Step One and Beyond Daily Topics 2025 Q4

 31 December 2025: Secession

“In its deeper sense AA is a quest for freedom—freedom under God.” (Language of the Heart)

A little bit of historical reading reveals that territories secede then immediately seek to join all sorts of unions, confederations, organisations, associations, or whatnot.

Apparently, being on your own is not all it’s cracked up to be.

I seceded from God but then immediately started to make alliances. Such God-substitutions are fragile, volatile, and fraught.

Best to undo the secession.

Then I can be properly independent and unentangled.

What’s your experience?

30 December 2025: Sisyphus

“Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God’s will into all of our activities.” (Page 85, Big Book)

Sisyphus was condemned for eternity to roll a stone up a hill, only to see it roll down to the bottom, leaving him in exactly the same position each morning.

Certain writers have picked up on this as a metaphor for life, but it’s not quite right.

The illusion is that it’s the same rock.

This gives rise to two errors:

• The belief that yesterday’s work is undone
• The belief in repetition.

In fact, yesterday’s work is safe. Every rock I’ve ever rolled up the hill is still there. All results and benefits are stored forever and cannot be lost.

Secondly, I never have to roll the same stone up. New day; new stone. Also: new hill.

Some more lessons.

Don’t try to roll yesterday’s or tomorrow’s stone up. Can’t be done.

But do roll today’s up, because, if I don’t, I won’t be able to roll it up tomorrow: today, by tomorrow, will be gone forever.

What’s your experience?

29 December 2025: Fellowship vs friendship

“Offer him friendship and fellowship.” (Page 95, Big Book)

What’s the difference between friendship and fellowship?

When people in AA hang out with each other, and they have chosen the ‘other’, that’s friendship.

If they haven’t, and everyone is both welcome and invited, it’s fellowship.

If the attendees of a meeting split into two groups afterwards, and go to two different venues, what they’re doing is friendship.

If they go to the same venue, it’s fellowship.

There’s lots of friendship, and that’s good. But friendship is two-a-penny, and the world is familiar with that. Us and them.

Fellowship is the radical leveller, and it is what brings health, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and therefore physically.

What’s your experience?

28 December 2025: Angle

“We were prepared to look at it from an entirely different angle.” (Page 66, Big Book)

The basic angle: “It hurts me.”

The different angle: “I hurt me. I do this by adopting an interpretation that hurts me. But I do not need to adopt this interpretation. I have no ability to interpret. My role is not to interpret. I withdraw my interpretation.”

Try that.

What’s your experience?

27 December 2025: Disposal

“I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows.” (Page 76, Big Book)

In Step Four, I catalogue my wrong beliefs, thoughts, and behaviour.

That’s putting things in black bin bags.

In Step Five, I share those.

That’s taking out the black bin bags.

God is then the service that collects and disposes of the rubbish.

What’s my role?

So be so thoroughly busy with Steps Eight through Twelve I do not go out and start rummaging through the black bin bags, retrieving all of the trash.

God really does do the removal, but I really do need to keep busy with doing God’s bidding.

What’s your experience?

26 December 2025: Ticket to ride

“My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad.” (Page 76, Big Book)

Now, that passage, from the Step Seven prayer, sounds a lot like Step Three.

Step Three is buying the ticket. But there’s further preparation. Steps Four to Six.

Step Seven is boarding the plane.

What’s your experience?

25 December 2025: Providence

“turning one’s will and life over to a newfound Providence” (Page 35, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

God provides.

Therefore, I do not need others to behave as I see fit: God can work round that.

God provides.

Therefore, I need be frightened of nothing.

God provides.

But I must do my part.

I’m responsible for that.

If my experience of life is bad, that’s not down to God or to others but to me.

What’s your experience?

24 December 2025: Desire

“3. The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.”

Not a need. Not even willingness—that comes later.

Does one ‘want’ to stop drinking (and want to stay stopped and want sobriety itself and all that that entails)? Or is there still a yearning, a double-mindedness, an equivocation, a distaste, a conflict, an uncertainty, a sluggishness, a reluctance, a resistance, or a rebellion?

Desire is either there or it isn’t.

If it is there, it either has the upper hand, or it does not.

The answers might be ‘yes’, ‘not yet’, or ‘no’.

What’s your experience?

23 December 2025: Monster

“Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.” (Page 86, Big Book)

One wakes up directed by the ego—the monster that has caused all the mischief. It’s still grinning at you. It blames all the misfortune it wreaks on others. The alternative to God’s direction is not one’s own but its direction—one is necessarily directed by something.

What’s your experience?

22 December 2025: Bringing the proverbial shovel

“God ought to be able to do anything.” Then he added, “He sure didn’t do much for me when I was trying to fight this booze racket alone.” (Page 158)

When I ask God to remove my fear, or remove my defects, that does not mean I sit back.

I still have to take action.

In fact, all of the visible action must be taken by me.

God firstly directs that action and secondly works behind the scenes.

I ask God to move a mountain, and He hands me a shovel and shows me where to start digging.

What’s your experience?

21 December 2025: Sick

“Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend.” (Page 67)

The notion of someone being ‘sick’ is supposed to naturally elicit tolerance, pity, and patience.

The word’s sense has changed in contemporary English to connote mentally ill, twisted, perverted, pathological, sociopathic, psychopathic, or sadistic. The word’s irrevocably tainted.

It’s best to replace it with a word or phrase that does genuinely do that, for example:

• Under the weather
• A bit peaky
• Having a hard time
• Struggling with life
• Dealing with a lot

What are they dealing with?

Having an ego that has the upper hand and being unaware of God or unable to activate a solution.

They’re trapped, as one, oneself, is frequently trapped. We’re all in the same boat, but some of us, on any given day, are at the soggy end.

What’s your experience?

20 December 2025: Drama

“hereafter in this drama of life” (Page 62, Big Book)

The ego (the self) wants me to be not just on stage but the star of the show, and then to forget I’m merely an actor playing role. It wants me to conflate myself with the part, because, if I remember who and what I really am, I’m liable to reject the ego and return to God.

The drama of life is indeed dramatic, and no one gets out of it alive.

It is impossible to live in the material realm as though it is the only and the ultimate reality without being frightened.

We call this Stage Fright.

Inevitable and incurable on the plane of the world.

The only solution is to remember that this is merely the drama playing out and the Great Reality lies above and beyond.

What’s your experience?

19 December 2025: Checklist

“Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God’s will into all of our activities.” (Page 85)

Here’s a checklist to make sure one is on track every day.

Daily programme checklist

• Morning Step Eleven (page 86)
• Evening Step Eleven (page 86)
• Step Ten practice (pages 84, 85)
• Going to a meeting: sharing, interaction, service
• Processing the day with AA friends
• Step work (if in Steps One through Nine)
• Spiritual development (if in Steps Ten through Twelve)
• Being of service inside AA
• Being of service outside AA

What’s your experience?

18 December 2025: Great Reality

“They had visioned the Great Reality” (Page 161, Big Book)

Is the world real?

If you look up at the stars, and see a constellation, the stars are indeed there, and measurable. But the constellation is a construct in the mind of the viewer: the stars have no intrinsic relationship with each other, or, rather, such relations as there are remain invisible to this ordinary viewer, who imposes their own magical vision on them, seeing scorpions, ploughs, and bears.

Reality is the universe. The world is the construct of astrology.

What’s your experience?

17 December 2025: Speak up or shut up?

“… provided, however, the alcoholic continues to demonstrate that he can be sober, considerate, and helpful, regardless of what anyone says or does.” (Page 99, Big Book)

In other words, I don’t generally need to speak up, let others know what I think or want, or learn to say ‘no’. These are the regrettable exception not the rule. The system is one of flexibility, cooperativeness, and consideration of others.

What’s your experience?

16 December 2025: Show

“We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show” (Page 87, Big Book)

The world is a show. It’s got a sort-of reality of its own, but it’s not ultimate reality.

Pinch of salt required.

But there is an Ultimate Reality.

What’s your experience?

15 December 2025: Books

“There are many helpful books also.” (Page 87, Big Book)

One way:

When I’m confronted with a problem, I pick a spiritual book, open it wherever, and read until I find what helps.

Better than thinking it through on my own.

Let God speak through the material.

If I draw a blank, I try another one.

If something helps, I use it.

If it doesn’t, I don’t.

What’s your experience?

14 December 2025: Counting days

“There will be those who ought to be dealt with just as soon as we become reasonably confident that we can maintain our sobriety.” (Page 83, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

Strictly speaking, we don’t maintain our sobriety. God does.

Sometimes people say that they have had trouble stringing together or cobbling together a few days of sobriety.

That’s the problem. Days are not daisies. Daisies are for stringing, not days. Days are not shoes. Shoes are for cobbling, not days.

I surrender to God, and God keeps me sober. He does the stringing. He does the cobbling.

The whole point of alcoholism is that I can’t, yet He can.

So the job is to get out of the way and keep myself busy with whatever I’m given to do.

Then all the stringing and cobbling happens all by itself.

What’s your experience?

13 December 2025: Humility

“our crippling handicap had been our lack of humility” (Page 71, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

The truth is that, compared to the world as a whole and to God, I’m very small, very stupid, and too silly to understand.

I’ve given up on the whole thinking thing when it comes to my life.

I can think about Japanese sentence structure or Boethius or chemistry if I like, or about how to carry the AA message, but I certainly cannot think about anything with which I’m personally concerned. If I’m personally concerned, I’m a terrible witness. A witless witness. Better to be a silent witness: or witlessly silent. Shut up and recognise I do not know what is happening, not really, and never have, and never will.

This frees up the whole day to Do Things and Think About The Tasks I Am Performing.

Sometimes I catch myself feeling rotten, and, you know what, every single time it turns out I’ve been Doing Thinking, or rather trying to Do Thinking, all by myself, without anyone asking me to.

This is a good point to realise I’m Very Small, Very Stupid, and Too Silly to Understand.

