Step One and Beyond Daily Topics 2025 Q2

30 June 2025: Argument

“It is of little use to argue and only makes the impasse worse.” (Pages 126–127, Big Book)

Someone said to me once, “Don’t engage with the drunk, mad, or angry.”

I wish I could remember that consistently.

What’s your experience?

29 June 2025: Test

“I was to test my thinking by the new God-consciousness within.” (Chapter One, Big Book)

I need software to think, just like I need a browser to access the Internet.

The system is set to think with ego software, just like computers are set to use Microsoft Edge. You have to manually install Google Chrome, and, every so often, you discover it’s reverted, and you have to manually switch back to Google Chrome. Just so, God never becomes a permanent default thinking system: I have to manually switch away from the ego and towards God on a regular basis.

Any time I’m thinking, I do well to manually activate the God browser first or as soon as I remember.

What’s your experience?

28 June 2025: Agitated or doubtful

“As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day ‘Thy will be done.’” (Page 87, Big Book)

I find it useful also to ask God for the right thought or action when calm or certain.

What’s your experience?

27 June 2025: Train

“When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn’t. What was our choice to be?” (Page 53, Big Book)

“Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked His protection and care with complete abandon. Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery:” (Page 59, Big Book)

Imagine getting on a train at King’s Cross for Edinburgh, and there’s a sign suggesting that one might want to dine in the dining car on the way to Edinburgh. Of course, if one boards the train and does not eat in the dining car but settles for a sausage in a box or nothing at all, one will still arrive in Edinburgh.

Sometimes people say how thrilled they are that the Twelve Steps are merely suggested, as the option not to take the Twelve Steps is somehow a valuable one, the choice as to whether or not to take them a great luxury.

If you’re dithering on the platform at King’s Cross, and the guard says, “I suggest you board now because the train is about to leave,” you would be foolish to luxuriate in the choice or to say, “Thank you for the suggestion. I’ll take it into consideration,” or worse, “I’m a rebellious alcoholic, haha! No one tells me what to do!” If you hesitate, you’ll miss the train. The guard will turn his back and say, “Please yourself, then”

When I was new, I kept hesitating, and I kept drinking again, without warning, and without internal opposition. That’s the self-imposed crisis.

‘Suggestion’ merely means no person is forcing me. It does not mean the course of action is optional if I want results. I am indeed forced, not by people, but by circumstances.

What’s your experience?

26 June 2025: Hopeless

“Certainly I was interested. I had to be, for I was hopeless.” (Chapter 1, Big Book)

When I am hopeless, I am open to new ideas. When I am not, I am not.

What’s your experience?

25 June 2025: Conception

“He can choose any conception he likes, provided it makes sense to him.” (Chapter Seven, Big Book)

The conception of God does not create God and is not altered by it.

In other words, I remain downstream of God, and the conception remains downstream of me.

As the conception changes, God stays the same. The conception grows, but God was infinite all along.

I do not get to choose what God is.

God merely is.

I merely apprehend God.

What’s your experience?

24 June 2025: Conception

“He can choose any conception he likes, provided it makes sense to him.” (Page 93, Big Book)

In terms of conceptions of God, almost everything goes, but not quite everything. It has to make sense. I can’t have an AA group as my higher power, because that would mean, when I ask said higher power to direct my thinking, I would have to call a group conscience to do the asking, and then the group would have to direct my thinking. But can it? I would then have to ask the group to remove my character defects. But even if the group wanted to, could it?

To make sense, God has to be non-material. A material entity is not a suitable entity to direct my thinking, remove my character defects, etc.

There are five features of God I cannot really do without.

The five are:

Good, Big, Powerful, Communicative, and Clever.

If God is bad, I do not want to turn my life over to Him. That would make no sense.

God must be Big, specifically Bigger than any problem I can conceive of. If there is any problem too big for God to deal with, no deal.

God must be Powerful, namely with dominion over all situations and problems I encounter, or else the situations or problems are more powerful than Him, and what good is such a ‘god’?

And I have to be able to communicate with God in Step Eleven, and the communication must work in both directions. There’s no point in praying for God’s will without such communication being in place.

Lastly, the capability and communication require intelligence, hence Clever.

Once these are in place, I’m good to go. Any further conception is up to me.

What’s your experience?

23 June 2025: Repeating first grade

“We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.” (Page 60, Big Book)

A few years into AA, I had the impression that things were getting harder not easier. I looked back with nostalgia to my first couple of years.

I was nine or so years sober but I was really one year sober nine times over.

Being fourteen and in first grade for the ninth time, especially when you’re not getting it, is no fun.

When I did ‘get it’, each year represented real progress on the previous year, and I would not go back to any earlier stage of my recovery, even three months ago.

What’s your experience?

22 June 2025: The world and the theatre

“Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show” (Page 60, Big Book)

“I was soon to be catapulted into what I like to call the fourth dimension of existence.” (Page 8, Big Book)

“The prosaic steel girder is a mass of electrons whirling around each other at incredible speed.” (Page 48, Big Book)

Imagine a play in a theatre in a city on a world in a universe.

Everything is real except the events portrayed in the play.

The actors are real; the play is not.

Now imagine:

The material cosmos is the play, and the metaphysical realm, the fourth dimension, is the universe that lies chiefly beyond but includes the material cosmos.

The material cosmos is a temporary charade taking place within a Greater Reality.

The actors can’t eat the plastic apples.

We can’t eat material food and get spiritual sustenance.

The material is sustained by the material.

But we are not material.

We have something material that needs to be tended to materially.

But we are spiritual.

The spiritual (the metaphysical) is sustained by the spiritual (the metaphysical).

It’s very simple but it took a long time for me to realise this.

What’s your experience?

21 June 2025: The Happening

“Post-war disillusionment, ever more serious alcoholism, impending mental and physical collapse, brought him to the point of self-destruction.” (Chapter Four, Big Book)

In the film The Happening, an airborne neurotoxin causes people to go into a trance and commit suicide.

They are not acting in accordance with their will but under an alien influence.

This is the desire for the first drink: an alien influence. Given where the first drink inevitably leads, the desire for the first drink is not my desire but the desire of my alcoholism.

The mental obsession: an often suddenly occurring, self-rationalising, overpowering impulse to drink.

What’s your experience?

20 June 2025: Trojan Horse

“But there was always the curious mental phenomenon that parallel with our sound reasoning there inevitably ran some insanely trivial excuse for taking the first drink.” (Page 37, Big Book)

In Greek mythology, the Trojan Horse was a wooden horse said to have been used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the city of Troy and win the war. After a fruitless 10-year siege, the Greeks constructed a huge wooden horse at the behest of Odysseus and hid a select force of men inside, including Odysseus himself. The Greeks pretended to sail away, and the Trojans pulled the horse into their city as a victory trophy. That night, the Greek force crept out of the horse and opened the gates for the rest of the Greek army, which had sailed back under the cover of darkness. The Greeks entered and destroyed the city, ending the war.

The Trojan Horse looked innocent. But inside were concealed the seeds of Troy’s doom.

The first drink looks innocent. This is the mental obsession: not preoccupation with alcohol but a false idea about alcohol on which I act.

But once I take the first drink, the gates are opened, and the city is overrun. That’s the physical craving. Once the city is full of enemy troops, I’m done for.

Those enemy troops seek the destruction of Troy.

Every action I take drunk seeks my destruction.

It is not my will. It is the will of the enemy.

What’s your experience?

19 June 2025: The Manchurian Candidate

“Friends who have reasoned with him after a spree which has brought him to the point of divorce or bankruptcy are mystified when he walks directly into a saloon. Why does he? Of what is he thinking?” (Page 35, Big Book)

In ‘The Manchurian Candidate’, the individual is brainwashed into acting as an assassin.

When such sleeper agents are activated, an entirely different course of action is followed.

That entirely different course of action is not the individual’s real will.

The individual, thus activated, would not be a reliable reporter of why he is doing what he is doing.

He is acting under alien instructions, in accordance with an alien will, and his true will is suppressed.

This is me in active addiction.

Except the target of the drip-drip(-into-the-gin-glass) assassination attempt is me.

I am not ‘thinking’: I am being acted through by my addiction, yet believe I am acting in accordance with my will.

What’s your experience?

18 June 2025: Camden Town

“It relieved me somewhat to learn that in alcoholics the will is amazingly weakened when it comes to combating liquor, though it often remains strong in other respects. My incredible behavior in the face of a desperate desire to stop was explained.” (Chapter One, Big Book)

Imagine getting into a cab at King’s Cross and saying, ‘Paddington’ to the cabbie.

Then imagine seeing Mornington Crescent go past and realising you’re heading to Camden Town.

The cabbie has no will of his own.

He merely follows instructions.

The cabbie must be able to hear someone else in the cab, who is giving him instructions.

There is an invisible person who is giving him instructions.

Paddington is my true will (peace, power, happiness, and a sense of direction).

Camden Town is alcoholic destruction.

In active alcoholism, the alcoholism is the invisible passenger in the cab who reroutes me, and there is nothing I can do about it on my own.

Its will overrides mine.

I’m not thirsty: my alcoholism is.

What’s your experience?

17 June 2025: Asymmetrical

“7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.” (Page 59, Big Book)

An Al-Anon text on Step Seven refers to “my strengths and my weaknesses”.

The strengths are God-given.

The weaknesses are my character defects.

These are the thinking, speaking, and behaviour patterns that result from consulting the ego rather than consulting God.

I was created by God.

God did not create those defects.

I made them.

But they are not mine.

They do not belong to me.

They were stolen from the darkness.

And the darkness does not exist.

When the light is turned on, the darkness disappears.

What’s your experience?

16 June 2025: Who removes defects?

“7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.” (Page 59, Big Book)

How do defects get removed?

I have to make the decision to think, speak, and act differently.

If I’m saying cruel things, I have to stop saying them.

If I’m interfering, I have to stop interfering.

If I’m frightened, I have to take responsibility for how I respond to the temptations to engage in fear.

