An Unofficial
GUIDE
TO
THE
TWELVE
STEPS
(REVISED)
An Unofficial Guide to
the Twelve Steps
Written by AA Members in Texas
Edited by Paul O.
Forward
The following is a suggested format for a Big Book Step Study Meeting with emphasis on the Fourth Step. Quotations from Alcoholics Anonymous and The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions are with permission of AA World Services, Inc. This does not imply either approval of or endorsement by this organization which, I understand, feels alcoholics should find their own way in their spiritual quest.
The material is presented here in a form which has been used by both individuals and groups of recovering alcoholics in Texas to study the first 164 pages of the Big Book while actually doing the Steps. Their words have been modified somewhat by the Editor who assumes full responsibility for all errors, inaccuracies and misinterpretations.
Welcome to The Land of Beginning Again! If you aren’t satisfied with the way your life has been going and you’d like to chuck the whole thing and start all over again, then you hold in your had a tool for doing just that and for doing it right this time. Beginning again, in the opinion of the editor, is what the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous are all about.
The only authority on the Twelve Steps is the book Alcoholics Anonymous – referred to on the dust cover as “the Big Book, the Basic Text for Alcoholics Anonymous”.
The third and most recent edition of the Big Book contains 575 pages. Personal stories, some of which change with each new edition, make up two-thirds of the book. Only 164 pages, the first third of the book, specifically outline the AA way of life. These pages never change. They are divided into eleven chapters, only seven of which are devoted to an explanation of specific Steps. Each chapter has a title appropriate to the Step(s) covered:
Ch. 1 Bill’s Story---------------------Step 1
Ch. 2 There Is a Solution------------Step 1
Ch. 3 More About Alcoholism-----Step 1
Ch. 4 We Agnostics------------------Step 2
Ch. 5 How It Works-----------------Steps 3 and 4
Ch. 6 Into Action--------------------Steps 5-11
Ch. 7 Working With Others--------Step 12
It’s these 12 Steps, these seven chapters, a mere 103 pages which, when we allow them, change the course of our lives.
While the Fourth Step Guide on pages 17 through 25 can be used by individuals working alone, the remainder of The Unofficial Guide to the Twelve Steps was developed for use by a Step Study Team.
Experience has shown that Teams are most successful when:
You may find it advisable to start the meetings on time and end them when they are over.
1st MEETING – Preface & Forward
On Your Own:
Read the preface and the Forward to the First, Second and Third Editions.
Note that the Forward to the First Edition, the Big Book states: “To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book.” On page 29 at the end of Chapter 2 it says, “Further on, clear-cut directions are given showing how we recovered.” These statements point out the task the team is about to undertake.
With the Groups:
Discuss the purpose, plan and meeting format of the Step Study Team. It is important that each member understand he or she is expected to do each of the Steps and, if possible, to attend every meeting of the team. This is a commitment, a team effort. Frequent progress reports and mutual support via the telephone during the first week are important.
At the first meeting read and discuss The Doctor’s Opinion.
2nd MEETING – Dr’s Opinion; Bill’s Story
On Your Own:
Buy a stenographer’s notebook and begin to note your reactions to the matters set forth in the Doctor’s Opinion. Begin to write “How I was powerless over alcohol.” It is important that you write out any reservations you still have that you are, indeed, powerless over alcohol. Read Chapter 1, Bill’s Story, and be prepared to discuss at next week’s meeting how it applies to your life.
With the Group:
Read Chapter 1, Bill’s Story.
3nd MEETING – There Is a Solution
On Your Own:
Read Chapter 2, There is a Solution, and be prepared to discuss your reaction to this chapter next week. Continue to write how you are powerless over alcohol and begin to consider what in your life you can truly manage. As thoughts occur to you about whether or not you can manage your life, write them down in your notebook.
With the Group:
Read Chapter 2, There is a Solution.
Having read this chapter, what parts apply to your life?