This, I’m told, is Wisdom.

What’s your experience?

12 December 2025: Sitting

“May you find Him now!” (Page 59, Big Book)

I’ve been told to sit with my feelings. No. If I feel bad, I’m having the wrong thoughts. If I’m driving down the wrong road, I do not continue driving. I turn back and take the right road. The people who tell you to sit with your feelings probably don’t know how to turn the car round, so plucky acceptance of misery is then their best bet.

It’s nonsense, though. I don’t need to suffer any longer than I wish to.

God’s there now.

What’s your experience?

11 December 2025: Triage

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Thy will, not mine, be done.” (Page 41, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

When I’ve got a problem, I take it to triage.

I say to God: accept or change?

If it is to be accepted, I must do so immediately, cheerfully, and gratefully, as a splendid opportunity to learn a lesson and watch how God solves problems. Acceptance does not take long. A refusal to accept can be protracted.

If it is to be changed, I take the action now then turn my attention to the Next Right Action.

Problem solved.

What’s your experience?

10 December 2025: Airing cupboard

“In meditation, we ask God what we should do about each specific matter. The right answer will come, if we want it.” (Page 69, Big Book)

When I’ve got a problem, I go to the book and God.

I then leave the matter there until I’m told in my brief daily meditation what, if anything, I’m to do.

This is like leaving something in the airing cupboard to rise.

Leave it there.

Don’t trot it round down, getting everyone to comment on and poke it.

Shut up. It won’t rise, that way.

Let God do His job.

What’s your experience?

9 December 2025: Houston

“We asked God to mold our ideals and help us to live up to them. … Whatever our ideal turns out to be, we must be willing to grow toward it. We must be willing to make amends where we have done harm, provided that we do not bring about still more harm in so doing. In other words, we treat sex as we would any other problem.” (Page 69, Big Book)

Bad news for problems. ‘Houston, we have a solution.’

Here’s the solution in a nutshell:

• Recognise God is the source of everything
• Recognise God is outside time
• Recognise God has already solved the problem
• Ask what, if any, small part is mine to play today
• Play it
• Forget about it
• Return to the topic only if necessary / at the next formal meditation

What’s your experience?

8 December 2025: Theory

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

It has been chastening to learn that, since I have—long ago—taken the Steps described in the Big Book, if I still experience potent, persistent, or recurrent fear or resentment, it is because I want these conditions more than I wanted the solution. The perfect solution is always a moment away, but I do not resort to it in the moment. Why? Because there’s a payoff in the drama, with me as the tragic protagonist, the aggrieved one, the one-eyed man in the land of the blind, the acute observer of the ills of the world, the spotter of flaws.

Rather than letting resentment and fear build up into a personality, brandishing them like battle scars or entry passes into the exclusive club of Poetic Sufferers, Wounded Heroes, Profound Thinkers, my job is to guard the gates against these intruders, and, if one slips in, to expel it immediately. That job is placed squarely within my bailiwick, and I’m given the tools and strength to do it—provided that I ask. No special skills are required: just entry-level tools from the entry-level pages to the programme written for beginners on pages 67 and 68. I can turn on the light any time I want.

What’s your experience?

7 December 2025: Morbid

“But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others.” (Page 86, Big Book)

Morbid, from the Latin for disease.

Good advice generally:

• No negative thoughts about the future
• No negative thoughts about the past
• No negative thoughts about anything else.

What does that leave?

Usefulness.

Boring.

Quite!

What’s your experience?

6 December 2025: Shush

“We had a new Employer. Being all powerful, He provided what we needed, if we kept close to Him and performed His work well. Established on such a footing we became less and less interested in ourselves, our little plans and designs.” (Page 63, Big Book)

The world says:

• You need to take charge of your life
• You have to have dreams
• You have to have plans
• You have to fight for what you want
• You need to find out who you are
• You need to find your voice
• You need to find your tribe
• You need to have goals
• You need to know where you will be in five years’ time
• You need to get your needs met
• You need to say how you feel
• You need to set boundaries
• You are entitled to fulfilment
• You are entitled to success
• You are special

The world is wrong!

What do I need?

God.

What’s your experience?

5 December 2025: Second

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

In many Shakespeare plays, there is a first servant, second servant, etc.

I don’t need a name. ‘Servant’ will do.

And for good measure, ‘second servant’.

No need to try and be number one.

What’s your experience?

4 December 2025: Roach

“It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while.” (Page 66, Big Book)

The first time through the Steps, one can be entirely excused for having a plethora of resentments, because, after all, one has never been shown how not to have them.

Sometimes a couple of goes through the Steps are necessary to really learn the lessons.

The programme proper starts on page 63. By page 67, a universal, comprehensive, and effective solution to resentment has been provided. In Steps Ten and Eleven, resentment is then prevented from gaining a foothold.

A reminder of the solution—accept everything as it is, treat others with pity, patience, and tolerance, and seek only to do God’s will. Not complicated. No exceptions.

A similar story can be told with fear: once we’ve got the method on page 68 of eliminating fear, the job is simply to implement that and keep it up.

It’s quite right that one does inventory over time, but it should be recalled that the getting-rid-of-resentment bit of Step Four is not actually part of the moral inventory: resentment is the defensive shield that must be eliminated before the inventory proper can be done.

My inventories therefore focus almost entirely on attitude and behaviour and do not involve endless elaborate lists of resentments. The moral inventory might note that I have been resentful and fearful, but the ‘mental content’ of such resentments and fears is irrelevant, except to note the area of my life in which I have not been trusting God and have developed a dependence on something material. Resentment and fear, of course, are but two of scores of defects, no more important in themselves than fawning, competitiveness, or prodigality, to name but three at random. The only point in going through resentments and fears systematically the first few times through the Steps is to learn the lessons of their absurdity, futility, and vanity—in both senses of the latter word.

When, on approaching a quarterly or periodic inventory, I have discovered significant resentment and fear, something must have gone very badly wrong. I had not learned the lessons properly in the first place or there had been a deliberate rejection of the programme and its ideas in one or more areas of my life. Rather than endless writing—or in fact any writing beyond the single words ‘resentment’ and ‘fear’—the advice received was quite rightly to proceed immediately to the God-based solutions on pages 67 and 68 to resentment and fear, respectively (surrender, forgiveness, and trust) and systematically banish such thinking, starting right then and there. Immediately, the resentment and fear started to lift.

For a while, until I got the hang of this, year after year, I would brandish great lists of resentments, bragging of quite how many I had discovered. I was proud of myself, thinking I was being a Very Good Boy and doing a Very Good Job. In fact, I was making something of an exhibition of myself.

The drinker, coming too, might find himself surrounded by milk bottles full of cigarette butts and worse, but if someone five years sober finds such items in his rooms, he has perhaps been living like a drunk. Just so with resentment and fear. I was living like a drunk at fifteen years, from an emotional point of view.

Such childish pursuits had to be gotten rid of and then kept at bay, not gradually stored up for each round of lavish and self-indulgent self-examination.

I’ve learned to pull myself up short at the firstly inkling of resentment and fear and God-squash them. Termites. Cockroaches. Step on them. And to have the grace to look very slightly ashamed if I’m caught indulging them.

What’s your experience?

3 December 2025: Vegas

“Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.” (Page 86, Big Book)

Overnight, my ego elopes me to Vegas to marry the unholy triplets of self-pity, dishonest, and self-seeking motives. I need daily, matinal divorce from my polygamous affections.

What’s your experience?

2 December 2025: Four causes

“Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.” (Page 30, Big Book)

The obsession is thus an impulse that comes cloaked in a justification. I have never had to justify putting on a jumper when it is cold, going to church at Christmas, returning a greeting, sending someone a birthday card or thank-you letter, or buttering toast. What is good or neutral requires no justification. Only that which prima facie [on the face of it] is wrong, abnormal, or unexpected requires justification. One justifies an uncharitable act, a peculiar habit, or a response that seems at odds with the facts. One justifies theft on the grounds of hunger; one justifies an aversion to cinnamon on the grounds of an unhappy memory; one justifies taking the long way round on grounds of avoiding Audrey, who lives on the direct route.

During my drinking, I regularly justified my drinking to others, and constantly to myself. Since getting sober, I have regularly ‘explained’ my drinking, which is to say I justified it, with reference to cause, ground, reaction, or purpose. The mere fact of doing so, however, reveals the truth. Only what is wrong, abnormal, or unexpected requires justification. It only requires justification because it is prima facie unjustifiable. It only requires explanation because it is prima facie inexplicable. The fact I am justifying it tells the listener not to believe the justification. The fact I am explaining it tells the listener not to believe the explanation.

The truth is that there was no justification for my alcoholism—or any other addiction. And the explanations given were not real explanations.

The real cause of my alcoholism was this: I’m built in such a way that, once I’ve developed a ‘flavour’ for a substance or behaviour, I will be periodically impelled to return to it. Repeated bad experiences do not prevent the impulse from arising. The application of knowledge and reason do not block the impulse, which has carte blanche.

Thus the cause of my alcoholic drinking is ‘material’ (I’m built as an alcoholic, or, more specifically, I have alcoholic circuitry in my physical brain) and ‘formal’ (the essence of being an alcoholic is to produce the act of drinking). It has neither ‘efficient’ cause (an ‘efficient’ cause is the set of upstream circumstances that provide the grounds for a decision) nor ‘final’ cause (a ‘final’ cause is the purpose for which something is done). [Cf. Aristotle’s four-way analysis of causality.]

In other words, I drink because I am an alcoholic, and what alcoholics do is drink.

I do not drink in response to anything, on grounds of anything, in reaction to anything, or to attain any goal.

And it is the same with any other addiction, chemical or process.

What’s your experience?

1 December 2025: Wake

“On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day.” (Page 86, Big Book)

You can wake up at any time, not just in the morning.

What’s your experience?