How is God involved?

He tells me what to think, say, and act instead.

He gives me the strength to think, speak, and act differently.

This is how God removes my character defects.

What’s your experience?

15 June 2025: God’s way or my way

“… His will for us …” (Chapter Five, Big Book)

The other day I set out with a shopping list of ingredients for a cake I decided to bake. There were six items. I had to go to three shops, in the end, and the endeavour was a little pricey. I also now have some ingredients I will need to use up.

Mostly I set out not with a list but with an objective, e.g. ‘ingredients for a soup’ or ‘ingredients for a curry’.

I then go to the cheapest supermarket and find out what vegetables are reduced for clearance. I come away with bagsful of food for next to nothing and make a delicious soup or curry.

Seeking God’s will is largely about making the best of what is there rather than predetermining the course I will take.

What’s your experience?

14 June 2025: Attitude

“We can only clear the ground a bit. If our testimony helps sweep away prejudice, enables you to think honestly, encourages you to search diligently within yourself, then, if you wish, you can join us on the Broad Highway. With this attitude you cannot fail. The consciousness of your belief is sure to come to you.” (Page 55, Big Book)

This means, if I’m failing, there’s a problem with my attitude: I’m not searching diligently enough for God within (= in the realm of the metaphysical).

What’s your experience?

13 June 2025: Mental obsession

“The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker.” (Page 30, Big Book)

“There is the obsession that somehow, someday, they will beat the game.” (Page 23, Big Book)

“Never could we recapture the great moments of the past. There was an insistent yearning to enjoy life as we once did and a heartbreaking obsession that some new miracle of control would enable us to do it.” (Page 151, Big Book)

“It is truly awful to admit that, glass in hand, we have warped our minds into such an obsession for destructive drinking that only an act of providence can remove it from us.” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

“Our sponsors declared that we were the victims of a mental obsession so subtly powerful that no amount of human willpower could break it. There was, they said, no such thing as the personal conquest of this compulsion by the unaided will.” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

The mental obsession has the following components:

• It is an idea: that we can enjoy and control our drinking
• This idea then converts into action: having a drink
• This action is insane, because of the physical craving thus triggered

“We have sometimes reflected more than Jim did upon the consequences. But there was always the curious mental phenomenon that parallel with our sound reasoning there inevitably ran some insanely trivial excuse for taking the first drink. Our sound reasoning failed to hold us in check. The insane idea won out.” (Page 37, Big Book)

In the language generally, ‘obsession’ usually means preoccupation, either as a deliberate, singular focus on a subject, an activity, or an outcome or a constant involuntary rumination or brooding on some disagreeable matter.

Note that the mental obsession of the Big Book does not match this: it is the idea that leads one to the first drink, but one need not be preoccupied at length with it before it does so. The Big Book is littered with examples of people who—acting on the obsession (the thought of controlling and enjoying drinking)—have the first drink, without the idea fully occupying their mind or doing anything more than flitting lightly through the mind.

Why call it an obsession, then, if it does not involve preoccupation?

Firstly, if resisted, it usually will start to preoccupy the mind.

Preoccupation is the price of resistance.

Secondly, it is obsessive in the sense of occupying a powerful role in the mind’s hierarchy, and being exceedingly difficult to dislodge.

When going head-to-head with other notions, values, principles, or plans, it wins.

When challenged, it clings implacably.

What’s your experience?

12 June 2025: Epiphanies

“The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it.” (Page 83, Big Book)

I was always having Epiphanies but never Pentecosts or Ascensions.

Insight is good but useless unless God enters one’s life, takes control, and elevates one.

What’s your experience?

11 June 2025: Fact-finding

“Taking a commercial inventory is a fact-finding and a fact-facing process. It is an effort to discover the truth about the stock-in-trade.” (Chapter 5, Big Book)

“Here, of course, we have lost all perspective, and therefore all genuine humility. For this is pride in reverse. This is not a moral inventory at all; it is the very process by which the depressive has so often been led to the bottle and extinction.” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

I’ve tried to create a personality for myself in AA with extravagant, lurid, or morbid descriptions of my past self, as if I were saying, “I’m better than you because I was worse than you.”

This is just peacocking in disguise. Strutting my indecorous stuff. My aim was not to create an object of identification but to further separation, with elan, art, and gusto.

When I’m talking about my drinking or my pre-recovery condition, it’s best to stick to the facts and downplay rather than play up.

In a Yom Kippur service, a rabbi said, “I’m nothing!” The chazzan then got up and said, “I’m nothing!” Then a congregant piped up and said, “I’m also nothing!” The chazzan turned to the rabbi and said, “Who does he think he is, being nothing?”

What’s your experience?

10 June 2025: But I hadn’t finished!

“The rule is we must be hard on ourselves, but always considerate of others.” (Chapter 6, Big Book)

“straight thinking, solid honesty, and genuine humility” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

On a number of occasions, I have been asked to stop sharing, with a bell, with a buzzer, with a little red light that went off, with a sign saying, “please stop”, or with the judicious and prompt use of the mute button.

I was complaining about this to someone once, and I said, “I hadn’t finished my share.”

The response: “Oh, but you had. You had finished your share alright. Your allocated time was up. You were now using up someone else’s sharing time.”

What’s your experience?

9 June 2025: Study and right action

“Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness.” (Chapter 6, Big Book)

The two paths of growth: study and right action.

I think, freestyle, for around five minutes a day. The rest of the time: study and right action. I do not need to come up with wisdom. I need to expose myself to it. So I study. And I’m given a body to do something with. It’s not there merely to carry my bloated brain around. So I keep busy.

God apparently dwells in the student of his wisdom and the servant of his direction.

What’s your experience?

8 June 2025: Nonsense

“Nonsense. Some of us have taken very hard knocks to learn this truth: Job or no job—wife or no wife—we simply do not stop drinking so long as we place dependence upon other people ahead of dependence on God.” (Chapter 7, Big Book)

Today, I have an occupation. That means I occupy myself, industriously and diligently, for many hours a day, as many as God’s flow of energies allow. What do I occupy myself with? Whatever God asks me to do. It might look like ‘work’ in the ordinary sense, or it might look like something else. It might be in an office, or it might be sponsoring, or it might be making dessert for the family. Occupied is occupied.

Two things that are not my concern:

Firstly, my livelihood. This matters, but it is in God’s hands. If I occupy myself with my occupation, God will occupy himself with my livelihood, namely providing the sustenance necessary for my occupation. He’s already decided what I need and how to get it to me. If I make a mistake, he’ll reroute. But none of this is my concern.

Secondly, my career. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing. As with ‘livelihood’, the problem is the word ‘my’. It’s not ‘mine’. But worse than that, career is about self, and the programme asks me to abandon self. I cannot have a career and be free of self. Entirely antithetical.

Only this way have I found peace, power, happiness, and a sense of direction: by ceasing to look to myself for power, peace, happiness, and a sense of direction.

What’s your experience?

7 June 2025: Spirit > Reason > Impulse

“I do not hold with those who believe that alcoholism is entirely a problem of mental control.” (The Doctor’s Opinion, Big Book)

In other words, according to the doctor, mental control is indeed a factor. Once the first drink has been drunk, an automated process takes over. Before the first drink, the problem is mental not physical: “Our sound reasoning failed to hold us in check.” (Page 37, Big Book). Impulse overwhelms reason.

Something needs to be superposed above reason to stop it being overwhelmed with impulse, and that something is spirit.

Spirit above reason; reason above impulse

As Grady O’H says, “God isn’t thirsty.”

“By their example they showed us that humility and intellect could be compatible, provided we placed humility first.” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

What’s your experience?

6 June 2025: Primary purpose

“Each day, somewhere in the world, recovery begins when one alcoholic talks with another alcoholic, sharing experience, strength, and hope.” (Foreword to the Third Tradition)

“We are people who normally would not mix. But there exists among us a fellowship, a friendliness, and an understanding which is indescribably wonderful. We are like the passengers of a great liner the moment after rescue from shipwreck when camaraderie, joyousness and democracy pervade the vessel from steerage to Captain’s table. Unlike the feelings of the ship’s passengers, however, our joy in escape from disaster does not subside as we go our individual ways. The feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element in the powerful cement which binds us. But that in itself would never have held us together as we are now joined.” (Page 17, Big Book)

“So the Society of Alcoholics Anonymous cannot, it dare not, ever be diverted from its primary purpose.” (Language of the Heart)

I recently went to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous where 98% of the sharing on substances was on pills and cough syrup. I kid you not. Interesting, theoretically, but I didn’t identify.

What binds me to other people in AA is not substances other than alcohol but alcohol. Not other addictions but the addiction to alcohol. Not other biographical details or experiences I might randomly have in common but alcohol.

Once the alcohol is there, the door is open for identification with other addictions or life experiences. But no alcohol; no identification.

AA works because of common experience. That’s the only novelty AA offers. All other information and practices are borrowed from elsewhere.

This is why there are lots of fellowships: each needs rallying point; a seed around which the saturated solution can crystallise.

What’s your experience?

5 June 2025: Insanity

“Then came the insidious insanity of that first drink,” (Chapter 1, Big Book)

Since taking the first drink is necessary an insane act (in a person, like me, who, when they drink, does so miserably and destructively), any reference to purpose or reason is ill-placed.

If I ask Sally, “For what purpose did you eat the cheesecake,” and she says, “Because I was hungry,” she has stated the purpose of her action, and it is reasonable. If Sally is known to be insane, her stated purpose may or may not be real cause of her eating the cheesecake. We have no way of knowing.

If I ask Sally, “For what purpose did you drink the bottle of vodka?” (this event causing a hangover), and she says, “Because I had a headache,” since the effect represents a magnification of the cause, she is clearly not indicating the real cause behind her drinking it (although she may well believe in her own ‘reasoning’). When insanity might be at play, the subject ceases to be a reliable witness.