4th MEETING – More About Alcoholism
On Your Own:
Read Chapter 3, More About Alcoholism, and determine how it applies to your life.
With the Group:
Read Chapter 3, More About Alcoholism.
At the bottom of the page and at the end of the chapter,
once again note the only defense against the first drink.
4th MEETING – More About Alcoholism
On Your Own:
Read and be prepared to discuss Chapter4 next week. By now you should have finished writing most of your memories about why you are powerless over alcohol and why your life is unmanageable.
With the Group:
Read Chapter 4, We Agnostics.
6th MEETING – How it Works
On Your Own:
Read and be prepared to discuss Chapter 5, “How it Works”. In your notebook, write those things about God which you cannot believe. On another page, write what you do believe about God. As you go forward from this point it’s those things which to you believe or which fit into your concept of God which you will be using, and you can be comforted in knowing that “Our own conception, however inadequate, was sufficient to make the approach and to effect a contact with Him.” (page 46)
List in your notebook examples of how you have been self-centered in the past.
With the Group:
Read Chapter 5, How it Works.
Discuss the material from the beginning of the chapter to the end of page 63, i.e., to the end of the Third Step.
At this point many teams witness each other’s Third Step decision by reciting the Third Step Prayer together.
7th MEETING – Step 4, Instructions 1 & 2
On Your Own:
In your notebook, continue to list instances where you have been self-centered.
Start to work on Step 4 using the FOURTH STEP GUIDE starting on page 17. Follow instructions 1 and 2 and write you Grudge List.
With the Group:
Read and discuss the FOURTH STEP GUIDE: Instruction 1 – Resentments, and Instruction 2 – Grudge List.
|
Hereafter, follow the FOURTH STEP GUIDE On pages 17 to 25 while continuing the meeting assignments which continue on the next page. |
8th MEETING – Step 4; Instructions 3-5
On Your Own:
Follow Fourth Step Guide Instructions 3 through 5.
With the Group:
Read Instruction 3 through 5 and discuss any problem you are having.
9th MEETING – Step 4; Instructions 1-6
On Your Own:
Complete your work on Instructions 1 though 5. Then follow Instruction 6.
With the Group:
Discuss the work you have done so far and any problems you are having with Instructions 1 though 6. Assist those team members who are having problems with their Inventory. This may include spending time with them during the week.
10th MEETING – Step 4; Instructions 7-9
On Your Own:
Follow Instructions 7, 8 and 9.
With the Group:
Review the writing you have done for Instructions 7, 8 and 9., and discuss any problems you or other team members are having.
11th MEETING – Step 4; Instructions 10 & 11
On Your Own:
Follow Instructions 10 and 11.
With the Group:
Review and discuss in general what you have written on sex. Do not give specifics or tell “war stories”. These are not appropriate for this meeting.
12th MEETING – Into Action
On Your Own:
Find someone with whom to take your Fifth Step. Make a specific appointment and take this Step. Read Chapter 6, “Into Action”.
With the Group:
Read and discuss Chapter 6, especially pages 72 through75 having to do with the Fifth Step.
13th MEETING – Step 5; Step 6
On Your Own:
If you haven’t taken your Fifth Step, do so this week. [Don’t worry too much who that person will be. Anyone is better than no one, but because it is a spiritual experience you might want to share it with someone on the program rather than with an outsider. – Ed]
Read Chapter 6 in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.
With the Group:
Discuss this chapter and the Sixth Step.
14th MEETING – Step 7
On Your Own:
Read the first two paragraphs on page 76 in the Big Book and Chapter 7 in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.
With the Group:
Read and discus the assignment.
15th MEETING – Step 8
On Your Own:
Read from the middle of page 76 to the middle of page 77 in The Big Book and Chapter 8 in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.
Note that The Big Book assumes you made a list of persons you had harmed when you wrote your inventory. If you didn’t, complete such a list now. Don’t concern yourself at this time with whether or not you should, or will be able to, actually make the amends.
