannot be changed by imposition of will.
Right attitudes and a few right actions surgically taken produce the external life that is required by God for me to do God’s will. The upstream cause lies within me, and I cannot directly influence what lies downstream for long; the upstream cause always reimposes itself. This is why, for my life to change, I have to start with resting back in God and asking for God’s will in the place of the florid follies of self. I have to be right with God at the core, and then that rightness gradually flows outwards into my life.
The attempt to impose conditions in my life by manipulating people, places, and things is tiring.
The organic growth of conditions requires just seeds, planting, and a bit of watering.
Much less effort.
The Book says that we do not regret the past. I do. I regret the colossal amount of wasted time on addictions, compulsive activities, fruitless fretting, dissipation, and vapid pursuits. But I do not dwell in that regret. Instead, I use every minute now as best as I can. Only the best activities make it into the schedule. Anything less than second-best is rejected.
It works—it really does.
In between the two statements lies the reader’s interjection: ‘Really?’
It may seem odd for the writer to anticipate disbelief on the part of the reader, but I understand this. I disbelieved the programme’s promises so thoroughly that I was shoddy in my performance of the actions for years. Naturally, the promises did not come fully true, and I looked everywhere else I could for solutions. Over this period, I did learn some lessons and make some improvements. When I finally yielded and did precisely what it suggests, I got precisely the results it promises, although timing can be a bit off, and one continues to live with one’s underlying disposition.
The programme is meant to bring about recovery and enable the establishment and operation of a relationship with God, and it does that very well. One’s external and internal life improve as a result, but that improvement is not the point. The purpose of the programme is not to erase the individual and their temperament, their quirks, their defects. These are part of the deal of being an individual. Defects are removed—moved out of the way so they no longer impede progress—not wiped. Their continued presence, the fact that one sometimes or often wakes up in the morning lost and disconsolate, the persistence of psychological hangups dating from childhood are not signs that the programme does not work: it is not meant to hollow us out completely. Such things appear to be used by God in various ways: to keep us humble, to keep us going back to God, to give us something to be working on, to make us a little less dull than we would otherwise be.
We alcoholics are undisciplined.
One of the biggest understatements in the Book.
By nature, I am self-indulgent, impulsive, and sloppy, and I do not stick to things.
What is discipline? The opposite: self-restraint, having routines and procedures, slow decision-making, diligence, and persistence.
So we let God discipline us in the simple way we have just outlined.
God does the disciplining by providing guidance and strength to follow the guidance, but I have to take the initiative to activate the provision by asking.
We ‘let God’: God will not typically impose Himself by force, although there are apparently occasions of intervention.
Simple? Yes. And that’s all that is needed. It’s not over-simplified; it’s not simplistic; it’s precisely as complex as necessary. This is not spiritual kindergarten; this is the highest level of educational attainment available. We don’t progress into more complexity; we progress by doing the simple things more diligently and cutting away anything other than the simple things.