Similarly, if I note the consequent (Sally got drunk) and infer a ground (she must have had a purpose), yet the scenario is one of apparent insanity, I’m employing reasoning fit for a scenario in which sanity and reasonableness are presumed: I’m using the wrong tool for the job.

When someone appears to be acting insanely, the reason they give themselves or report to others for the action must be entirely disregarded, and instead we are looking for cause, not reason (in the sense of purpose), and ground–consequent relations are also out of play.

What is the cause of my having the first drink?

(1) The thought of a drink occurs to me
(2) I obey the thought

What is the cause of my having the second and subsequent drinks?

(1) The thought of the next drink occurs to me
(2) I obey the thought

Why not collapse these?

The mechanism appears the same, but there is a fundamental physical difference between the two scenarios.

The first drink occurs when I am sober and renders me in a state where I cannot take the first drink again for some days. It cannot recur in a repetitive sequence like knocking at the door.

The second drink occurs when I have drunk alcohol and is capable of recurring in a repetitive sequence like knocking at the door: the door is restored essentially to the same state it was in before the knock. There’s thus little or no palpable difference between my condition with each additional drink. I go round in a circle.

What’s your experience?

4 June 2025: See and do

“As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day ‘Thy will be done.’” (Page 87, Big Book)

To decide what to do, I must assess what is going on. If I assess what is going on before asking God, that assessment will already have produced a notion of the action to take, of which I may or may not be conscious. If I then ask God what to do, God’s will will conflict with my notion of the action to take. I will then either take the action and produce inner conflict (which will result in me stopping the action after a while or at least considerable pain) or I will not take the action, thus defying God, and thus creating a new problem: my defiance of God. This will make it less likely that I will ask God what to do next time.

When agitated or doubtful, I must first remove my notion of what is going on, as, if I do not know what is going on, I cannot know what to do. God’s revealed will will then not have anything to conflict with, and I can proceed at peace.

I therefore say:

“God, I do not know what is going on here. Now show me what to do.”

What’s your experience?

3 June 2025: No mental defence

“The alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink.” (Page 43, Big Book)

In a healthy person, ideas present themselves and are reviewed, and action is then formulated and taken.

In me, drinking, this is what appeared to be happening. I appeared to be thinking of a drink, soundly assessing the proposition, concluding it was a good idea, and doing it. In other words, it felt like the normal formation and implementation of the will.

Drinking was bad for me, both on the occasions of drinking, the next day, and across my life. I was not, therefore, soundly assessing the facts and the proposal of a drink. The notion I was acting in accordance with my will was therefore an illusion.

For my alcoholism to get me to drink, it must first of all convince me that a drink is a good idea, then erase the awareness that it has done any convincing at all, in other words, it must cover its tracks so that I believe that the idea is mine, the idea aligns with my will, and the idea is as sound as any sound idea that I have.

It must thus do two things at once: convince me whilst concealing the fact it is convincing me.

Occasionally, I will have a vague sense that this is happening:

“I vaguely sensed I was not being any too smart” (Page 36, Big Book)

However, typically, the alcoholism is so successful that its two-part play pays off entirely:

“We now see that when we began to drink deliberately, instead of casually, there was little serious or effective thought during the period of premeditation of what the terrific consequences might be.” (Page 37, Big Book)

I can tell that my drinking was against my will not from how it felt to me when it was happening but by these five criteria:

(1) I drank more than I intended
(2) I did bad things drunk I would not do sober
(3) My drinking was harmful
(4) The next day I regretted my drinking and actions
(5) Over time, the trajectory was downwards

These are the five telltale signs I’m being hoodwinked.

Any one of those five will do.

What’s your experience?

2 June 2025: Surrender

“… he had admitted complete defeat.” (Page 11, Big Book)
 
“I had needed and wanted God. There had been a humble willingness to have Him with me,” (Page 12, Big Book).
 
Two surrenders:
 
I had to surrender and admit that alcohol had defeated me.
 
I had to surrender to a new power: God.
 
What’s your experience?

1 June 2025: Common ground

“All members of the family should meet upon the common ground of tolerance, understanding and love.” (Chapter 9, Big Book)

My job with the family I grew up in is to understand them from their point of view, not to blame them for what I believe, think, feel, or do. In their shoes, I might have done far worse. Compassion, not forensics. I must thank them for giving me life and for all that they did right and entirely overlook any supposed mistakes. I once went so far down the path of investigating my childhood and tracing present phenomena back to the actions of family members I could no longer spend time with my parents. This did untold harm in my relations with them, on top of its profoundly harmful psychological and spiritual effect on me. Fortunately, I course-corrected and was able to make amends for this behaviour before they died.

What’s your experience?

31 May 2025: 999

“We know what you are thinking. You are saying to yourself: “I’m jittery and alone. I couldn’t do that.” But you can. You forget that you have just now tapped a source of power much greater than yourself. To duplicate, with such backing, what we have accomplished is only a matter of willingness, patience and labor.” (Page 163, Big Book)

When I was early in recovery, I got to ‘999’ [‘911’] call other people, because I had no programme.

Now, I ‘999’ call myself when I’m in trouble. I have knowledge and experience, and there are usually lots of things that need to done, resumed, or tightened up. I do not need others to tell me to do inventory, pray, meditate, go to a meeting, return sponsee calls, do spiritual reading, cast through the Big Book or ODAT for useful passages, and get on with fulfilling my everyday obligations.

There will be a point in the process where I need to relate what is going on to friend and consult with a sponsor. And I certainly need to seek God’s guidance and power throughout. But I am to take responsibility and not outsource.

What’s your experience?

30 May 2025: ZEST

“We all get the same results in proportion to our zeal and enthusiasm and stick-to-itiveness.” (Dr Bob’s last talk)

If I’m not getting the results I want from the programme, if life has no ZEST, there’s a problem with my Zeal, Enthusiasm, and STick-to-it-itiveness.

What’s your experience?

29 May 2025: Thinking

“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?” (Chapter 6, Big Book)

This tells me what God’s will is.

Stop thinking about me.

Think about what I can do for others (not “think about others”).

Think about what I can pack into the stream of life.

Think about actions I can take in the time available.

What’s your experience?

28 May 2025: Sustenance

“Being all powerful, He provided what we needed, if we kept close to Him and performed His work well.” (Chapter 5, Big Book)

Trusting God in relation to sustenance (the lowest of the three areas of material life, the higher being family and health) for some (including me) is difficult.

God will do His part if I do mine.

When I do mine …

• Hard-working
• Insouciant
• Grateful
• Humble
• Effective
• Resourceful
• Pragmatic
• Optimistic
• Willing
• Efficient
• Reliable

… the HIGHER POWER is revealed.

What’s your experience?

27 May 2025: Honesty

“act and common sense” (Page 77, Big Book)

“we may need to use a little more discretion” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

“Shush, Henrik!, Goodness, how you gush, Henrik! Hush, Henrik!” (Stephen Sondheim, A Little Night Music)

Honesty is good, but so are tact, discretion, diplomacy, modesty, humility, courtesy, staying in my lane, refraining from interference or self-promotion, patience, tolerance, kindness, respecting the autonomy of others, anonymity, playing the long game, and letting things play out; all of these can license silence over speaking.

I have to be honest with myself, true, but self-examination must be constrained to appointed times, or excessive self-focus distorts the picture.

I have to be honest with my sponsor and my confessor, again at appointed times of seeking counsel or performing confession.

I have to be honest in the sense of absence of foul, ulterior motives and freedom from art and guile.

But honesty in the sense of splatter-gun candour I find it best to avoid.

Does it need to be said? Does it need to be said by me? Does it need to be said right now?

WAIT: Why am I talking?

WAIST: Why am I still talking?

What’s your experience?

26 May 2025: Aim

“We are in the world to play the role He assigns.” (Chapter 5, Big Book)

“If you aim at nothing you hit nothing.” (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings)

If I am at something in the world, I am aiming at nothing, and I will hit nothing.

This is because the world is nothing.

If the world is a theatre where I’m playing a role, the fruit is plastic.

My aim lies outside the theatre: to do as the director wishes.

My aim is not the aim of the character.

He is not real.

What’s your experience?

25 May 2025: Ultimate reality

“We had to unify our Fellowship or pass off the scene.” (Foreword to the Second Edition, Big Book)

“Now and then we may be granted a glimpse of that ultimate reality which is God’s kingdom.” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

“And does not science demonstrate that visual proof is the weakest proof? It is being constantly revealed, as mankind studies the material world, that outward appearances are not inward reality at all.” (Chapter Four, Big Book)

“We found the Great Reality deep down within us.” (Chapter Four, Big Book)

The world is presented as a stage on which people act. The actors are real; the parts they are playing are not.

The ultimate reality is the inward reality, the Great Reality. All else is garment.

What’s your experience?

24 May 2025: Painstaking

“This brought a rush of 800 frantic inquiries into the little New York office which meanwhile had been established. Each inquiry was painstakingly answered” (Foreword to the Second Edition, Big Book)

“If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through.” (Chapter Six, Big Book)

“Step Four is our vigorous and painstaking effort to discover what these liabilities in each of us have been, and are.” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

The three areas where I have to take pains: (1) Step Four (2) Step Nine (3) Step Twelve.

Relationship with myself, relationship with others, relationship with God. What else is there?

What’s your experience?

23 May 2025: The book came first

“The fledgling society, which had been nameless, now began to be called Alcoholics Anonymous, from the title of its own book.” (Foreword to the Second Edition, Big Book)

The fellowship gets its name from the book. Whilst it remembers that, it does well. Without the book, there’s nothing to steer by.

When I forget I’m created by God and get my value, identity, and purpose (VIP) from God, and believe myself self-created, I lose my value, identity, and purpose. Self-guided, I am lost and I have no real power.

What’s your experience?

22 May 2025: Dark and light

“a new light had entered the dark world of the alcoholic” (Foreword to the Second Edition, Big Book)

Sometimes you are looking for something in the dark, and you can’t find it. You turn on the light, and suddenly you realise what you thought you had lost was there all along. Recovery turns the light on and shows that everything was alright the whole time; one simply had not been able to see it.