30 November 2025: Fog

“On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day.” (Page 86, Big Book)

Sometimes one is blind. Fog. Hold onto the rope, and put one foot in front of the other. One thus arrives safely at the end of the day. Stray? Good luck to you.

What’s your experience?

29 November 2025: Employer

“We had a new Employer. Being all powerful, He provided what we needed, if we kept close to Him and performed His work well. Established on such a footing we became less and less interested in ourselves, our little plans and designs. More and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life.” (Page 63)

If God is the employer, and I am running my own business from His workplace, I will (a) feel guilty (b) feel ashamed and (c) feel frightened I’ll be caught and punished.

This explains the generalised sense of dis-ease all human beings have (whether they realise it or not).

It’s not alcoholism: it’s double-dealing.

We’ve been up to our own little plans and designs, whilst we’re supposed to be on duty for God.

What’s your experience?

28 November 2025: Fourth drink, fourth dimension

“Or perhaps he doesn’t think at all. How often have some of us begun to drink in this nonchalant way, and after the third or fourth, pounded on the bar and said to ourselves, ‘For God’s sake, how did I ever get started again?’” (Page 24, Big Book)

“We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed.” (Page 25, Big Book)

Olivia Newton-John sang:

“Let’s get physical, physical
I wanna get physical
Let’s get into physical”

Let’s not. We’ve done enough of the material world.

Let’s try something different:

“Let’s get metaphysical, metaphysical
I wanna get metaphysical
Let’s get into metaphysical”

Alcoholism takes me to the fourth drink, and beyond: the physical.

God takes me to the fourth dimension, and beyond: the metaphysical.

What’s your experience?

27 November 2025: Ism

“In the preceding chapters you have learned something of alcoholism. We hope we have made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic. If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic. If that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer.” (Page 44, Big Book)

Sometimes people try to separate the ‘ism’ out of ‘alcoholism’ and find some element that has got nothing to do with alcohol, or, without using the morpheme ‘ism’, they throw everything under the heading of alcoholism, as though it’s an ever-expanding Santa’s sack or Mary Poppins’ bag that can accommodate really anything under the sun.

Well, according to the Big Book, alcoholism is about alcohol: being unable to stay away from it and then being unable to put it down.

There is no ‘ism’ of alcohol, separable from the alcohol. Tuberculosis sufferers do not suffer from an ‘osis’ separate from the tubercles of the disease.

The theory that there is an ‘ism’ left over once one has dried out is helpful in recalling that when, one has stopped drinking, there is still something wrong, but that thing wrong is the spiritual malady or the array of human problems besetting any individual, which are usually amplified due to years of alcoholic drinking.

If the human malady is the setting up of oneself in competition to God, then everyone has the human malady.

All human beings have ordinary human problems. Alcoholics, being human, thus have ordinary human problems.

Only alcoholics have the amplified human problems stemming from years of alcoholic drinking, but these are not inherent to the condition; rather, they’re a secondary consequence, in that someone with rheumatism who has to take a lot of time off work might be poorer as a result, but poverty is not a component of rheumatism.

The malady and the ordinary human problems are not components of alcoholism, thus not the ‘ism’.

The amplified human problems stemming from years of alcoholic drinking are also not components of alcoholism but secondary artefacts of alcoholism. Far from being the intrinsic core suggested by the ‘ism’ concept, they are a couple of stages removed from the core of the mental obsession plus the physical craving.

Whilst the ‘ism’ concept is useful in drawing the individual’s attention to the fact that cessation of drinking is not even half the battle, there are two drawbacks.

The first is the suggestion that, since one is always going to be alcoholic, one is going to be suffering in perpetuity on an emotional, psychological, and practical level. I have been to a number of extra meetings recently, at the time of writing, and what is striking is how most shares focus on the continued presence of overwhelming problems, largely emotional and psychological, in response to everyday events. Classifying such problems as a component of alcoholism—from which we have a daily reprieve—can give the false impression that one is condemned, essentially, to being unhappy and incompetent forever, with just enough grace from God not to drink or jump off a bridge. This is not the case. These things really can be solved durably.

The second drawback is the suggestion that such problems fall within the scope of powerlessness. I’ve certainly blamed the ‘ism’ for emotional immaturity, reactiveness, self-indulgence, incompetence, negligence, and other ills that, with diligent work and God’s help, can indeed be resolved quite satisfactorily. One hears this in the excuse that one was late or did not show up at all because one is still ‘unmanageable’. Being perpetually recovering, on this philosophy, one needn’t hurry to lose the unmanageability, but simply accept this as part of the curse of alcoholism.

Rather, the programme encourages me to take responsibility, and, if I do something wrong, I did it wrong. There is no wag without the dog’s tail.

What’s your experience?

26 November 2025: Tissue

“Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid? … But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others.” (Page 86, Big Book)

The Book asks us whether we were these things but does not enquiry further or ask for such items to be elaborated upon in triplicate. These are not to be detailed and gone over again. Step Eleven at night is not an invitation to fish in the bin for every used tissue one blew one’s nose into and threw away in order to examine it, peering, sniffing, and calling others over to look at it and marvel. After all, these questions have already been dealt with during the day in Step Ten. Once is enough.

The job of the Step Eleven review is to take the trash out and identify measures to make myself less susceptible to colds.

What’s your experience?

25 November 2025: Spirit

“Could we still say the whole thing was nothing but a mass of electrons, created out of nothing, meaning nothing, whirling on to a destiny of nothingness?” (Page 54, Big Book)

Some people say there is no spirit, only matter, and that essentially we’re conditioned by physical processes (evolution, genetics, biochemistry, neurochemistry) and that free will is an illusion: we’re just matter.

But who is saying that? If it is matter saying this, then it has no value as a proposition. The statement is being made by nothing higher than a bowl of electrified porridge. The argument cuts off the branch it is sitting on. Matter can have no claim to truth, knowing, understanding, reason, morality, love, or any qualities whatsoever beyond blind mechanical chains of cause and effect. The proposition has no more validity than if it were made by a potato or a Playstation.

What one is left with is the intuition—even in despair—that there is or should be more to life than ‘this’.

What’s your experience?

24 November 2025: Iron

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

When I have negative feelings about a project, I have a habit of wanting to abandon ship before the project is complete.

I’ve learned, instead, to stick it out.

To abandon a project half-way through is to retrospectively waste my own and others’ time already invested in the project.

It is also usually a sign of emotional instability: I’m taking direction from my emotions, and, because they’re unstable, I’m unstable.

Moreover, it does not do me any favours: I’m sending the message to others that any commitment of mine is not to be trusted.

Do I ever abandon a project prematurely or change course? Yes, but I do so neither rashly not hotly. Strike while the iron is cold.

What’s your experience?

23 November 2025: Struggle

“We don’t struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while.” (Page 86, Big Book)

I recently heard someone saying they were ‘struggling’ with a passage in the Big Book.

The Big Book actually suggests I should not struggle.

My job when I find myself struggling with a passage is this:

• Stop struggling
• Accept the proposition
• Put it into practice
• Try this for a while

This resolves matters.

What’s your experience?

22 November 2025: Claim

“the atheist claims proof of the nonexistence of God” (Page 28, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

A very difficult thing to prove.

One would have to claim proof of the non-existence of a metaphysical realm, which, by virtue of its nature, cannot be ‘sensed’ in the way that entities in the physical realm can be sensed, and whose existence, therefore, cannot be proved or disproved in the way one can prove that Marjory is in the drawing room, knitting, or that there is a half-eaten banana pudding in the fridge. Such proofs could be adduced only philosophically, and, unfortunately, one is up against some pretty heavy-weight philosophers over the history when it comes to the existence of the metaphysical realm. You’d have to prove Kierkegaard and Aristotle wrong. Have at it, but I don’t fancy your odds.

One would also have to prove—even if one conceded that there was a metaphysical realm—that there is no Supreme Being in it. Again, we’re back to the problem of the data.

Proving negatives is thus much harder than proving positives, in general, and in this instance.

It is very hard to assert without direct, physical access to the attic that there are no mice in the attic. But hear one and you can be pretty certain that there are mice in the attic.

The level of proof required against the existence of God is so high that the only reasonable position for the would-be atheist is to claim a preponderance of evidence but withhold final, absolute judgement, in other words to withdraw the premature final judgement or ‘prejudice’.

We’re then looking only for any evidence whatsoever of the existence of the metaphysical realm and of there being an entity within it that is good and powerful and capable of intervening directly in human affairs.

For that, we have Exhibit A: AA.

What’s your experience?

21 November 2025: Present fruit

“But there is One who has all power—that One is God. May you find Him now!” (Page 59, Big Book)

“We found the Great Reality deep down within us.” (Page 55, Big Book)

“In AA we saw the fruits of this belief: men and women spared from alcohol’s final catastrophe. We saw them meet and transcend their other pains and trials.” (Step Two, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

One Japanese word for ‘reality’ is ‘現実’, which is made up of two kanji, which, in order, mean ‘present’ (as in the ‘now’) and (amongst other things) ‘fruit’.

Reality is thus the fruit of the present.

What’s your experience?

20 November 2025: Uncontrolled

“Do I aggravate family problems with temper tantrums and uncontrolled words and actions?” (ODAT, 21 October)

Temper tantrums are easy pests to spot. ‘Uncontrolled words and actions’ can be harder. These include feeling compelled to help someone or to try to get them to understand something. It looks like I’m doing ‘good helping’ but really I’m aggravating the problem.

I’ve spent most of my life needing help precisely because I’ve rejected all prior offers of help and ‘failed to understand’ not because I did not understand but because I did not accept or like what I plainly did understand.

People who tried to help or explain further entrenched me in my wilful insistence on being unhappy and hopeless, except it was now their fault I was unhappy and hopeless.

The most helpful people were those who simply waited till I was done and asked them.

Only then did I listen and act.

What’s your experience?

19 November 2025: Cling

“If we still cling to something we will not let go, we ask God to help us be willing.” (Page 76, Big Book)

To not let go of something is to continue to think about it when there is no constructive purpose in doing so.