With the Group:
Read and discuss the assignment. Discuss amends and amends list.
16th MEETING – Step 9
On Your Own:
Read and discuss pages 76 through 84 in The Big Book and Chapter 9 in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.
With the Group:
Read and discuss the assignment.
17th MEETING – Step 10
On Your Own:
Read Chapter 10 in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions and from the bottom of page 83 to the bottom of page 85 in The Big Book.
With the Group:
Read and discuss the assignment.
18th MEETING – Step 11
On Your Own:
Read bottom of page 85 to end of the chapter. Read chapter 11 in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.
With the Group:
Read and discuss the assignment.
19th MEETING – Step 12
On Your Own:
Read Chapter 8, “To Wives”; Chapter 9, “The Family Afterwards”; Chapter 10, “To Employers” and Chapter 11, “A Vision for You”. These chapters are designed to teach you how to practice these principles in all your affairs. They contain spiritual truths which apply to all of us.
With the Group:
The team should decided whether or not to discuss one or more of these chapters to conclude your Step Study.
A reading of the last portion of “A Vision for You” is a fitting way to end the Step Study program. Do you have the feeling of having had contact with those who wrote The Big Book?
Many people find the Big Book instructions for taking the Fourth Step confusing.
The following outline represents the experience of certain members of the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous in analyzing and utilizing this portion of the Big Book. In general, those who have followed these suggestions in taking this Step including the inventory, the analysis and the suggested prayer, have found it to be a most rewarding and exciting spiritual experience.
This same experience may be shared by anyone who completes each of the following instructions and assignments to the best of his or her ability in the order in which they are presented. Perfection is not required.. What is required is honesty, open-mindedness and willingness and a sense of having given it one’s best effort.
[Don’t concern yourself with the question of who is going to hear your Fifth Step. Your Higher Power will let you know in plenty of time. Your Fifth Step is not today’s problem. – Ed]
Do not skip any instruction and complete every instruction before proceeding to the next.
INSTRUCTION 1 - Resentments
Read the following and come to understand what we are
doing.
WHEN TO DO STEP FOUR AND WHY:
Perhaps the greatest of the promises of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is that God, as we understand Him, will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Once we’ve made the decision to let Him do that, as required by Step Three, the Big Book warns us, “Though our decision was a vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face, and to be rid of, the things in ourselves which had been blocking us (from God)… So we had to get down to causes and conditions. Therefore, we started upon a personal inventory.”
WHAT WE SEEK:
The inventory is described as “a fact-finding and fact-facing process”. W seek the truth about ourselves and honestly take stock of our lives. We search out the flaws in our make-up which caused our failure. The Big Book states repeatedly that self, selfishness, self-centeredness are the root of our trouble. Convinced that self, manifested in various ways, was what had defeated us, we consider its common manifestations and group them into three categories: (1) Resentments, (2) Fear, (3) Sex.
We then treat each category separately in the inventory.
RESENTMENTS “The Number One Offender”:
From resentments “stem all form of spiritual disease”. We are instructed to list all the people, institutions or principles with whom we were angry or had resentments. What’s a resentment?
The “person may be oneself. Our actions, or our failures to do what we think we should have, can generate the resentment referred to as “guilt”. “Institutions” may be authorities, companies, governments, government agencies, groups of people or various organizations. “Principles” are truths, some of which offend us; e.g.,
The specific instructions for taking Step Four are found on pages 64 to71 in the book Alcoholics Anonymous and should be read carefully at this time.
INSTRUCTION 2 – Grudge List
Prepare your Grudge List. List the people, institutions and principles which have caused you to have a resentment as defined above.
Go back over your life. “Nothing counts but thoroughness and honesty.” If you can remember the resentment, list it even though you think you have gotten over it.
Some people choose to write a short autobiography to jog their memory. Reviewing diaries, school annuals, family albums and the like may help.