What’s your experience?

21 May 2025: How am I doing?

“Of alcoholics who came to A.A. and really tried” (Foreword to the Second Edition, Big Book)

I can’t tell how I’m doing by how I feel. I can’t tell how I’m doing by whether or not I’m under mental onslaught from lower forces. How well I’m doing is reflected in (a) whether or not I am successfully refusing to believe in and engage in such thinking and (b) whether or not I’m taking right actions. Eventually feeling will catch up, but not on my timeline. Conversely, feeling good does not mean I’m doing well, and being free of assailing thoughts also does not mean I’m doing well: I’m simply not being tested right now. The devil rarely bothers people who are already in his camp. It’s his lost sheep who he’s after and are subject to his recruitment tactics.

The question is this: Am I really trying? If I’m really trying, right now, with right thought and right action, I’m doing well, even if I don’t feel like it.

What’s your experience?

20 May 2025: Dog

“If what we have learned and felt and seen means anything at all, it means that all of us, whatever our race, creed, or color are the children of a living Creator with whom we may form a relationship upon simple and understandable terms as soon as we are willing and honest enough to try.” (Chapter 2, Big Book)

“The light of truth is in us, where it was placed by God. It is the body that is outside us, and is not our concern. To be without a body is to be in our natural state. To recognize the light of truth in us is to recognize ourselves as we are. To see our Self as separate from the body is to end the attack on God’s plan for salvation, and to accept it instead. And wherever His plan is accepted, it is accomplished already.” (Lesson 72, A Course In Miracles)

If I’m a child (not a creature, not a creation, but offspring) of a living Creator, I am not a body. The living Creator is not material; nor am I. The body and my circumstances—where I am, not who I am. If I’m next to a blancmange or sitting on a sofa, that does not make me a blancmange or a sofa. If I’m going up and down in a lift, that does not make me a lift. None of the so-called facts and circumstances of my life say anything about my nature. It might be my job to use and look after them—to go up and down in the lift, to sit on the sofa, to make and eat the blancmange—but they are not my identity and they are not even the purpose of my life.

When the owner throws the ball, and the dog fetches it, it is the fetching that matters. It’s not about the ball. The ball can be shot to pieces and covered in gnaw-marks, dribble, and mud. The dog doesn’t care. All upset, fear, guilt, and shame would be like the dog identifying with the ball. Except dogs aren’t so stupid. When they’re returning with the ball, they fix their eyes back on the owner, wag their tails, and look up. They don’t care about the ball: they care about the throw. If the ball is lost, they look at the owner and wait for the next ball.

So I look up at God, and say, “Done that. What’s next?”

What’s your experience?

19 May 2025: Hope

“But if you really and truly want to quit drinking liquor for good and all, and sincerely feel that you must have some help, we know that we have an answer for you. It never fails, if you go about it with one half the zeal you have been in the habit of showing when you were getting another drink. Your Heavenly Father will never let you down!” (Dr Bob’s Nightmare, Big Book)

The basis for hope:

• Wanting to stop drinking forever
• Having no reservations
• Recognising one cannot do this alone
• Recognising that one must have help

Whatever intelligence, resourcefulness, and determination was used in getting alcohol, well, half of that, if deployed in favour of getting and staying sober through the Twelve Steps, will be effective.

The resources are there within me, waiting to be tapped.

When I was new, I was not clueless, mindless, pathetic, vulnerable, shy, in need of Special Sharing Slots and people tiptoeing around me, in case I heard something I did not like or understand and ran for the alcoholic hills. I was someone who, through alcoholic drinking, had developed the ability to spin many plates, to find alcohol (and enough of it) under any circumstances, and to withstand any amount of pain and setback. I did put on the waif-act, but it wasn’t true. There was more to me than me the eye, and that more had to be accessed in favour of sobriety.

What’s your experience?

18 May 2025: Good and evil

“Most of us sense that real tolerance of other people’s shortcomings and viewpoints and a respect for their opinions are attitudes which make us more useful to others.” (Page 19, Big Book)

When I’m in my right mind, I leave everyone be, particularly anyone who disagrees with me, does things differently, wants to argue, or has the hump.

“This all meant, of course, that we had substituted negative for positive thinking.” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

“Don’t concern yourself with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because the devil will keep you very busy with the evil and you won’t have any time for the good.” (Frances Hogan)

As soon as I’m in the business of looking at the world, at its good and evil, dividing things up between the two, and then fighting for the good against the evil, or fighting the evil for a good end, I’m engaged in the battle. The devil loves this. Most newspapers and most political conversations seem, to me, to concern evil and how to fix it. A dubious luxury for others, but not for me.

I can be consumed with one resentment because something has not gone my way, even though ninety-nine other things, which might be difficult or challenging but are not, are operating perfectly well. I can be upset with Susan or Bobby, with my home group, with my job, with society, with my country, even though most aspects of each are just fine.

This is so habitual and widespread it seems normal, but it is really a collective insanity, and the devil is simply thrilled.

AA has taught me to live in the solution, which results in the problem going away.

So: no problem-solving. Only solution-living.

This keeps me away from the tree and the apple.

What’s your experience?

17 May 2025: Pot

“You forget that you have just now tapped a source of power much greater than yourself.” (Chapter 11, Big Book)

Imagine a pot of potatoes. It might look full, but you can pour chickpeas in between the gaps left by the potatoes. It might then look full, but you can pour water in and finally add seasonings. Now it’s full. Do you have a potato stew? Not until you add heat. Light the gas, wait, and you’ll have a potato stew.

My material existence is the pot. The potatoes are the service of God. The chickpeas are spiritual and religious study. The water is prayer and meditation. The seasonings are right intent and a constructive attitude. The heat comes from God, and the action of lighting the gas comes from me.

There’s then a little time to eat the stew, and a little time to wash up the pot.

Some lessons:

• The pot is necessary and needs to be looked after but is not the point
• A polished pot impresses no one: what matters is the stew
• I am neither pot nor stew: I’m the cook
• Don’t put anything in the pot but potatoes, chickpeas, seasonings, and water
• Fill up the pot: a half-empty pot is a half-empty life
• Once the pot is full of the above there is no room for anything else
• Everyone’s ‘anything else’ looks different but might include:
  • Unconstructive thinking
  • Wrongful talk
  • Leisure activities that numb, enervate, or dissipate energies
  • Self-serving pursuits
• Without seasonings, the stew is nutritious but insipid
• You have to wait for stew to cook
• Don’t eat the stew until it’s done
• Don’t clean the pot whilst the stew is cooking
• Never clean the pot and the stew will be gross
• You can’t heat the pot without lighting the gas
• If I’m unhappy:
  • There’s something missing from the pot
  • There’s something in the pot that does not belong
  • There’s just not enough stew in the pot, so I’m hungry
  • I’m messing with the process.

What’s your experience?

16 May 2025: Want

“Thus was I convinced that God is concerned with us humans when we want Him enough.”

I was talking to someone who was presently unhappy, and we noticed three things: the person used the phrases ‘I think’ and ‘I want’ and also, in the presentation of the situation, did not mention God.

When I’m thinking and wanting, and ego-ing (edging God out), of course I’m unhappy.

I have to decide first what to want (God) and, based on that, I will be told what to do.

I open the mind, and the thoughts happen to me, suddenly.

When I’m serving God, this happens:

“He suddenly realized that in order to save himself he must carry his message to another alcoholic.” (Foreword to the Second Edition, Big Book)

Or this:

“Ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them.” (Chapter 2, Big Book)

Or this:

“We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.” (Chapter 6, Big Book)

Suddenly, suddenly, suddenly.

Let’s look at Jim’s story, the life based on self; not bad, but based on self.

“I came …, I remember …, I felt …, I had …, I owned …, I had …, I decided …, I felt …, I stopped …, I had …, I thought …, I had the notion …, I had …, I had …, I sat down …, I ordered …, I decided …” (Chapter 3, Big Book)

Suddenly:

“Suddenly the thought crossed my mind that if I were to put an ounce of whiskey in my milk it couldn’t hurt me on a full stomach.” (Chapter 3, Big Book)

The wrong suddenly flows from a life based on self.

The best sudden realisation: the realisation that I do not know:

“It was as if we were actors on a stage, suddenly realizing that we did not know a single line of our parts.” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

When I don’t know, and I know I don’t know, I am open to the right suddenly.

What’s your experience?

15 May 2025: Nothing

“I admitted for the first time that of myself I was nothing; that without Him I was lost.” (Chapter 1, Big Book)

I look at myself in the morning and say, ‘You’ve got nothing for me. You’re nice enough, but you’re not very bright, so dress well and tie your shoelaces good and tight.’ In the condition of nothingness, when I ask, I am given, and abundantly.

“Then only might I expect to receive. But that would be in great measure.” (Chapter 1, Big Book)

“There is need of Thy grace, yea, and of a great measure thereof, that my nature may be conquered” (Thomas à Kempis)

What’s my nature? Block of recalcitrant clay.

What’s your experience?

14 May 2025: Jam jar

“Our ideas did not work. But the God idea did.” (Chapter 4, Big Book)

If one has been trying to be happy for years but has failed, it’s a good idea to admit defeat. If one has been trying to get a jam jar lid off for forty years, and it’s still stuck, it’s a good idea to admit defeat.

Self-reliance doesn’t work. God-reliance does.

What’s your experience?

13 May 2025: Spark

“The spark that was to flare into the first A.A. group was struck at Akron, Ohio, in June 1935, during a talk between a New York stockbroker and an Akron physician.” (Foreword to the Second Edition, Big Book)

For something to catch fire, it must be dry.

Once I was dry of alcohol, and my own ideas ran dry, I caught fire in AA automatically. Fire needs only (a) appropriate conditions (dryness) and (b) proximity.

When twelfth-step work feels like hard work, and the message is not going in, the person is not dry. Pause and return when they’re dry.