Method:

Ask God: ‘Help me be willing to let go of this’. Be prepared to look at it differently. Imagine or visualise God looking after the matter at hand. Treat the problem as already solved. Direct attention elsewhere.

What’s your experience?

18 November 2025: Force

“Whenever I give in to my natural impulse and habit to take over and try to force a change, I’m in trouble again. I know I can only make progress when I really believe in, and practice, the First Step.” (ODAT, 30 January)

If I’ve done something wrong, I do need to apologise. It’s best to do so swiftly, simply, and boringly. Understated not overstated.

The purpose of this, however, is not to make someone feel better. It is to clear my side of the street—to fulfil my moral obligation to establish the conditions in which reconciliation is possible.

When someone is upset, I leave entirely alone. I cannot fix it. Anything I say or do will make it worse, so I absent myself entirely, once any mandatory apology and olive branch have been offered.

I cannot force change in others.

I have practice Step One when it comes to others and their paths—they are entitled to their own paths.

What’s your experience?

17 November 2025: Peace

“Whenever a human being becomes a battleground for the instincts, there can be no peace.” (Page 44, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

When I want more than one thing, I’m in conflict.

I am best off wanting only one thing.

When I want only peace, that represents the end of all things.

When I ask for that, I get it, provided I am willing to give up everything that is not conducive to it.

What’s your experience?

16 November 2025: A little

“We realize we know only a little.” (Page 164, Big Book)

Sometimes this line is used to discount the contents of the Book.

The logic runs something like this:

‘Because these fellows know only a little, one cannot trust a thing they say.’

The truth is, they know rather a lot, but they have the humility to recognise that full reality is far greater than any lifetime can apprehend or mind can grasp.

One should take care not to mistake humility for simpleness or bragging for sophistication.

The humble are usually in better contact with reality.

What’s your experience?

15 November 2025: Plums

“We consider our plans for the day.” (Page 86, Big Book)

When I wrote this, I had considered my plans for the day. To consider one’s plans, one must already have plans, and I did indeed have plans, which were perfectly ordinary: work, answering the phone, housework, exercise, eating meals. Nothing unusual or highfalutin. In considering the plans, I was ‘inspired’ to add two items to the list:

• Stew plums
• Get vegetables

Nothing unusual or highfalutin about those.

That was it. Nothing more.

One error is to think that, to have a relationship with God, one is supposed to have ontological or existential realisations, to peel back the surface of the material word, to have psychedelic experiences, to have abstract awareness, in other words that a ‘spiritual experience’ entails something special, colourful, interesting, and wordy.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

A spiritual life is one in which I’m rightly related to God and others, and in which I do what is in front of me to do, which, on the day in question, involved stewing plums and getting vegetables.

What’s your experience?

14 November 2025: Interference

“not to interfere” (Page 148, Big Book)

A good motto.

Do my job.

Don’t do anyone else’s job.

What’s your experience?

13 November 2025: Controversy

“We want to stay out of this controversy.” (Page 69, Big Book)

Some topics are naturally controversial.

When I'm duty-bound to 'pronounce' on a topic that is controversial, I tend to say my bit then leave others to it.

When someone argues with me, when I'm in my right mind, I don't argue back.

For a lot of my life, I thought people were nodding and smiling because they agreed with me.

It turns out that, a lot of the time, they just couldn't be bothered to argue and were being sensible.

They had already learned this lesson.

What’s your experience?

12 November 2025: What we cannot do for ourselves

“We would like to be assured that the grace of God can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.” (Page 76, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

Others can help me with a problem only once I’ve gathered and analysed the facts, ascertained the situation, assessed the options, and come up with a provisional answer or decision.

Whilst I still have to work to do, seeking input is really outsourcing, putting other people to work.

Best not to go to the supermarket and beg outside if there’s food in the cupboard.

I have to pretend I’m on a desert island but one with a library and mine the available resources before spelling out ‘SOS’ in coconuts on the sand.

What’s your experience?

11 December 2025: Lighthouse

“We consider our plans for the day.” (Page 86, Big Book)

Having asked God to direct my thinking, I do this, namely consider the day and its plans. This means casting the light around the situation, the circumstances, anything within sight, to devise what to do today and how to do it.

Imagine the rotating light of the lighthouse.

This should be a relaxed affair.

Slow, unhurried, systematic.

If pressed for time, one really can simply make a list and be done with it.

But there is a value in letting thoughts arise and be dealt with by God, reframed, redirected, repackaged, and reused as the raw material for actions and ideals.

This should not be rushed. One’s done when one is done.

What’s your experience?

10 November 2025: Vouchers

“Faith has to work twenty-four hours a day in and through us, or we perish.” (Page 16, Big Book)

Each day, I’m given 24 hours to ‘spend’. These are the vouchers. I take them to the shop and choose the best ‘goods’ (activities) available. They might not look up to much, but if that’s what’s there, I do the best with what is available. That’s good enough.

If the vouchers are not used, they expire at midnight.

What’s your experience?

9 November 2025: Wanting screen

“The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success.” (Page 60, Big Book)

If I do what the wanting screen in my mind says, I’ll drink. Sometimes it wants to stay sober; someone it doesn’t; sometimes it wants to live; sometimes it doesn’t.

Commitment to the programme is required, which means the willingness to live by a system regardless of what I think or feel at any given moment, regardless of what is displayed on the screen.

What’s your experience?

8 November 2025: Check-up

“12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.” (Page 60, Big Book)

Once sponsorship has ‘worked’ and one has become functional and effective, resorting to the programme when there are emotional difficulties, and relying on God, there’s much less use for intensive sponsorship.

That does not mean it’s over. There will be questions and issues that arise. For the sponsor to respond to those effectively, they have to know what’s going on.

A good way to convey what’s going on is to report in on a regular basis on the three aspects of Step Twelve: spiritual condition, message-carrying, and principle-practice.

What’s your experience?

7 November 2025: Open mic

“If our turn comes to speak at a meeting, we again try to carry A.A.’s message.” (Page 110, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

One can carry AA’s message only if one knows what it is from experience.

The opportunity to share is not an open mic to talk about one’s history, to profile oneself, to complain, to entertain, or to narrate. It’s also not an opportunity to speculate on what the Step might bring by way of experience (so, ‘I’m not on this Step yet, but …’ was not an ideal start to a share). I did a lot of this when new, and it did me no favours. It was ‘suggested’ that I change tack and go with AA experience instead. I was advised, until there’s a message to carry on the topic in question: introduce oneself, identify with a single point already shared, and stop; but I was also advised that, as I was starting to take AA actions, I had relevant experience to share at meetings that did not have a specific topic.

Experience comes first. Insight comes second. The present is very different than anticipated in 20th-century television programmes about the future.

A friend of mine from Australia says, “Sharing is a privilege, not a right.”

What’s your experience?

6 November 2025: Faulty emotional dependence

“No adult man or woman, for example, should be in too much emotional dependence upon a parent. They should have been weaned long before, and if they have not been, they should wake up to the fact. This very form of faulty dependence …” (Page 38, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

Faulty emotional dependence sounds like the dependent person is in a subservient position. Quite the reverse is true. The domestic tyrant is the one whose emotions depend on the behaviour of others, and, without them even needing to say a word, they thereby control the behaviour of others, who consciously or unconsciously alter their conduct to avoid the outburst, the sulk, the glare.

The jailor is indeed jailed, but the jailed is jailed because they are a jailor: that’s the source of the problem.

What’s your experience?

5 November 2025: Hijackers

“As I crossed the threshold of the dining room, the thought came to mind that it would be nice to have a couple of cocktails with dinner. That was all. Nothing more. I ordered a cocktail and my meal.” (Page 41, Big Book)

The mental obsession is not my preoccupation with alcohol. It is the thought of a drink hijacking of my day. It need not be dramatic.

“Thus started one more journey to the asylum for Jim.” (Page 36, Big Book)

Once I’m hijacked, the physical craving ensures that I’m now in a hostage situation. I cannot release myself.

“At the hospital I was separated from alcohol for the last time.” (Page 13, Big Book)

Only God can.

“Save for a few brief moments of temptation the thought of drink has never returned; and at such times a great revulsion has risen up in him. Seemingly he could not drink even if he would. God had restored his sanity.” (Page 57, Big Book)

God keeps the hijackers off the plane, as it were: the thought of a drink rarely occurs. But God also keeps an FBI agent on the plane ready to take out any hijacker who slips through the net.

What’s your experience?

4 November 2025: Affect

“periods of crankiness, depression, or apathy, which will disappear when there is tolerance, love, and spiritual understanding” (Page 127)

It’s tempting, when feeling generally down, to try to inventory it.

Don’t. It won’t work. It will make one more self-obsessed. It increases the rip in the fabric.

One’s general affect (baseline mood) is a function of many things, some of which are under one’s control and some of which are not.

Now, if my general life structure is wonky and I’m misbehaving or not observing basic measures in the areas of the physical, the mental, the social, the practical, the philosophical, the religious, the moral, and the spiritual, my affect will be—affected, and these ‘low-hanging fruit’ need to be addressed pronto (e.g. go to bed early, reduce use of devices, see a friend, tidy a room, read something uplifting, go to church, do something for someone else, and pray more).

However, I do not try to ‘interrogate’ the low state, because it will talk back but only with its own neurotic ramblings. Do not listen. This is the ego or the devil being given a platform.

Rest assured that, if the macro changes are made (in the eight areas above) and if daily inventory is performed, affect will lift, in due course, and on its own schedule.

It won’t be rushed.

What’s your experience?

3 November 2025: Willingness to believe

“My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea. He said, ‘Why don’t you choose your own conception of God?’ That statement hit me hard. It melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years. I stood in the sunlight at last. It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a Power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning.” (Chapter One, Big Book)

“We needed to ask ourselves but one short question. “Do I now believe, or am I even willing to believe, that there is a Power greater than myself?” As soon as a man can say that he does believe, or is willing to believe, we emphatically assure him that he is on his way. It has been repeatedly proven among us that upon this simple cornerstone a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built. (Chapter Four, Big Book)

To believe something means to accept a proposition because there is sufficient evidence for it.