Avoid moral judgment of your feelings. Do NOT concern yourself with whether or not you should have felt the way you did. Just proceed with making your list and NOTHING MORE for now.
While completing Step Four and perhaps for some time thereafter, you will recall other people and situations which caused you to have these negative feelings. You can add to your list at any time, but do not spend a great deal of time now worrying about how complete your list is. Simply do the best you can over a reasonable period of time – perhaps a week.
INSTRUCTION 3 – Resentment Analysis
DO NOT BEGIN THIS ANALYSIS UNTIL YOU HAVE COMPLETED YOUR LIST.
Then analyze each resentment separately. The Fourth Step will mean very little unless we come to understand and learn from our individual resentments. The following procedure has proved helpful to others:
a) Purchase a spiral notebook and open it so that you have a blank page on each side of the spiral in the center. With a ruler, draw a vertical line down the center of each blank page dividing it into two halves; you now have four columns. Turn the page and repeat this procedure until several pages have been divided in this manner.
b)
Label each of the four columns:
Column 1 – “Name”
Column 2 – “Cause”
Column 3 – “Affect”
Column 4 – (leave this column unlabeled)
INSTRUCTION 4 – Who did what
Take one resentment at a time from your grudge list and enter it in Column 1. Then complete Columns 2 and 3 as described below. Complete the analysis of each resentment before going on to the next one on the grudge list:
a) Take the first name from your grudge list and write it on the first page under Column 1.
b)
In Column 2, write a few words to describe
each and every event or circumstance
you can recall which caused you to resent the person named in Column 1.
This is a very important part of the analysis. We learn from specific events, not from general complaints. For example, we learn little from the complaint “He lied a lot”, but we learn much from “He told me he wasn’t married”.
INSTRUCTION 5 – The result
In column 3, opposite each of these events listed in Column 2, write the reason the event or circumstance bothered you. Ask yourself:
1.- Having decided who was at fault, did I go further in my study of this event?
2.- Did I try to retaliate, fight back or run?
What was the result? Did it
help?
3.- Is it clear to me that a life which includes one of
these resentments leads only to futility and unhappiness?
4.- Has the resentment ever benefited me in any way, or
have I squandered hour thinking about it?
5.- Do I understand that these thoughts separate me from
“the sunlight of the Spirit” (God)?
6.- Do I realize that these resentful thoughts lead to the
insanity of the first drink and that for me to drink is to die?
7.- Do I understand that through our thoughts and our
reactions to people, places and things the world and its people dominate us?
8.- Do I understand that until I pass beyond the point of
blaming myself or others, there can be no growth or solution?
9.- Can I forgive?
Realize that many people have the same problem with life that you have and that many of them are spiritually sick. Honestly pray The Fourth Step Prayer:
“God, help me show (Name) the same tolerance,
pity and patience I would cheerfully grant a sick friend.
(Name) is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him?
Save me from being angry. Thy Will be done.”
From this point forward we try to avoid retaliation or argument.
INSTRUCTION 6 – What I Did
As noted earlier, it is a spiritual axiom that when I am disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something the matter with me. Now that you have listed the resentment and understand how it affected you, and having stopped blaming others by “putting out of your mind the wrongs others have done, “you can look at your own actions and reactions. In the past we went no further than to declare that someone else was wrong. Isn’t it true that we acted or reacted during each event or circumstance? Didn’t we become angry; depressed; filled with self-pity, envy, jealously, etc.? Didn’t this affect our lives and the lives of those close to us?
At the top of the fourth column on each page insert the words “My Faults or Mistakes”. Then complete Column 4 as follows:
a) For each person, institution or principle AND for each event, ask yourself:
1. Where have I been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, or frightened?
2. Where was I to blame?
3. How did I react?
4. How did this affect me and those close to me?
b) Write down your faults (as revealed by the above questions) in the fourth column opposite each person, institution or principle AND each event.