What’s your experience?

12 May 2025: Inspect a gadget

“Is not our age characterized by the ease with which we discard old ideas for new, by the complete readiness with which we throw away the theory or gadget which does not work for something new which does?” (Chapter 4, Big Book)

What matters is what works. When I was new, I tried to examine Step Two by pondering the question philosophically and theologically. I had no formal training in and very little formal exposure to either philosophy or theology but was quite full of firm opinions, which I knew were right because they were my opinions and not anyone else’s.

Someone pointed out that, whilst I was debating the existence and nature of the fire brigade, the house was on fire, and I might profitably call out the fire brigade in order to be rescued. I might then have a view of the fire brigade based on actual experience.

What’s your experience?

11 May 2025: Untreated alcoholism

“As long as we placed self-reliance first, a genuine reliance upon a Higher Power was out of the question. That basic ingredient of all humility, a desire to seek and do God’s will, was missing.” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

Untreated alcoholism is not bad circumstances or bad feeling. It’s being in charge of my life, living by these principles:

1. I can do whatever I want
2. No one has the right to command me
3. I recognise no god but myself

It’s possible to be happy and successful for a while with this formula. For a while. But it also opens the door to reactivation of alcoholism, because, when I have the thought of a drink, being my own god, I will obey that thought.

What’s your experience?

10 May 2025: Useful

“a way of living infinitely more satisfying and, I hope, more useful than the life I lived” (page 43)

“really happy and useful living” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

I thought I would find peace on a cushion, examining my thoughts like clouds that are passing. Nope. My mind is hyperactive. That is the way it is built. You don’t sit a hyperactive child down and tell it to learn Latin irregular verbs. You give it a tree to climb or something else vigorous to do. I find peace by buzzing through life, actively and industriously. Full of thoughts and actions and perfectly at peace. Usefulness is the source of happiness. My only aim is to be a good employee for God.

What’s your experience?

9 May 2025 (BONUS): Baffled

“Some drinkers have excuses with which they are satisfied part of the time. But in their hearts they really do not know why they do it.” (page 23, Big Book)

“I wasn’t worried about what it was going to do to me. I just needed it to do something to me. Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol.” (recording of an AA speaker)

The second quotation is a statement I recently heard on an AA tape, which is typical of descriptions of alcoholism by alcoholics in AA.

However, the logic revealed is this:

• I saw a benefit in drinking

• I needed that benefit

• I did not care about any negative results

• I therefore decided to drink.

This is not a description of someone acting under compulsion, someone who has lost control, someone who is drinking against their will. The second quotation above contains a very clear statement that this was indeed in accordance with their will. Their will was misguided, perhaps, but their will it was. One cannot be drinking in accordance with one’s will and against it at the same time. If that is what one wanted, that was in accordance with one’s will.

That is not alcoholism.

To act in accordance with one’s own will is to determine an objective, determine a course of action designed to bring about that objective, then to take that action.

Anyone drinking because they liked the effect, they needed it, they were medicating their feelings, they enjoyed it, or because of any process of reasoning is by definition not alcoholic. Their drinking is in accordance with their will.

Alcoholics are people who will drink even though they do not like it, they do not need it (and, moreover, they need not to do it), they recognise that the drinking is damaging their emotions, and they do not enjoy it; they are drinking despite their reasoning, not in accordance with it.

How can we possibly explain the fact that most drinking narratives in AA set out the ‘reasons’ for drinking and motivations?

Well, someone drinking under the compulsion of alcoholism (mental obsession plus physical craving) is necessarily yielding to the uncontrollable, non-rational impulse to drink. That impulse is not irrational: it is not in the bounds of reason at all. A burp or a hiccough is not irrational. It is non-rational.

But to get me to drink, the alcoholism (if I may personify it) had to construct a lie: that I wanted to, that I needed to, that I liked it, that it helped, that it wasn’t too bad, that the consequences were bearable. Believing the lie, I drank.

How do we know it is a lie? I never woke pleased with how much I had drunk the night before. This splitting of the mind happened daily. Alcoholism mesmerised me into believing its lies, I drank, I drank too much, I woke up realising I had been wrong.

What is active alcoholism?

Either active drinking.

Or the obsession is still active, weaving ‘justifications’, ‘motivations’, ‘reasoning’ for the first drink.

One reason that the presentation of such justifications, motivations, and reasoning for the unjustifiable and unarguably destructive is so common in AA might be that the carriers of such justifications, motivations, and reasoning are in fact still suffering from active alcoholism. They’re just not drinking today. But the mental obsession is still alive, weaving away its narratives, so effectively the individual believes them.

A few weeks before I arrived in AA, I was still prone to such justifications, motivations, and reasoning. Then the scales fell from my eyes, and I realised all of the tales I was telling myself about why I was drinking were untrue: I no longer enjoyed my drinking; what I needed was not to drink; and yet drinking I was. It was then that I realised I was drinking under compulsion not in accordance with my will.

The reason why a madman performs a particular mad act are found in the fact of his madness, not the ‘reasoning’ the madman gives. The reasoning, by virtue of his madness, is, itself, mad. Such reasoning explains nothing. It is the madness, with its impulses, that is the cause; the reason the madman gives himself for the impulse is neither here nor there.

A few weeks of watching my own madness, powerless to stop it, and, bang, there I was in AA.

Once I identified with this line: “in their hearts they really do not know why they do it”, I stopped presenting justifications, motivations, and reasoning. Why did I drink? Because I was alcoholic. My childhood, emotions, reasoning, and surrounding life experiences then dropped out of the narrative about my alcoholism, leaving me with the horror of having the first and subsequent drinks against my will and interests, under the compulsion of a cold, unthinking, non-rational, non-reasoning, monstrous, bestial, fully automated, unstoppable, parasitic addiction.

What’s your experience?

9 May 2025: Agitated or doubtful

“As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action.” (Chapter 6, Big Book)

When I’m not at peace, I either don’t like something (agitated), or I don’t know what to do (doubtful). I must not try and solve these. Instead, I ask as indicated. Sometimes I get an instant answer; sometimes, I don’t. Whilst I’m waiting, I continue to act well and do not pick up the first think. God might appear slow but is never late.

What’s your experience?

8 May 2025: God’s voice

“Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use.” (Chapter 6, Big Book)

In Step Eleven, I ask God for what to think, say, and do today. That’s it. If I don’t hear straight away, I get on with the tasks at hand. If circumstances permit and warrant, I read or listen to spiritual materials and ask for God to speak through those. He does.

What’s your experience?

7 May 2025: Command and Control

“On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day.” (Chapter 6, Big Book)

Each day, I trek up to the Command and Control Centre, where God is holding the board meeting for the day. He’s the only board member. I’m the minute-taker. I do not speak and have no vote. There are seven screens in the CACC showing the past, the future, the world, other people, me, my life, and results. He reviews these, points out anything I’ve done wrong, gives me corrective measures, and gives me the plan for the day.

I take minutes and then go and implement them. I am not permitted to access any of these seven screens at other times. They are none of my business. If, in between times, I need to call God, I can, and He’ll answer and give me a quick, on-the-spot answer. Then I get back to my work as does He.

What’s your experience?

6 May 2025: Power

“But there is One who has all power—that One is God.” (Chapter 5, Big Book)

With power comes responsibility.

If I eat a sandwich, I can use the energy to rob a bank or teach a class. The sandwich is neutral. The energy it provides is neutral. Its value lies in what I do with it. The energy cannot and will not stand in the way of misuse.

When I’m given power, e.g. to be effective in the workplace, I can use that to glorify God or glorify self. The power will work both ways. Even fundamentally good acts, guided by sound principles, if put into the service of selfish ends, will be co-opted by self to further those selfish ends. If I misuse the power for long enough, the supply will be cut off.

When I’m in temptation, all I can see is the thing I am tempted by, and the alternative is a negative space, a desolate expanse. At those times I cannot pray for the alternative, because I do not know what it is. The fact I am in self-will blocks me from knowledge of God’s will, so I am in a Catch-22 situation.

The answer is therefore to ask to be led not into temptation. That is not because God wants to lead me down a bad path but, if I ask nicely, will relent and lead me down a good path. Asking not to be led into temptation means (a) lead me and (b) lead me into a place called not-temptation. When I’m tempted, since all I know is temptation, I’m mesmerised, blinded. All I know about where I’m asking God to lead me is that it is not this, not here, not down this path, anywhere but here.

If temptation were a placed, say Norwich, ‘Lead us not into temptation’ does not mean ‘Please drop your plan to lead us to Norwich’ but, ‘Lead us wherever you like, just not Norwich’. ‘Lead us not into temptation,’ therefore means ‘lead us wherever you like, just not temptation.’

Only then am I saved from abusing the power given me.

What’s your experience?

5 May 2025: Control

“And do not his actions make each of them wish to retaliate, snatching all they can get out of the show? Is he not, even in his best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony?” (page 61, Big Book)

Control can be good. I need to be in control of my physical environment, my home, my schedule, my processes, my temper, my impulses, my emotions, my thoughts, my words, my actions.

Control can be a defect.

Control as a defect is where I inappropriately interfere in others’ lives or joint endeavours.

This is unhelpful because:

• It goes against God’s will
• It sets me in opposition to God
• It cuts me off from God (and thus: …)
• It cuts me off from knowledge of God’s will (Step Eleven commodity no. 1)
• It cuts me off from God’s strength (Step Eleven commodity no. 2)
• It proceeds on the false belief that if I get my own way I and others will be happy and satisfied
• It produces suboptimal results for me and others
• It causes conflict with others
• ⁠It upsets people
• ⁠People will dislike me
• ⁠People will cease to trust me
• ⁠People are less likely to seek cooperation with me
• ⁠People are less likely to want to spend time with me
• ⁠Every time I act on self-will, I’m missing out on doing God’s will
• ⁠It generates fear
• It generates frustration
• It generates resentment
• It generates disappointment
• It generates despair.

What’s your experience?