If there is no evidence, to believe the proposition is insane.

To be willing to believe, on the face of it, suggests the following:

• There is no evidence for the proposition
• Therefore, one does not believe
• Yet one wishes to take the proposition to be true
• This involves abandoning the condition of sufficient evidence
• This involves abandoning the basis for discerning reality at all.

To be willing to believe therefore apparently means being willing to abandon the commitment to reality.

This is obviously not what Bill meant, but this is what the phrase, as it stands, suggests. The problematic wording of this has given rise to no small measure of confusion and difficulty with Step Two. People regularly sense this difficulty, but it is hard to put it into words, and people abandon the question entirely.

What might be meant?

The willingness to believe in Step Two is very specific: it is about the restoration of the individual to sanity, i.e. the restoration of the ability to avoid life-threatening actions (taking a drink). The proposition is that a ‘higher power’ is achieving this.

Now, as an atheist, I did not believe in a higher power. Yet I did, by this point, believe that others in AA, who were ex-drunks, had been restored to sanity. I believed that there was a mechanism that allowed this restoration to sanity. I was therefore in a conflicted position: I did not believe in ‘God’, yet I believed that there was an apparently universal, powerful mechanism in operation beyond the nuts and bolts of material mechanisms and common sense—there was something metaphysical in operation. Once I realised this conflict, I had to unwind my certainty about the non-existence of God and extend the notion of a divine power away from the core sense in Christianity, say, to a more generous and less specified idea: a power that gets drunks sober.

What was required of me was a degree of honesty (that others had indeed been helped in a manner that could not be explained in materialistic terms and therefore apparently had a metaphysical dimension), a degree of open-mindedness (about the nature of the metaphysical realm and the nature of entities within it; in others words I had to reopen the investigation), and a degree of willingness, to take actions to investigate this phenomenon by seeking to undergo it myself (i.e. take the Steps and see if what happened to them—restoration to sanity—would happen to me as well).

In other words, Step Two requires me to recognise I already partly believe something and then to embark on a course of action to complete the investigation and strength and expand the belief, perhaps further specifying what it is I believe.

To be willing to believe can therefore be read as being willing to investigate further what I already believe in broad outline, i.e. being willing to gather evidence to strengthen and broaden my existing belief. This does not involve an abandonment of the commitment to evidence as the basis for belief or discerning reality. I already believed others had been ‘saved’, on the basis of evidence, and reason (an evidential process) suggested what had worked for them would work for me. The willingness was the willingness to proceed towards certainty by gathering more evidence. At no point did need reason be abandoned.

What’s your experience?

2 November 2025: Bailiwick

“Remind the prospect that his recovery is not dependent upon people. It is dependent upon his relationship with God.” (Page 99, Big Book)

Common conversation openers with sponsors:

“I’m curious how you would have dealt with …”
“Do you have any experience with …”
“Has it ever happened to you that …”
“What would you do if …”
“I was wondering if you could share some experience, strength, and hope on …”
“Could you please tell me about …”

This is essentially to invite the sponsor to give an impromptu TED Talk on a subject of the caller’s choice whilst the caller reclines with a cigarette or vape and enjoys the customer experience. The approach also smacks of getting the sponsor to set out the wares so that I, as the customer, can peruse them and see if the wares meet my needs—in my perception. It’s a form of auditing, and people know they’re being audited.

A more satisfactory way to approach sponsors or other people with more experience: take the situation at hand, analyse it, apply programme principles, come up one’s best assessment and plan of action, and present the results—in brief—for review.

The sponsor, then, is taking the sponsee from the farthest point they can reach themselves under their own steam, not to adjudicate on the situation but to examine the sponsee’s application of the principles of the programme. The focus is then not on the situation but the principles themselves and their application, which is the proper bailiwick of the sponsor.

The conversation is then not about the sponsor but about the sponsee, which is the right way round.

As a sponsor, it’s all too easy to accept sponsees or others outsourcing their responsibility for doing their homework, mining the literature, praying, and meditation, and thinking things through, instead simply holding forth on the subject presented like a grandee or popinjay.

One should never do for someone else what they can do for themselves, even something as simple as sending someone information or a link when they could find out the information themselves. If they do not know how to find it out, fine, give them the tools to find it out, but never turn oneself into a service-provider, with the sponsee or other person as a service-user. This is what is meant when the book warns against putting our work on the service plane.

[Typical examples of this include asking what page something is on in the book, what the address of a meeting is, what time a meeting from a different time zone is on in one’s own time zone, etc.]

Being put to work in this way does not help the sponsee or other person, as it deprives them of the experience of applying the principles themselves; handing them a solution on a plate might adequately resolve the situation at hand, but the person remains an infant.

Adopting this role of arbiter is also bad for the sponsor. Over-engagement with the individual’s affairs and overstepping the bounds is playing God.

I am responsible for my own recovery, and it has to proceed under my steam, not the steam of the sponsor. When I call for input, I am ideally fully prepared with what I have been doing and where I am stuck, ready to give full reports in response to whatever question is asked, and bubbling over with my own enthusiasm and self-starting. If I’ve been falling short in my actions: fix that first, before calling. I never call people for a solution or input when I’m operating under half-steam myself. The sponsor’s there to channel, redirect, challenge, etc., like a riverbank or other built paraphernalia like a sluice, a weir, a dam, etc. The sponsor is not there to put the water in the river or get the river to flow.

When I call someone, I do not expect them to generate the energy, the impetus, and the content. I’m not there to be kneaded like a piece of dough or rolled out like pastry. That sort of submissiveness looks humble but is not because it is not ‘right-sized’. Lack of humility can be being ‘too small’ as well as ‘too big’. What looks like humility is actually the position of the giant baby in Spirited Away that needs everything done for it even thought it’s the size of a house.

Real humility in AA is taking full responsibility, taking every action indicated, promptly and diligently, and being receptive to direction beyond the furthest point one can reach oneself.

What’s your experience?

1 November 2025: Fellowship

“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.

The tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have discovered a common solution. We have a way out on which we can absolutely agree, and upon which we can join in brotherly and harmonious action. This is the great news this book carries to those who suffer from alcoholism.” (Page 17, Big Book)

A number of years ago, I knew someone who had the following policy:

• Always go to your home group unless you’re out of town or too ill to get out of bed
• Always go to fellowship and have dinner with everyone else.

He understood what it means to join AA. It means joining a home group and committing. Not committing unless something else happens, unless it’s a special occasion of some sort, unless it’s your birthday, unless work is playing up, unless you’re tired, unless you’re bored, unless you’ve done a lot of AA that week or day already, unless it’s a bit of a rush to get there, unless it’s inconvenient, unless it’s a friend’s birthday or other party, unless the buses are up the swanny, unless there’s a particular show you want to see, unless someone’s got tickets for the theatre, unless you’ve got the hump with the group or someone at it, unless you need an early night, unless you’ve had a hard week, or unless you simply don’t feel like it.

He also understood what fellowship means. Fellowship is not friendship. It’s being together with everyone at coffee or dinner after the meeting not because they are your friends but because you’re all in it together. You enter the café or restaurant and sit with who is there. No hesitation. No calculation. No scanning for optimum positioning. Dive in. Leave no one out. Exclude no one. Shun no one. Not the mad, not the old, not the dull, not the ill—because there’s going to be a time when we’re mad, old, dull, or ill, as well, and no one will want to sit next to us. Hold the hand out to everyone, because we’re going to need the hand held back out to us, one day. Length of sobriety has nothing to do with it. Fellowship is friendly and courteous, and one takes an interest in everyone at the table, but it’s not selective or even personal. That’s the principle, the ideal, and, even if one makes mistakes, that’s what one’s growing towards. As soon as one realises the error: correct it.

At a particular group, everyone went to fellowship together. Then a couple of people decided they didn’t like the restaurant (it was greasy, or the service was slow, or it just wasn’t Up To Scratch, even though it could accommodate everyone in the group, which is a rarity, and was cheap), so they broke off to go off with their fancy friends somewhere else. Someone else did the same with their gang (that’s what a clique is—the clique is not the people at the group, it’s the breakaway gang), and he was left on his own with just one other person at the original fellowship venue the group had used for years. The two of them held out. Eventually the other cliques fell apart (they always do, because they’re based on selection and exclusion), and fellowship reverted to the common venue, where everyone was invited and everyone was welcome.

Sometimes, people would show up an hour or more after fellowship started, having crossed the whole of the city to get there, knowing that there would be alcoholics to talk to, because there always were. It was famous in AA.

Why is this so important? In AA, we do not leave anyone behind. We look after the visitors, the newcomers, the stragglers, and the people we would not be friends with ordinarily. There must be no more of a requirement for fellowship than for membership of AA: turning up with plaintive eyes and a desire to stop drinking.

“… here was haven at last.” (Page 160, Big Book)

“But out of this frightening and at first disrupting experience the conviction grew that A.A.’s had to hang together or die separately.” (Foreword to the Second edition, Big Book)

We provide haven for others, and that provision of haven is what provides us with haven.

AA’s not a social club. It’s not a friendship circle. It’s almost the opposite: friendship selects and excludes; fellowship is undiscriminating and includes. Friendship is cunning. Fellowship is too dumb to be cunning. It just grins.

Some indicators reveal whether one has joined a home group and therefore joined AA.

Firstly, if one’s group has a system for arranging cover, does one arrange cover for any reason other than being out of town or too ill to get out of bed? There might be an occasional emergency (I once had to take my elderly mother to Accident and Emergency), but emergencies are vanishingly rare.

Secondly, does one always go to fellowship with the group or does one sometimes abandon fellowship because something more fun or interesting is on offer?

