Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

by Alcoholics Anonymous

The Seventh Step is where we make the change in our attitude which permits us, with humility as our guide, to move out from ourselves toward others and toward God.

It is really saying to us that we now ought to be willing to try humility in seeking the removal of our other shortcomings just as we did when we admitted that we were powerless over alcohol, and came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

First two steps

If that degree of humility could enable us to find the grace by which such a deadly obsession could be banished, then there must be hope of the same result respecting any other problem we could possibly have.

2/13/2016 me, 2/8/2019 w/ James D., April 11, 2020 w/ Bryan Bass-Riley, 3/25/21 with

See step 4!

It is a task which we may perform with increasing skill, but never really finish.

Learning how to live

he can make little headway in this new adventure of living until he first backtracks and really makes an accurate and unsparing survey of the human wreckage he has left in his wake.

As Bill Sees It p. 145

a willing start is made,

forgiveness.

To escape looking at the wrongs we have done another, we resentfully focus on the wrong he has done us.

Triumphantly we seize upon his misbehavior as the perfect excuse for minimizing or forgetting our own.

Or for taking a drink.

tosspot

bedeviled by sick emotions.

our behavior when drinking has aggravated the de...

In many instances we are really dealing with fellow sufferers, people whose woes we have increased.

why shouldn’t we start out by forgiving them, one and all?

We got a pretty severe shock when we realized that we were preparing to make a face-to-face admission of our wretched conduct to those we had hurt.

Fifth step.

fear conspired with pride

We clung to the claim that when drinking we never hurt anybody but ourselves.

a lively bender

the end result of purposeful forgetting. It is an attitude which can only be changed by a deep and honest search of our motives and actions.

And utter selfishness.

though the harm done others has not been great, the emotional harm we have done ourselves has.

While the purpose of making restitution to others is paramount, it is equally necessary that we extricate from an examination of our personal relations every bit of information about ourselves and our fundamental difficulties that we can.

And Defects

Calm, thoughtful reflection upon personal relations can deepen our insight.

Thoroughness, we have found, will pay—and pay handsomely.

instincts in collision,

Suppose that in our family lives we happen to be miserly, irresponsible, callous, or cold. Suppose that we are irritable, critical, impatient, and humorless.

What happens when we wallow in depression, self-pity oozing from every pore, and inflict that upon those about us?

make daily living with us as practicing alcoholics difficult and often unbearable—could

having decided exactly what personality traits in us injured and disturbed others, we can now commence to ransack memory for the people to whom we have given offense.

Selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear Self-doubt, and over-compensating for it with feeling superior complacency, arrogance, boredom, and entitlement (disguises for laziness, fear, self will, and dishonesty / resentment) - 4th and 10th steps

Then, as year by year we walk back through our lives as far as memory will reach, we shall be bound to construct a long list of people who have, to some extent or other, been affected.

We shall want to hold ourselves to the course of admitting the things we have done, meanwhile forgiving the w...

We should avoid extreme judgments, both of ourselves and of others involved. We must not exaggerate our defects or theirs. A quiet, obj...

the beginning of the end of isolation from our fellows and from God.

A favorite line

everyone came in because they were unhappy Point Breeze Zoom, May 28, 2020, w/ Mike Murray, Mark Sacchetti, Larry Barlow, Nicole 3d year law student, Stephen Strelec, Paul Wood

GOOD judgment, a careful sense of timing, courage, and prudence—these are the qualities we shall need when we take Step Nine.

those who ought to be dealt with just as soon as we become reasonably confident that we can maintain our sobriety.

Most of us begin making certain kinds of direct amends from the day we join Alcoholics Anonymous.

Almost always we want to go further and admit other defects that have made us hard to live with.

those hangover mornings when we alternated between reviling ourselves and blaming the family (and everyone else) for our troubles.

At this first sitting, it is necessary only that we make a general admission of our defects. It may be unwise at this stage to rehash certain harrowing episodes. Good judgment will suggest that we ought to take our time. While we may be quite willing to reveal the very worst, we must be sure to remember that we cannot buy our own peace of mind at the expense of others.

Haha!

First we will wish to be reasonably certain that we are on the A.A. beam. Then we are ready to go to these people, to tell them what A.A. is, and what we are trying to do.

p. 85

when, in rare cases, we get a cool and skeptical reception. This will tempt us to argue, or to press our point insistently.

if we have prepared ourselves well in advance, such reactions will not deflect us from our steady and even purpose.

steps 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8!

We will want to rest on our laurels.

Let’s not talk prudence while practicing evasion.

the intersection of willingness, opportunity, and action, born of honesty and the results of (what we’ve learned from, and the changes made by) the prior steps

some point we will want to summon all our courage, head straight for the person concerned, and lay our cards on the table.