4 May 2025: Avocation

“Being mostly business or professional folk, we could not well carry on our occupations in such an event. We would like it understood that our alcoholic work is an avocation.” (Foreword to the First Edition, Big Book)

“None of us makes a sole vocation of this work, nor do we think its effectiveness would be increased if we did. We feel that elimination of our drinking is but a beginning. A much more important demonstration of our principles lies before us in our respective homes, occupations and affairs.” (Chapter 2)

I spend a great deal of time on sustenance: my occupation. To the world, this looks important. To me, it is not. It is lowest of the three material domains (family, health, sustenance). But it is the essential vehicle for demonstrating the effectiveness of the programme: the vocation is the shopping bag that carries the avocation, the shopping. What is the shopping? The carrying of the message and being a vessel for God to work in the lives of others. You can’t get the shopping home without the bag, but the bag is not the point.

The princess who marries a farmer is not deeply satisfied with the tomatoes he produces. She grew up with music, art, and other joys of the palace. There is nothing wrong with tomatoes, and she needs tomatoes to live, but tomatoes won’t deliver joy. The soul will never be happy with the material. Might as well try to satisfy hunger by taping sandwiches to your body.

My vocation is necessary to live, but my avocation is necessary for life. My vocation is necessary to create space for me to live in, but it is not life itself. If I’m not living, I’m just taking up space. Without an avocation, I’m the princess eating tomatoes wondering why they’re not Bach.

What’s your experience?

3 May 2025: Unity

“1. Each member of Alcoholics Anonymous is but a small part of a great whole. AA must continue to live or most of us will surely die. Hence our common welfare comes first. But individual welfare follows close afterward.” (Tradition One)

“3. Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover. Nor ought AA membership ever depend upon money or conformity. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an AA group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation.” (Tradition Three)

“If what we have learned and felt and seen means anything at all, it means that all of us, whatever our race, creed, or color are the children of a living Creator with whom we may form a relationship upon simple and understandable terms as soon as we are willing and honest enough to try.” (page 28, Big Book)

The two levels I am to view people are these:

(a) We are all one: children of a living Creator, united under God.

(b) We are all individuals, created to fulfil a particular purpose.

The unity comes first; the individuality comes second.

I get into trouble when I group people together in my mind, by race, nationality, sex, or other parameters. In thinking of ‘us and them’, I’m denying both unity and individuality.

I am best off viewing us all as a unified whole, whilst secondarily recognising the individual, indispensable contribution each person has to bring.

What’s your experience?

2 May 2025: Hang together

“the conviction grew that A.A.’s had to hang together or die separately” (Foreword to the Second Edition)

Tradition One requires unity. But unity does not require uniformity: quite the reverse.

To maintain unity despite lack of uniformity requires me to observe four principles:

• Patience (silently suffering things not being how I would like them)
• Tolerance (not trying to change anyone else or divert them from their path)
• Flexibility (broadening the range of the acceptable)
• Yielding (not opposing the majority)

This makes for a more peaceful time.

What’s your experience?

1 May 2025: Simplicity

When I’m sharing, I endeavour to talk about the programme, the principles, service, and fellowship, and maybe give an example from my life.

The example should be a sentence or two and be instantly understandable.

If the example is complex and would require the listener to sketch out a who’s who or a flow chart and remember lots of detail, I find a better example.

The share is not about my life. It’s about the programme.

I also endeavour to keep the language simple, although I sometimes fail.

Simple content, simple form, simple words, simple ideas.

What’s your experience?

30 April 2025: Why?

“nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools” (Chapter 2, Big Book)

‘Why’ is often not a helpful question. If I’ve been shot, the primary task is to remove the bullet and stop the bleeding. The lessons in ballistics, metallurgy, and anatomy can come later.

Solution first. Analysis, if at all, later.

What’s your experience?

29 April 2025: Active Al-Anon-ism

“He should concentrate on his own spiritual demonstration.” (Chapter Seven, Big Book)

When my Al-Anon-ism is active, here are some of the things I get up to:

• Volunteering for tasks I do not understand
• Launching in to fix situations I do not understand
• Getting it wrong and giving other people work to do
• Not admitting I got it wrong
• Blaming things ‘beyond my control’ (people, things, technology)
• Not paying attention then pleading ignorance
• Not informing myself then pleading ignorance
• Working to improve others’ evaluation of me
• Justification, explanation, and defence when no one asked
• Expressing good intentions to curry favour

When this happens, it means I’m consumed with myself and on autopilot.

The answer to these is self-awareness, pausing, and humility.

Does it need to be said?
Does it need to be said by me?
Does it need to be said right now?

What’s your experience?

28 April 2025: Principles before personalities

“12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.”

When I’m sharing in a meeting, my ideal is to present the content accessibly and humbly. It’s not about me, my image, my reputation, or my profile.

I’m supposed to be the servant delivering the food to the table.

If I don’t know what to say, I don’t say anything.

I don’t speak hoping that a point will make itself.

The servant waits for the kitchen to ring the bell to indicate that the food is ready.

If the bell hasn’t rung, I wait.

What’s your experience?

27 April 2025: Mired

“Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane” (Chapter 6, Big Book)

When I’m in a bad way, I can do on-the-spot inventory to recognise I must dismiss thoughts of fear and resentment, I must switch from selfish to selfless living, and I must abandon planning, plotting, self-deception, secrecy, misrepresentation, or outright lying (the forms of deception). But then, through service, prayer, meditation, study, and gratitude, I must be raised to a higher plane. From that higher plane only can effective written inventory that gets to the core of the matter be written. One must wait for daybreak before surveying the terrain and plotting a course.

What’s your experience?

26 April 2025: Embarkation

“Next we launched out on a course of vigorous action” (Chapter 5, Big Book)

This means we’re boarding a ship. When I board a ship, none of me remains on the shore. When I take Step Three and adopt the programme, I entirely leave behind the life based on self. One cannot be partly on the shore and partly on the ship. The spiritual life is ‘all in’. This means there is no limit to the amount of time I might spend in a day on service (including carrying the message), prayer, meditation, study, and gratitude. The spiritual life is not a periodic excursion to support my life on shore. It is a way of life that takes the place of the life on shore.

What’s your experience?

25 April 2025: Troublesome

“If sex is very troublesome, we throw ourselves the harder into helping others. We think of their needs and work for them. This takes us out of ourselves. It quiets the imperious urge, when to yield would mean heartache.” (Chapter 5, Big Book)

The above applies to any area in which I am tempted towards preoccupation and wrong action.

I need to stay out of the domain entirely, not try to tidy it up.

Any thought, word, or deed on the topic is to be avoided.

Act like it does not exist, but redirecting thoughts, words, and deeds to something else.

Sometimes, once sanity has returned for good, the area can be reactivated but with an entirely new spirit.

Sometimes, I’m best off out of it altogether.

What’s your experience?

24 April 2025: Rock bottom

“But when the broker gave him Dr. Silkworth’s description of alcoholism and its hopelessness, the physician began to pursue the spiritual remedy for his malady with a willingness he had never before been able to muster.” (Foreword to the Second Edition)

“By going back in our own drinking histories, we could show that years before we realized it we were out of control, that our drinking even then was no mere habit, that it was indeed the beginning of a fatal progression. To the doubters we could say, ‘Perhaps you’re not an alcoholic after all. Why don’t you try some more controlled drinking, bearing in mind meanwhile what we have told you about alcoholism?’ This attitude brought immediate and practical results. It was then discovered that when one alcoholic had planted in the mind of another the true nature of his malady, that person could never be the same again. Following every spree, he would say to himself, ‘Maybe those AAs were right …’ After a few such experiences, often years before the onset of extreme difficulties, he would return to us convinced. He had hit bottom as truly as any of us. John Barleycorn himself had become our best advocate.” (Step One, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

The fatality of alcoholism and the ever-present potential activation of an unstoppable process resulting in death are quite distinct from emotional pain and desperation.

One’s actual problems and the emotions one feels (pain and desperation) are two distinct questions. Get these muddled and the focus of one’s efforts will be muddled, too.

A true rock-bottom is the cold realisation of the nature of alcoholism, not panic or sadness.

What’s your experience?

23 April 2025: Oh, Lighten Up!

“If your talk has been sane, quiet and full of human understanding, you have perhaps made a friend.” (Chapter Seven, Big Book)

“It does not lighten our burden when we recklessly make the crosses of others heavier.” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

Sometimes I can use the programme to stop working the programme. What’s an example?

Noting that others are either pissed off with me or are avoiding me, I will try to fix it using the programme. How?

• Over-apologising
• Using the opportunity to disclose my inner world (guilt, shame, self-hatred)
• Actively seeking exoneration or forgiveness from others
• Asking whether this has ‘solved the problem’
• All of this accompanied by emotional writhing and a pitiful desire for approval

I thought this created intimacy, whereas it actually created alienation and pushed people away.

[NB this is sometimes called people pleasing, but my interest was not pleasing people but acquiring a pat on the head like a spaniel. The spaniel cannot conceive of the human’s internal world. Nor could I.]

Instead, I now apologise where necessary and then leave people to come round of their own accord, or not.

What’s your experience?

22 April 2025: Inside not outside

22 April 2025: Inside not outside

“Our liquor was but a symptom. So we had to get down to causes and conditions.” (Chapter 5, Big Book)

Two phrases that have struck me recently. Firstly, someone referred to having been ‘in the madness’, and someone else said that they were ‘struggling with the language of the Big Book’. Of course I know what people mean, but I would phrase these two ideas as follows:

I would say not that I was in the madness but that the madness was in me.

I would say not that I was struggling with the language of the Big Book but that I was struggling with my intolerance.

My ego will always see the problem as outside. It is not. It is inside.

What’s your experience?

21 April 2025: Turning

“I must turn in all things” (Chapter One, Big Book)

Imagine a room with a radio built into the wall. The radio tells me what to do. Now imagine it only has one channel, with no dials: no ability to adjust the volume, no ability to change the channel. That’s me before recovery. I can be excused because I was ignorant that there was another way. The only channel was the devil’s channel. [If you don’t like the word ‘devil’ you can call it the ego, or self, or addiction, or something.]