The occasional ‘slip’ is extremely revealing, because it reveals an underlying attitude.

I stopped slipping on alcohol when I stopped slipping on home group and fellowship.

I was told: If you skip your home group once, or skip fellowship once, you’re holding the get-out-of-jail-free card in your back pocket the whole time. Attendance is then conditional. Conditional on nothing better showing up. Attendance is always second best to the opportunity that did not show up. When that is my attitude (which it has been), I’m not even fully there. Every single time it comes to going to the meeting or fellowship, I am asking, ‘is there anything better on offer?’ There’s always one eye on the door. One eye on the door means one eye on drinking. I’m not happy simply being right here, right now. I’m looking for a thrill. Waiting for it. Holding out for it. Boy whistling in the dark (see Chapter Eleven).

In such a condition, I have not joined AA. I am still of the world and am visiting AA—for now.

I’ve been taught: If it’s home group night, and I’m asked to do anything that would interfere with the meeting or fellowship, I go. If I’m asked to speak at another group, the answer is no, because I’m already tied up. The same if it’s someone’s birthday. The same if it’s some other celebration. New Year’s Eve. Hallowe’en. Anything.

No group, no fellowship, no AA.

AA is not a place: it IS a fellowship. No fellowship, no AA.

What’s your experience?

30 October 2025: Getting

“Giving, rather than getting, will become the guiding principle.” (Page 128)

“happy in their release, and constantly thinking how they might present their discovery to some newcomer.” (Page 159)

“if a business occasion, go and attend to your business enthusiastically.” (Page 102)

Once I was at a meeting, and someone said that they hadn’t got much out of the reading (it was Steps Six and Seven in the Big Book).

Fair enough. If he was looking to receive something from the reading and he hadn’t received it, well, there it is: he’s quite right that he hadn’t got much out of the reading. I’m not sure what he was looking for, and he didn’t elaborate. An insight? A new idea? A tip for the day?

The funny thing is, the reading, even though it is short, will yield an awful lot of insight if one thinks about it, and an awful lot of material one can work with. The problem then is not having received something but not having made something of what one has received.

One has to want to, however: the consumption ethic replaces the brain with a digestive system that just consumes but doesn’t know what to do with what it consumes but bloat itself until everything and everyone in sight is eaten (cf. the character 顔無し or Kaonashi, literally ‘no face’, in Spirited Away). Rather than merely swallow, one must interact with what is received. Sometimes I have called another person for input or insight when I already have enough input and insight available to me for seven lifetimes.

To go back to the original point: my aim at a meeting where the book is read is not to get something out of the reading but to find something in it I can use to help carry the message in the meeting.

Ideally, the reading was previously read, and any action set out in it, previously taken; then, there is something to give.

A Big Book study (probably a bad term for it) is not a book club where one gives one’s opinion on the book or the passage read (e.g. when people say that they don’t like the language, or it’s outdated or sexist or something) but an opportunity for the reading to elicit accounts of actions, experiences, and related insights, so others will be helped.

What’s your experience?

29 October 2025: Extreme

“Going to the extreme” (Page 43, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

“I have a disease of more,” people sometimes say, equating their alcoholism with their tendency to want to do more of whatever they like. Yet it is entirely normal to do what yields benefits and to avoid what does not. Normal people do things they like and don’t do things they don’t like. This will sometimes be unboundaried and will run to extremes on occasions, and often that has no great downside. The system is resilient. But even when it does, in normal people, this downside often represents a calculated risk, e.g. a night out means you have a hangover, and a big cake means you have to have to eat salad the next day. Calculated risk-taking is part of normal decision-making. When this runs to extremes, it’s still essentially the distortion of an ordinary mechanism.

This is quite different from the physical craving triggered by an alcoholic consuming alcohol, which is not in accordance with one’s will and calculated risk-taking—it is an automated process that persists even when one does not like it at all. Equating a tendency to extremes with alcoholism, in particular the physical craving, entirely misses the point.

The classification of everything as being like alcoholism (or other deadly conditions like anorexia nervosa) not only trivialises the alcoholism and anorexia whilst overly dramatising the other problem (e.g. ‘sexual anorexics’ do not have to be hospitalised for acute, life-threatening celibacy) but also erroneously suggests powerlessness.

My alcoholism is indeed something akin to a medical condition. Absolutely nothing I could do about the mental obsession without God; absolutely nothing I can do about the physical craving, even with God, so the only solution is not to activate it.

The other unboundaried behaviour, the excesses, the indulgences are essentially about the childish unwillingness to manage my own conduct, to forego short-term gain for long-term gain, to sustain pain, suffering, effort, and uncertainty for a greater purpose, in essence the unwillingness to say ‘no’ to myself. That’s not a disease. It’s immaturity, and I needed not a treatment for a medical condition but simply to start to grow up. Sure, God and the Steps help, but I had to start acquiring the skill myself by making a decision and starting to change my behaviour.

What’s your experience?

28 October 2025: Shouting

“that his whole deportment shouts at the new prospect that he is a man with a real answer” (Page 18, Big Book)

What’s true usually need not be said.

Deportment does most of the saying that’s necessary.

What’s said has an angle.

I’m skeptical of angles.

I’m skeptical of sayings.

Justifications, explanations, defences, expressions of past and future intentions, expressions of disappointment, disgust, and love: all have the capability of being ‘angular’. What needn’t be said is being said for a reason, and the reason is usually control.

What’s your experience?

27 October 2025: One more

“There was always one more attempt—and one more failure.” (Page 151, Big Book)

One more attempt to drink sufficiently to get the hit but without consequences.

One more attempt to wrest happiness and satisfaction from the world by managing well.

One more attempt to bring about change in the world by changing something material.

One more attempt to help those who do not want help.

One more attempt to find security in the physical world.

One more attempt to impress.

One more attempt to flatter.

One more attempt to control.

What’s your experience?

26 October 2025: Condition

“It did not matter too much what our material condition was, but it did matter what our spiritual condition was.” (Page 122, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

When I’m unhappy, the answer always lies in my consciousness, not my circumstances.

A salutary approach: Ask God to show me how to view every fact and circumstance in my life as a gift.

Beyond that—take the next right action and mind my own business (which is my next right action).

I need not lift my head up to survey the world—my job is to transcend that and survey the realm of the spirit, shining through the world.

What’s your experience?

25 October 2025: Hash

“It may be unwise at this stage to rehash certain harrowing episodes.” (Page 84, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

The context of this is Step Nine.

But the idea is interesting: lots of things happened to me in my childhood that were unpleasant. I thought for years I had to process these. But the solution turned out to be the opposite. I had to un-process these. The events were disagreeable in their happening, but the long-term effect arose not from them themselves (as pain passes and does so rapidly if permitted) but from a story I told myself about the events. That was the harrowing—the event was not harrowing in itself; it was merely painful. I harrowed myself. I was a self-harrower. My story needed to be untold. The story was replaced with, “Nothing much happened here. The story about it is unreal. The event was brief and passed. It’s gone. And that’s that.”

In the past, certain people (within and outside AA) queued up round the block to encourage me to focus on the pain, on the wounds, on the past. They offered processing. They treated the story about the event as being as real as the event. They ‘validated’ (whatever that means) the feelings, which usually involved encouraging me to view the story I had told myself as real, authentic, accurate, and meaningful. They made a passing unpleasantness into a permanent horror, then attempted to teach me to live with the horror, as a permanently wounded emotional cripple who now had ‘tools’ and ‘strategies’.

Then I read, at a couple of years sober, a Taoist reading, about the barking of a dog being simply a sound echoing down an empty corridor. It encouraged by the use of this image the un-telling of the story. This changed everything.

Sometimes, in AA, the idea is that our stories are terribly valuable, that they are our identity.

The stories are valuable, but not in themselves: the real value lies in showing other people how we untold the stories we made up and neutralised the past by seeing it for what it was, and, what, indeed, all time, past, present, and future is: an endless sequence of largely neutral events punctuated by moments of pain and moments of pleasure, each of which will past swiftly if allowed.

No harrowing is real.

No rehashing is necessary.

Unhashing: that’s the name of the game.

What’s your experience?

24 October 2025: Principles and procedure

“Following his discharge, we contacted him. Without much ado, he accepted the principles and procedure that had helped us. He is undoubtedly on the road to recovery.” (Page 139, Big Book)

Principles and procedures—the two aspects of the programme.

Without much ado—in other words, once it was explained, that was that. Onward! No extensive explanations, winning over, cajoling. These are best avoided, as they’re usually a waste of time.

My job when presented with the programme is to accept it or walk away.

I was recently talking to someone who was interested in the programme but said they were an atheist. I do not try to offer ideas to someone who already has their own and is happy with them, or there’ll be a clash, and, if I offer and it’s not accepted, well, that, too, is the end of it. Fair play to you!

One must come to this with an entirely open mind, which means unwinding all of one’s conclusions and settled opinions. The data need not be discarded—the fieldwork, after all, is all we have to go on at the start—but what to do with the data is another matter. The principles give me a way of understanding the data; the procedure gives me something to do about it.

Note the singularity of procedure: the Twelve Steps are a single process, not itty-bitty options.

We’re not at the Bellagio buffet.

When the package is suggested, that means it is politely offered, with no obligation to accept it.

It should be noted, however that, whilst the person offering us the programme is in no position to force us, there is a compelling force, coming up fast behind us.

Imaging knocking on an inn door, and the innkeeper, spotting the ravening wolf bounding towards us from behind, says, ‘I suggest you come in, and we close the door.’

He is not compelling one; the situation compels acceptance.

The freedom is entirely illusory; the suggestion a politeness device only, and a reminder that the responsibility for the decision is the individual’s, which entails entire responsibility for the acceptance of the suggestion—or not—and for the follow-through—or not.

Once accepted, the elements are indivisible, and their inclusion in the package is not itself a suggested element.

People sometimes foolishly believe that the individual elements are individually suggested, and we can blithely take what we want and leave the rest, without coming to any harm.