Congratulations! If you’ve completed all the instructions to this point you have finished the “Resentments” portion of your Inventory. You are ready to go to “Fear”. But do NOT proceed further at this time if any preceding portion remains incomplete.
FEAR “…touches
every aspect of our lives.”
Webster’s Dictionary defines “fear” as a feeling of alarm or disquiet caused by the expectation of danger, pain, disaster or the like. For example, being found out, being recognized for who we are. The Big Book says the driving force in the life of most alcoholics is the self-centered fear that we will lose something we have or that we will not get something we think we need or want.
INSTRUCTION 7 – List of fears
Read the last paragraph on page 67 in the Big Book and the first three paragraphs on page 68.
Then list your fears.
On a page following the section on resentments, write a short description
of every fear you have experienced.
You already asked yourself in the previous section about the impact of fear on
your resentments. Now complete the
list of times, places and circumstances which evoked this feeling (authority
figures, women, men, heights, snakes, bugs, etc.).
INSTRUCTION 8 – Analysis of fears
INSTRUCTION 9 – In place of fear
Your fears have been listed and the above questions answered.
Now read the solution to fear in the Big Book in the second and third
paragraphs of page 68. “We ask Him
to remove our fear and direct our attention to what He would have us be.
At once, “the Book says, “we commence to outgrow fear.”
Direct this solution toward each one of your fears.
“Now About Sex”
INSTRUCTION 10 – Sex situations
Read the last paragraph on page 68 to the end of Chapter 5. List the people and situations wherein sex and sexual relationships have been a problem for you.
With respect to each person on you r list, write a short paragraph answering the following questions while remembering to deal with specific events:
Become willing to make amends for past wrongs – provided you will not bring about still more harm in so doing.
Consider your future sex life and relationships. Through study and prayer, seek to shape a sane and sound ideal for the future. Whatever your ideal turns out to be, you must be willing to grow toward it.
In the second paragraph on page 70, we are given instructions on how to proceed. We are told:
“Pray for the right ideal, for guidance in each questionable situation, for sanity and for the strength to do the right thing. If sex is very troublesome, we throw ourselves the harder into helping others. We think of their needs and work for them. This takes us out of ourselves. It quiets the imperious urge, when to yield would mean heartache.”
INSTRUCTION 11 – Step 5
Review your inventory. Have you left anything out? Have you failed to list any event or subject because the memory and the thought of revealing it to another person make you too uncomfortable? If so, write it down now.
Read page 72 through page 75.
Take the Fifth Step.
[Don’t procrastinate while looking for the “right” person. Get if over with! You’ve already turned your will and life over to the care of God’ nothing is going to happen to you that God can’t take care of. –Ed]
Here is a good way to start and to periodically redirect each day:
“God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.”
“God, I offer myself to Thee, to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt.
Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do thy will.
Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help
of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!”
“My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me,
good and bad. I pray that you now remove
from me every single defect of character that stands in the way
of my usefulness to you and my fellows.
Grant me strength as I go out from here to do your bidding. Amen.”
Here are the “principles” we practice in all our affairs all day, every day:
The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous
(Pages 59-60)
1.- We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
2.- Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves
could restore us to sanity.
3.- Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to
the care of God as we understood Him.
4.- Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of
ourselves.
5.- Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another
individual the exact nature of our wrongs.
6.- Were entirely ready to have God remove these defects of
character.
7.- Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8.- Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became wiling to make amends to them all.
9.- Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10.- Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11.- Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
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.
Congratulations! Most alcoholics who return to drinking
have never completed all the Steps of the AA program.
You’ve now done them all at least once.
Finding other members of Alcoholics Anonymous
who might benefit from this outline and
sharing your experience with them is
one way to continuing to practice the Twelfth Step.
And finally, always remember, in precisely
the middle of page 132 our Big Book states:
“We
absolutely insist on enjoying Life.”