Now imagine the person coming into recovery. Some technicians come in and adjust the radio. They can’t get rid of the devil’s channel, but they do install a dial, which gives me access to a different station, and I can do what that station tells me to do instead. That new channel is the God channel. The only problem is that the dial keeps turning, by itself, back to the bad channel.

I’m powerless over:

• The system: the fact I have to listen to the radio
• The system: the fact that, to decide what to do, I have to listen to one of the stations on the radio
• How many stations there are (before recovery, one; in recovery, two)
• What each station is broadcasting (the devil and God decide that, respectively)
• The fact that the dial, once turned to the God channel, turns repeatedly back to the devil’s channel.

What I’m not powerless over:

• Turning the dial back to the God channel
• Obeying what the God channel says (knowing what the devil’s channel has been saying)

“Everything is in the hands of God except the fear of God” (in other words: once in recovery, I can freely choose to fear God, in the sense of standing in awe of a great power, who I recognise as the Authority above me).

Powerless, yes; helpless, no.

What’s your experience?

20 April 2025: Slip, fall, jump

“Perhaps your husband will make a fair start on the new basis, but just as things are going beautifully he dismays you by coming home drunk. If you are satisfied he really wants to get over drinking, you need not be alarmed. Though it is infinitely better that he have no relapse at all, as has been true with many of our men, it is by no means a bad thing in some cases. Your husband will see at once that he must redouble his spiritual activities if he expects to survive.” (Chapter Eight, Big Book)

Bill W. coined the term ‘slip’ from the notion of ‘slipping from the grace of God’.

It’s not a slip. It’s a fall.

Except it’s not a fall, it’s a jump.

How does the fall (the jump) take place?

Consider the fall, in the Garden of Eden. Consider the conversation between the serpent (the devil) and Eve. You can go and read about that in your free time. But you’ll have something of an awareness already, I’m sure.

With addiction (alcohol, drugs, other behaviours), it goes like this:

• The devil knocks on the door
• I let him in, to give him an audience
• Whilst he is in the hallway (the first few seconds, before he’s taken his shoes off), there is the opportunity to kick him back out and lock the door (note he’s smaller than me, but quick)
• Once he’s in, he’s much harder to get rid of (he’s quick)
• And I start listening to what he is saying
• What he says sounds rational, so I conclude he is rational
• His premises seem reasonable, so I conclude they are reasonable
• His logic (his syllogisms) seem sound, so I conclude they are sound
• [I’m doing a lot of concluding?]
• And, once he’s done the groundwork, he starts to make suggestions as to a course of action
• And I say: Very good! Yes, sir!
• This is the last moment at which I can be saved, if I call out to God and ask for direction (on my knees)
• If I do not call out to God and ask for direction (on my knees) and then follow that direction, I take the devil’s suggested action.

Once the first action takes place, I’m really lost. The fog descends, and that’s the end of me, until I’m washed up on the other side of the spree.

That’s the slip, the fall, the jump.

The problem lies not in what the devil is saying, the content: the problem lies in having a relationship with him.

Behind every slip, every fall, every jump, I’m hedging my bets instead of trusting God by getting a second opinion, and the only second opinion in town is the devil’s.

What’s your experience?

19 April 2025: Wacky Races

“Whatever the precise definition of the word may be, we call this plain insanity. How can such a lack of proportion, of the ability to think straight, be called anything else?” (Chapter Three, Big Book)

My problem boils down to:

• Wacky beliefs
• Wacky thinking
• Trusting that wacky thinking
• Taking wacky action

True for alcoholism. True for other addictions (including wacky baccy). True for character defects.

Without God, I’m a whackjob, off to the Wacky Races.

With God, restoration to sanity is possible.

What’s your experience?

18 April 2025: Ground level

“With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start.” (Chapter Five, Big Book)

For years, in the past, beset with problems that seemed to have persisted for years, if not decades, I thought: “I just need to up my meetings; do a bit of daily inventory; listen to a few more speakers, talk about it a bit more” etc.

I thought the programme always worked very slowly, so all I had to do was try a little harder, a little longer, “get back to where I was before”, and then everything would be alright.

I would also look regularly down psychological avenues, because the programme was great as far as it went, but it did not go far enough.

The problem was that I did not have a programme at all. I was using the tools of the programme but did not know what they were really for, and I had no Power Source, because I was my own power source, and I am not a power source.

It became apparent I did not have a solution to resentment, fear, guilt, or shame, even though the solutions were presented plainly on pages 63 to 71 of the Big Book. I would even go through some of the motions of these pages (especially ‘writing’) but never fully, never consistently, and never with my full self. The results were, as they say, nil.

It was only when I recognised:

1. I was in serious trouble,
2. I did not have a solution, and
3. There was a solution,

… that I looked again and realised I was at square one with the programme. I had nothing. I had to start from there. The only entrance to the building is at ground level.

What’s your experience?

17 April 2025: Death and sheep

“We were in a position where life was becoming impossible, and if we had passed into the region from which there is no return through human aid, we had but two alternatives: One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could; and the other, to accept spiritual help.” (Chapter Two, Big Book)

“as willing to listen as the dying can be” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

כִּי הוּא אֱלֹהֵינוּ וַאֲנַחְנוּ עַם מַרְעִיתוֹ וְצֹאן יָדוֹ הַיּוֹם אִם־בְּקֹלוֹ תִשְׁמָעוּ

“For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture and the flocks of His hand, today, if you hearken to His voice. (Psalm 95:7)”

1. God gives me everything I need.
2. Grazing animals do not make their own food.
3. Sheep are pretty stupid: they need a shepherd.
4. We are pretty stupid: we need God.
5. I am in God’s hands.
6. When? Today: the day that counts.
7. But there’s a condition: I have to listen. Am I listening?

What’s your experience?

16 April 2025: Power Tools

“We could wish to be moral, we could wish to be philosophically comforted, in fact, we could will these things with all our might, but the needed power wasn’t there. Our human resources, as marshalled by the will, were not sufficient; they failed utterly.” (Chapter Four, Big Book)

“Each of the individuals acknowledged his own defeat as utter and absolute.” (Pass It On)

“And the pain in this mind is so apparent, when it is uncovered, that its need of healing cannot be denied. Not all the tricks and games you offer it can heal it …” (A Course In Miracles)

“‘One cannot teach an old dog new tricks.’ The good news is this: we’re not old dogs; nor is our program a bag of tricks.” (Al Kohallek)

First I have a very serious internal problem. Then I apply all of the solutions. And then I discover that bombarding my problem with solutions does not work. That’s when I go to God, saying, “I have nothing here. I have tried everything. You’re going to have to do something, because I cannot.”

From this point onwards, the previously toothless solutions start bringing about movement and change, because real Power has been accessed.

Strangely, it’s almost impossible to go straight to God. One usually has to relearn from scratch each time that one cannot apply the established solutions using one’s own strength.

The tools are Power Tools. They need a Power Source, and I cannot access the Power Source until I realise I am not a power source.

Before that, it’s like I’m taking a power tool and hitting things with it, as though it’s a hammer.

What’s your experience?

15 April 2025: Calamity, admission of defeat, and appeal to a Higher Power

“The distinguished American psychologist, William James, in his book ‘Varieties of Religious Experience,’ indicates a multitude of ways in which men have discovered God.’” (Chapter Two, Big Book)

“1. Of the three common denominators in the case histories, the first was calamity; each person James described had met utter defeat in some vital area of his life. All human resources had failed to solve his problems. Each person had been utterly desperate. 2. The next common point was admission of defeat. Each of the individuals acknowledged his own defeat as utter and absolute. 3. The third common denominator was an appeal to a Higher Power. This cry for help could take many forms, and it might or might not be in religious terms. The responses were equally varied. Some had thunderbolt experiences, as did St. Paul on the road to Damascus; others had slow, gradual transformation experiences. Whatever the type of the experience, however, it brought the sufferer into a new state of consciousness and so opened the way to release from the old problems.” (Three elements of religious or conversion experiences, as described by William James and recounted in Pass It On (the biography of Bill Wilson).)

Actual defeat; recognition of that defeat; asking a Higher Power for help.

There is a big difference, on one hand, between asking someone for help to acquire some information or some procedure from them so that I can solve my problem, and, on the other hand, asking for help because I have absolutely nothing and I am willing to place myself in the hands of a Higher Power, God, something or someone metaphysical and transcendent and do whatever that Higher Power, that God, that something or someone metaphysical and transcendent commands.

In the first case, the sponsor is a dispenser, an ask-it-basket, a Magic 8 Ball, a fortune cookie, and I’m remaining firmly in charge; I’ll be the judge of the ‘suggestions’. I say things like, ‘I agree’. I will thumb up their message. I will give what they say my seal of approval.

In the second case, the sponsor is the present channel for God. His ‘suggestions’ are really commands. I am at an utter loss, and the suggestion is the only item on the menu. It is that or nothing. There is nothing to do but act as indicated.

What’s your experience?

14 April 2025: Need

“But it was a silly idea that we were too good to need God.” (Chapter Eight, Big Book)

I did not think I needed God.

I thought you had tools, and if you gave me the tools, I would have the tools, then I could use the tools, and I would be OK.

There is only one tool though, which is seeking God on the basis that there are no tools.

What’s your experience?

13 April 2025: Damned-up

“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.” (Chapter Six, Big Book)

“The dammed-up emotions of years break out of their confinement, and miraculously vanish as soon as they are exposed.” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

In Spirited Away, the apparent Stink Spirit (https://ghibli.fandom.com/wiki/Stink_Spirit) seems like a disgusting monster until what seems like a small thorn is pulled out of his side, and, as it is pulled out, a mountain of tangled garbage way bigger than him is extracted, he is instantly transformed, and it is revealed he is a river spirit. Thus: us and Step Five.