Imagine a chemist’s recipe for making a particular chemical. The textbook suggests the approach, but it is the approach that is suggested, not the individual elements to mix and match.

Imagine being prescribed a medicine. One is not forced to take the whole course, but the suggestion is precisely to take the whole course. The suggestion applies to the prescription as a whole, not each individual dose.

Imagine being offered a job. The classification as offer means there is liberty as to whether or not to accept the offer. If you take a job, the employer would be nonplussed if one were to perform certain tasks and not others, on the basis that each element of the job was merely offered, and one was under no obligation at all to do anything in particular.

Suggestion is a time-limited status, which ends with acceptance.

Once the suggestion is accepted, the programme converted from a suggested programme to an undertaken programme.

To fish out and discard, alter, or skirt any particular element is to renege on the undertaking.

[The above might seem overly insistent; that is not the intention. Much of what we have to convey in AA is simple enough and would be simply accepted were it not of the context of the AA fellowship itself, with misinformation systematically pumped into the consciousness from the highest of authorities, left, right, and centre. The misinformation can take significant work to dislodge. Some examples, in addition to the suggestion fallacy: ‘it’s a selfish programme’, the ‘in God’s time’ amends, sharing ‘for oneself’, not sponsoring until you’re a year sober, a step a year, ‘its not a race’, ‘California sober’, a-separate-programme-for-each-problem, ‘it’s not about the drinking’, the spiritual malady being a feature of alcoholism, unmanageability relating to the living of one’s life generally, separate from alcohol, restlessness, irritability, and discontentment being manifestations of the spiritual malady, the bedevilments being a feature of alcoholism, meetings keeping you sober, service keeping you sober, one’s conception of the higher power can be anything at all, one could increase the list ad infinitum…]

The acceptance in the reading closes the period of suggestion and reflection.

The chef suggests this or that.

Once we order it, however, that’s what we’re getting.

The chef does not suggest we suggest variations in the recipe.

What’s your experience?

23 October 2025: Principal means

“PRAYER and meditation are our principal means of conscious contact with God.” (Page 96, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

Step Eleven refers, of course, to conscious contact with God. I need not worry about how to bring that about. The book tells me my principal means: prayer and meditation. If I attend to those, as indicated, I will have conscious contact.

I need not necessarily be aware that conscious contact is operative. It is quite possible to have experiences that are not conscious contact with God at all but are conscious contact with other metaphysical forces or beings. All that glitters is not go(l)d. It is also quite possible to have experiences that are conscious contact with God without realising it. After all, within the domain of meditation, we are told in the Big Book that God communicates with us through inspiration, an intuitive thought, or a decision (spirit, mind, body), and these channels are active also in the Godless.

The job, therefore, is to attend to what I can attend do and, beyond that, let go entirely of the results and what I think is going on.

If these are the principal means, what are the other means? God appears to be unfussy and will use anything and anyone. The playwright after all is behind everything and everyone on stage.

What’s your experience?

22 October 2025: Reality

“We found the Great Reality deep down within us.” (Page 55, Big Book)

“They had visioned the Great Reality—their loving and All Powerful Creator.” (Page 161, Big Book)

When I’m worried, almost without exception, I’m bogged down in the material, treating the material as what matters. Since the material can go wrong, good sense would licence fear, if the material were all there is.

Sometimes I need to read until the fear goes, and what I read is anything that reminds me I’m spiritual not material, with my material life merely the present venue for my activities.

The exception: sometimes one worries about something purely spiritual, maybe to do with whether or not one is doing God’s will, but that’s a self-indulgence. We’re enjoined (page 68) to trust and rely on God. That means trusting the system of the programme and simply taking its actions without fretting.

What’s your experience?

21 October 2025: Defence

“Save for a few brief moments of temptation the thought of drink has never returned; and at such times a great revulsion has risen up in him.” (Page 57, Big Book)

“If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame.” (Page 84, Big Book)

“He was on thin ice. Again it was the old, insidious insanity—that first drink. With a shiver, he turned away and walked down the lobby to the church directory.” (Page 154, Big Book)

Revulsion … recoil … shiver …

This is the nature of the defence against alcohol.

It’s not common sense and thinking it through.

It’s above and beyond those.

What’s your experience?

20 October 2025: Atheist

“To one who feels he is an atheist or agnostic such an experience seems impossible, but to continue as he is means disaster, especially if he is an alcoholic of the hopeless variety. To be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face.” (Page 44, Big Book)

I used to say, “I am an atheist.”

I think now that my grammar was off: atheism is a position one holds, not what one is.

What ‘being an atheist’ meant:

(1) I had assessed the potential existence of a ‘realm of the metaphysical’.
(2) I believed my assessment was complete.
(3) My conclusion was that there was no such realm, and therefore no god.
(4) I was certain of the above.

It turns out I was on very weak ground. The nature of a metaphysical realm is precisely that it is not physical—it is metaphysical. Its existence and characteristics cannot be determined by observation and measurement of the physical. The investigation might start in the physical but would involve the assessment of one’s own and others’ internal experiences plus logic, reason, inference. Looking for physical evidence for the metaphysical is like trying to learn about someone’s character by testing their blood or looking at their ears. I had not even considered this, though: I had merely noted I had not ‘seen’ anything suggesting or proving the existence of a metaphysical realm and drawn my conclusion on that basis. C. S. Lewis’s investigation of the matter, by contrast, starts not with whether one has seen an angel on the corner of Station Road but with a consideration of the origin or morality. Internal not external. Metaphysical not physical. The question is therefore not even so much whether there is a metaphysical realm but whether that metaphysical realm emerges from the physical or transcends it.

If one is going to examine whether or not a metaphysical realm exists and what its nature is, one must first determine how the existence or nature of such a realm might be determined. I had not passed through this preliminary stage, so my whole assessment was on an unsound basis. I was measuring love with callipers, life with a tape-measure, hope with a thermometer.

And here’s where the believers in the metaphysical realm are much more interesting informants than the non-believers, in the same way that people who have been to Svalbard are much more interesting and informative on the subject than people who have never heard of the place. The playing field is not level between those who do and do not believe in a transcendent metaphysical realm. Those who do have a definite ‘unfair’ advantage.

In any case, far from having an open-and-shut case, it turned out I had not even stopped for a moment to consider the basis on which one might determine whether or not the metaphysical exists, yet I had proceeded to draw the conclusion that I ‘knew’ that there was no divine being.

I was sincere in my certainty, but I turned out I had no sound basis for that certainty.

What’s your experience?

19 October 2025: Unnatural instinct

“Every natural instinct cries out against the idea of personal powerlessness.” (Page 21, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

Whilst there might be a natural instinct that balks against the admission of personal powerlessness over alcohol, it’s interesting how there’s a perverse—and unnatural—instinct not against persona powerlessness but in favour of personal powerlessness when it comes to most other things.

Every time I heap responsibility for my situation, my life, my circumstances, my thought life, my emotions, my decisions, and my actions on something or someone outside my control, I am appealing to the notion of personal powerlessness. I’m saying: I’m a pathetic, lifeless wretch, a pincushion, a punchball. Yet others, who are powerful, have agency. Sally and Clive are responsible for how I feel yet I am not responsible for how either I feel or how they feel. They’re powerful. I’m a victim. Boo-bloody-hoo.

This is attractive because it projects my guilt onto others, and I am relieved of the fear attendant upon guilt. It is delicious, because, as a victim, I’m a superior sort of person, a holy innocent, to whom things are done by the wicked, the wicked, of course, being everyone but me. It serves as an excuse to inflict actual wickedness on others: whatever I do to others is justified by my victim status and whatever I have suffered at others’ hands. Anything now goes. This is why someone adopting a victim stance will prompt others to tense up: when I’m in that stance, I’m retracting only to better pounce.

One sees this in the world more clearly than in one’s own direct experience. Once it is seen in the world, the mechanism can be understood, and one can start to see it pervading one’s interactions and relationships.

What’s your experience?

18 October 2025: Cause and effect

“It set in motion trains of circumstances which brought us misfortune we felt we didn’t deserve. But did not we, ourselves, set the ball rolling?” (Page 67, Big Book)

I let fear in. Once I let it in, it takes the control I have surrendered to it, and it now ‘sets in motion’ trains of circumstances: I make decisions I would not otherwise have made.

The job is not to let it in, and, if I let it in, to kick it out.

What’s your experience?

17 October 2025: Moral and physical

“[Fear] was an evil and corroding thread” (Page 67, Big Book)

Fear is primarily a spiritual question:

Will I trust God or trust myself?

Will I trust God to look after me, or will I trust in pathological, obsessive thinking, plans, schemes, designs, and plots?

Will I trust that the Twelve Steps are enough, or will I look for other methodologies, characterising them as ‘common sense’ or ‘worldly experience’?

Fear is secondarily a question of morals, of character:

Will I be brave or cowardly?

Will I adopt a constructive attitude or will I fret and complain?

Fear thus flows from the positioning of myself as my chief concern, rather than having the Doing of God’s Will as my chief concern.

Once admitted, it is then propagated by surrender to confounding, negative, unconstructive mental attitudes.

Once flourishing, it corrodes the nervous system, feeding off it like a parasite. Its action is then chiefly physical.

Self-regard distorts the mental, the psychological; the effect on the nervous system further affects the mental, the psychological too. The order: spiritual, then mental, then physical.

There is certainly a cognitive or reasoning element, as well, but this is secondary. Once I’ve let fear barge its way in, cognition and reason are co-opted to its cause. Attacking it with cognition and reason might clip its wings but won’t remove the problem at root.

This is why the problem must be solved at the level of the moral, through trusting God not self, having regard for the Doing of God’s Will not the arrangement of life to suit myself, and the development of courage in the place of cowardice.

The problem must also be solved at the level of the physical. When a fear thought tempts, it must be rejected. If admitted, its corrosive action will begin automatically.