What’s your experience?

12 April 2025: Intolerance

“the absence of intolerance of any kind” (Chapter 11, Big Book)

Tolerating others means not seeing others’ flaws but being benevolent: it means deactivating my own fault-spotter: no fault-spotting, nothing to be tolerant of. Instead: see everything as a feature not a flaw. Tolerance is not a balm for a wound but a reclassification.

What’s your experience?

11 April 2025: Quackers

“The man in the bed was told of the acute poisoning from which he suffered, how it deteriorates the body of an alcoholic and warps his mind. There was much talk about the mental state preceding the first drink.” (Chapter Eleven, Big Book)

What is alcoholism?

Imagine a chocolate factory.

The chocolate machine is my brain.

It makes good chocolates (thoughts).

The chocolates are produced by a chocolate machine.

This discharges the chocolates onto a conveyor belt.

But sometimes it makes a chocolate containing deadly poison.

That is the thought of a drink.

Such chocolates are marked with a red skull and crossbones.

There is a Quality Assurance Checker (QUACK).

He checks all the chocolates passing along the conveyor belt.

If he sees one marked as poison, he picks it off.

He then discards it.

Sometimes, he lets a bad one slip past.

This is because he is fallible.

There is no way of training the QUACK to be more vigilant.

And he cannot be replaced.

You are stuck with the QUACK.

The conveyor belt discharges into a great, giant mouth.

The great, giant mouth will thus swallow the thought of a drink.

And then follow it up with an actual drink.

And that is the end of me.

That is alcoholism.

What does God do?

He watches the QUACK.

And, when the QUACK fails, He intervenes.

What’s your experience?

10 April 2025: OK

“Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God’s will into all of our activities.” (Chapter 6, Big Book)

Sometimes I have to work the programme to be OK.

This is normal.

The fact I have to work the programme does not mean I do not have a good programme.

Having a good programme means working the programme each day because I need to each day.

I am not ‘meant’ to be so permanently up to scratch spiritually that I do not need to work the programme.

In the same way that I have to do the dishes because I have done something right, namely prepared and eaten a meal, I need to work the programme each day because I have done something right, namely continued to strive to do God’s will for the past twenty-four hours.

If I was not at risk of surrendering totally to God, the devil would not take an interest.

He leaves people alone who are in his grip. Sliding through life without touching the sides is usually a sign I am in the devil’s hands.

On the spiritual path, I have to be prepared for backlash, machinations, battering rams, and termite armies sent by the devil.

This is all a sign I am doing something right, not something wrong.

A flick of the programme, however, and I am OK.

The ox’s tail flicks away the flies and it carries on ploughing.

What’s your experience?

9 April 2025: F it

“And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone” (Chapter 6, Big Book)

“Surely I could fix what was happening.” (Paths to Recovery)

The four Fs: Fight, force, fix, or figure out

When I’m trying to fight, force, or fix something or figure it out, I’m having an Al-Anon slip.

What’s your experience?

8 April 2025: Welcome to Al-Anon

“The entire family is, to some extent, ill.” (Chapter Nine, Big Book)

“With Step Two and the support of a loving fellowship, we begin to learn how to recognize and accept our own part in the family disease of alcoholism.” (Paths to Recovery)

Here are some patterns that are part of my contribution, as an Al-Anon, to the ‘family disease of alcoholism’.

Doing others’ jobs
Apologising for not doing others’ jobs
Helping when no one asked
Interfering when I do not understand
Talking when no one’s listening
Repeating myself to force others’ actions
Volunteering when I do not know what the job is
Volunteering when I do not how to do the job
Volunteering when I do not have the bandwidth
Dithering instead of saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’
Saying ‘yes’ to avoid others’ upset
Lying instead of saying ‘no’
Talking instead of saying ‘no’
Justifying, defending, or explaining unbidden
Entertaining to curry favour
Speculating on others’ feelings
Fixing others’ imagined feelings
Responding now to future attacks

What’s your experience?

7 April 2025: Entanglement

“So cooperate; never criticize. To be helpful is our only aim.” (Chapter Seven, Big Book)

“The Concepts try to design a structure in which all may labor to good effect, with a minimum of friction. This is accomplished by so relating our servants to their work and to each other that the chances of personal conflict will be minimized.” (Bill Wilson’s essay on the Twelve Concepts)

The Japanese word 葛藤 means either conflict (pronounced ‘kattoo’) or a complex intertwined relationship (pronounced ‘tsudzurafuji’). The two characters refer to two different types of plant, Japanese arrowroot and wisteria, respectively, whose vines tend to get entangled in fields.

When I am in conflict with someone, the boundary between my territory and theirs is blurred or being fought over. What’s the answer? The Twelve Traditions and the Twelve Concepts.

What’s your experience?

6 April 2025: Destructive critics

“Never was I to be critical of them.” (Chapter One, Big Book)

“To begin with, we ought to listen carefully to what they say. Sometimes they are telling the whole truth; at other times, a little truth. More often, though, they are just rationalizing themselves into nonsense. If we are within range, the whole truth, the half truth, or no truth at all can prove equally unpleasant to us. That is why we have to listen so carefully. If they have got the whole truth, or even a little truth, then we had better thank them and get on with our respective inventories, admitting we were wrong.” (Bill W)

The Chinese / Japanese character 攻 means aggression, criticism, and attack, but also means polish. When I’m attacked or criticised, this is an opportunity to improve myself. What did I do that might have elicited this criticism or attack? It obviously is personal, because it was directed at me not the other eight billion people on the planet. The content of the attack might not hit the mark, but there is something going on here that must be learned from. There is a Chinese proverb, 他山之石可以攻玉, tā shān zhī shí kěyǐ gōng yù, which means that you polish jade using a stone from a different mountain. Me looking at me does not always tell me what is going on. Me looking at me through your perception, even if that perception is distorted, is very useful indeed. Sometimes, that is the only way one learns.

What’s your experience?

5 April 2025: Sponsor

“Suppose now you are making your second visit to a man. He has read this volume and says he is prepared to go through with the Twelve Steps of the program of recovery. Having had the experience yourself, you can give him much practical advice. Let him know you are available if he wishes to make a decision and tell his story, but do not insist upon it if he prefers to consult someone else.” (Chapter Seven, Big Book)

I heard someone say they were looking for a sponsor. There are no sponsors. Sponsors do not exist. Such a person is looking for something that does not exist. If such a person finds someone that thinks they are a sponsor, both they and the person are in a little bit of trouble. Of course, I’m being a little facetious. I know what people mean, and I’ve used this language. But the thing I should be after, when looking for a sponsor, is really sponsorship. I should be looking for sponsorship. It’s the content of the relationship, not the person of the sponsor that counts.

There are AA members who transfer their time to explain the AA programme, offer input on how to stay sober and apply the AA programme in one’s life, and provide a certain amount of support and encouragement. This time is diverted from their occupation, home life, interests, and etc. This is sponsorship. It’s given for fun and for free; the sponsor is the giver of a gift, not a service-provider; the sponsee is the recipient of a gift, not a service user; there is no entitlement; there is no transaction.

As a sponsee:

• I seek to be maximally diligent in preparing for my interactions with my sponsor
• I respect the fact that the time is diverted from the sponsor’s other activities so I make the time count
• As when receiving a Christmas gift, when I get something different from what I wanted, or more than I bargained for, I am gracious about it: no pointed silences, huffing, sighing, pushback
• For every hour I receive from a sponsor, I give many hours onwards to others.

What’s your experience?

4 April 2025: Perspective

“Was I crazy? I began to wonder, for such an appalling lack of perspective seemed near being just that.” (Chapter One, Big Book)

“‘Yes. All Hell is smaller than one pebble of your earthly world: but it is smaller than one atom of this world, the Real World. Look at yon butterfly. If it swallowed all Hell, Hell would not be big enough to do it any harm or to have any taste.’” (C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce)

When I’m unhappy, it fills my consciousness.

When I’m in my right mind, the unhappiness disappears into nothingness.

What’s your experience?

3 April 2025: Bullets and Kevlar

“We are without defense against the first drink.” (Chapter 2, Big Book)

“There is a complete failure of the kind of defense that keeps one from putting his hand on a hot stove.” (Chapter 2, Big Book)

“They had said that though I did raise a defense, it would one day give way before some trivial reason for having a drink.” (Chapter 3, Big Book)

“Once more: The alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink. Except in a few rare cases, neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. His defense must come from a Higher Power.” (Chapter 3, Big Book)

Recovering from a gunshot wound does not prevent a person from being shot again. The person would need a defence, say, Kevlar, to stop the bullet.

Recovering from alcoholism does not mean alcoholism will not shoot the thought of a drink my way.

I need a defence: spiritual Kevlar; the ability to continuing acting right, aka grace.

What’s your experience?

2 April 2025: Gratitude

“They should be thankful” (Chapter Nine, Big Book)

“a genuine gratitude for blessings received” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

A way out of gloom:

Before each task, ask God for help.

After each task, thank God for His help in performing the task.

Panning back: When I flick the switch, the light comes on; when I turn the tap, water comes on; when I’m ill, there’s a doctor to help me.

There is always more to be grateful for than not.

What’s your experience?

1 April 2025: Glitter

“There I humbly offered myself to God” (Chapter One, Big Book)

“Can we steadfastly content ourselves with the humbler, yet sometimes more durable, satisfactions when the brighter, more glittering achievements are denied us?” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

“5 The magic of the world can seem to hide the pain of sin from sinners, and deceive with glitter and with guile.” (ACIM)

“4 You can practice the mechanics of the holy instant, and will learn much from doing so. 5 Yet its shining and glittering brilliance, which will literally blind you to this world by its own vision, you cannot supply.” (ACIM)

A bad habit: running the world.

It’s easier to live in the world invisibly. This takes the pressure off. This is not irresponsibility. God’s will is indeed done. This might not glitter below, but it glitters above. Different glitters.

What’s your experience?