What’s your experience?

16 October 2025: Resentment vs fear

“Sometimes we think fear ought to be classed with stealing. It seems to cause more trouble.” (Page 67, Big Book)

Resentment flows from the perception that something has thwarted or is thwarting my plans.

Fear flows from the perception that something might thwart my plans.

These map onto the past and present, on one hand, and onto the future, on the other hand.

They need not, however; one can resent something in the future if it is certain; one can fear something in the past or present if it is speculative.

The real difference between the two, therefore, is not one of timeframe but of certainty. Resentment flows from the certain. Fear flows from the speculative.

Resentment is less emotionally distressing: it is circumscribed by the certain facts.

Fear is too much to handle, because the branching system of possibilities contains too much complexity and too many things to deal with at once.

Give me resentment any day.

What’s your experience?

15 October 2025: Treasure

“For a time he may try to hug the new treasure to himself. He may not see at once that he has barely scratched a limitless lode which will pay dividends only if he mines it for the rest of his life and insists on giving away the entire product.” (Page 29, Big Book)

The point of a spiritual life is its total conversion into giving, in perpetuity. Note: giving away ‘the entire product’.

What’s your experience?

14 October 2025: Thinking

“Knowledge was all-powerful. Intellect could conquer nature. Since we were brighter than most folks (so we thought), the spoils of victory would be ours for the thinking. The god of intellect displaced the God of our fathers. But again John Barleycorn had other ideas. We who had won so handsomely in a walk turned into all-time losers. We saw that we had to reconsider or die. We found many in A.A. who once thought as we did. They helped us to get down to our right size. By their example they showed us that humility and intellect could be compatible, provided we placed humility first. When we began to do that, we received the gift of faith, a faith which works. This faith is for you, too.” (Pages 29 to 30, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

“We realize that the word “dependence” is as distasteful to many psychiatrists and psychologists as it is to alcoholics. Like our professional friends, we, too, are aware that there are wrong forms of dependence. We have experienced many of them. No adult man or woman, for example, should be in too much emotional dependence upon a parent. They should have been weaned long before, and if they have not been, they should wake up to the fact. This very form of faulty dependence has caused many a rebellious alcoholic to conclude that dependence of any sort must be intolerably damaging. But dependence upon an A.A. group or upon a Higher Power hasn’t produced any baleful results.” (Page 38, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)

My job is to think, not to act on impulse, emotion, or autopilot.

The thinking must be positioned in the context of spiritual principles: God first; self out of the picture.

I used to outsource questions to sponsors, etc., to do my thinking for me.

All this under the guise of: “what-a-good-boy-am-I, going to a sponsor rather than relying on self.”

This infancy must be abandoned.

What’s your experience?

13 October 2025: Déjà vu

Six defects to watch out for, because they have a habit of recurring, like the sensation in déjà vu:

Four behavioural:

Defence
Explanation
Justification
Argument

Two attitudinal:

Victimhood
Umbrage

What’s your experience?

12 October 2025: Get in the C-A-R

“We were prepared to look at it from an entirely different angle.” (Page 66, Big Book)

“Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use.” (Page 86, Big Book)

“Logic is great stuff. We liked it. We still like it. It is not by chance we were given the power to reason, to examine the evidence of our senses, and to draw conclusions. That is one of man’s magnificent attributes.” (Page 53, Big Book)

“if trouble comes, cheerfully capitalize it as an opportunity to demonstrate His omnipotence.” (Page 133, Big Book)

What happens if a problem arises? Get in the C-A-R. Constructive Active Reframing. Rather than brooding, say, “Here’s an interesting situation I’m going to enjoy dealing with. God is already showing me how to deal with it. It will involve both riddles and effort, both of which are fun. I have nothing to worry about, because God is looking after me. Suffering is optional!”

So much of unhappiness is simply the result of bad mental habits.

So much of happiness is simply the result of good mental habits.

What’s your experience?

11 October 2025: Spiritual experience

“... you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer.” (Page 44, Big Book)

True of alcoholism. True of everything else.

What’s your experience?

10 October 2025: Corrective

“… inquire what corrective measures should be taken.” (Page 86, Big Book)

I did some inventory. I discovered a number of ‘problems’. I ask God for corrective measures. The answer with every single one was: turn it over, stop thinking about it, do the next right thing, keep it in the day, etc.

This is why daily inventory need not be elaborate. Ultimately, everything’s the same.

What’s your experience?

9 October 2025: Obsession

“My wife and I abandoned ourselves” (Page 15, Big Book)

The other day someone talked about exiting a relationship because it was a source of obsession.

In a sense that’s right, and in a sense that’s wrong.

The relationship that is the source of obsession does need to be left, but it is not the relationship with the other person: it is the relationship with self.

It is self producing the obsession, not the other person.

If one removes the person, the obsession-producing-entity is still intact and will find another object.

What’s your experience?

8 October 2025: Basis

“But after a while we had to face the fact that we must find a spiritual basis of life—or else.” (Page 44, Big Book)

Not a ‘spiritual part of the programme’. A ‘spiritual basis of life’. Of life—of everything. That means my entire life is based on the idea of asking God to direct my thinking, asking God for the right thought and action, and getting on with it. No need for anything else. Letting go of all other supports. Other resources might inform a little, but ultimately it’s down to the eradication of self so I can listen to the voice within.

What’s your experience?

7 October 2025: Only

“… praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.” (Page 59, Big Book)

The solution is doing one thing: God’s will.

I do not need endless lists of what not to do.

I do not need to understand what is wrong.

I need only do what is right.

What’s your experience?

6 October 2025: Worry etc. (I)

“But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others.” (Page 86, Big Book)

Worry, remorse, and morbid reflection are problems not only during the Step Eleven review but generally. They are to be avoided.

What are the antidotes?

Rather than worry, trust God and ask God what to do.

Rather than remorse, clear up the mess then get on with being useful.

Rather than morbid reflection, reflect that God’s in charge and everything is fine.

What’s your experience?

5 October 2025: Worry etc. (I)

“But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others.” (Page 86, Big Book)

More than five minutes of introspection makes worry, remorse, or morbid reflection unavoidable.

It’s like radiation exposure: only a short duration and the radiation poisoning starts to set in.

I have to be careful to avoid using the programme to languish in self either in Step Ten or in Step Eleven.

What’s your experience?

4 October 2025: Simple but not easy

“Simple, but not easy” (Page 14, Big Book)

Someone presented a situation. Advice was given. The person said, “easier said than done”.

Well, with that attitude, yes.

Of course it’s hard.

Did you expect it to be easy?

But implying that hard means impossible, so why bother, will get us nowhere.

One starts with the assumption that the situation can be solved.

Then, one sets about solving it.

Without that assumption, nothing can be accomplished.

With that assumption, anything can be accomplished.

What’s your experience?

3 October 2025: BONUS: Insanity

“life of sane and happy usefulness” (Page 130, Big Book)

When I’m unhappy, I’m insane, which means I’m not seeing anything as it is.

When I’m unhappy, I have questions, usually about the apparently thorniest thing in my life, and I try to talk about these things to others.

If such others are sane, themselves, they will say, “You’re mad. Get sane first. Then we’ll discuss.”

Unfortunately, most people will take what an unhappy person reports as having some sort of relationship with the truth or with reality, will try to tidy it up, adjust it, and make it a bit better.

A lot of activity ensues but nothing changes.

No one wants their perceptual system to be razed to the ground and replaced with a new one.

That is the only thing the Steps really offer, however.

If the Steps do not ruin everything, they’ve not been done right.

They’re not there to improve things.

They’re there to destroy the entire world one lives in, to replace it with a new one.

“A new world came into view.” (Page 12)

It’s possible to do lots of Step actions but not take the Steps.

One needs the right premise and a full battery of actions, for quite some time.

What is the right premise?

That the only sane thing one can say is that one must be quite mad.

In other words, the problem is not him, her, it, them, the world, God, or anything.

When I’m unhappy, I’m not unhappy because of him, her, it, them, the world, God, or anything.

I’m unhappy because I’m an unhappy person.

Same if I’m frightened, angry, or anything but peaceful, trusting, and buzzing along.

The problem is the person, or, really, the persona.

The persona must be destroyed.

“I'm here to kill you, not to judge you.” (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

If one wants to destroy the persona and be left with the person, who will be a complete stranger, then, by all means, take the Steps.

I was willing only when I had so utterly failed I wanted to die.

The only useful thing another person could was to butter the slide to accelerate the descent.

Anyone that tried to help me on the way down was preventing me from hitting a rock bottom.

Get away from them.

Talk to the people who don’t believe a word one is saying, and one might learn something.

What’s your experience?

3 October 2025: Obligation

“Make it plain he is under no obligation to you, that you hope only that he will try to help other alcoholics when he escapes his own difficulties. Suggest how important it is that he place the welfare of other people ahead of his own.” (Page 94, Big Book)

Who do I help?

Those who are willing to help others.

What’s your experience?

2 October 2025: Cockiness and cocktails

“Some of us once had great self-confidence, but it didn’t fully solve the fear problem, or any other. When it made us cocky, it was worse.” (Page 68, Big Book)

“My business came off well, I was pleased and knew my partners would be too. … I ordered a cocktail” (Page 41, Big Book)

“If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. … We are [not] cocky … That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.” (Page 85, Big Book)

Self-confidence leads to a drink. Best be God-confident instead.

What’s your experience?

1 October 2025: Entirely

“And there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without His aid.” (Page 62, Big Book)

We ask God to remove defects. Is that it? No. We have to do the work. Is that a contradiction?

No. God is the head chef. He provides the restaurant, the customers, the kitchen, the equipment, the food, the recipes, the direction, the encouragement, the correction, and all other resources and guidance. I’m the kitchen assistant. I have to do the chopping.

Without the chopping, nothing can be made. The chopping is my job.

Guard the beliefs, guard the mind, act right, promptly and well.

What’s your experience?