Anonymous Guest - Understand and Complete The 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous: Your Guide To All 12 Steps

Your Guide to Understand and Complete

All 12 Steps

For Those Who Earnestly Seek

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An Easy To Follow Guide in Today's Language

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by Anonymous Guest

Understand and Complete One Step At A Time in Alcoholics Anonymous Selected, Compiled & Edited by: Anonymous Guest 2013 Copyright May 2013 by Anonymous Guest All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN-13: 978-1521921326

ISBN-10: 1973911264

ISBN Canada: 978-0-9951679-2-6

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my first sponsor Blair T. A truly amazing man who took me through my first set of 12 steps and showed me the way to

The Great Spirit.

I will be forever grateful.

What I am doing is offering a guide to each Step from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. This guide is not intended to replace the Big Book in any way, it is simply offered as additional help as you go through your steps. Its not unusual to hear at a meeting that a person is having a problem with one or more steps out of the Big Book.

So I have written a guide in todays language that may help explain to you more of what each step is about and how it works. I recommend having your Big Book with you as you use this guide. If you do not have a Big Book with you but have access to the internet, you can read an online version which is available to read free in English, French or Spanish. Go to this URL:

http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/

With over 36 years experience in Alcoholics Anonymous, thousands of hours in Big Book studies and years of sponsoring dozens of people, I wanted to leave my strength, hope, and experience to those who may not be able to get to meetings as often as they would like. Ive been mentored by incredible people who showed me the principals, promises, and keys to sobriety within the pages of the Big Book.

I've met people from small towns that had only one meeting a week, others who were working on cruise liners, and some in the hospitals and in jails who just don't have access to all the AA has to offer. In situations and environments like these it can take hundreds of meetings to see the working solution that is offered through the 12 Steps. This book is offered in the hopes to make that process of understanding what the steps have to offer somewhat easier.

This is why the newcomer is the most important person in the meeting when they arrive. It is not so they can help fill the ranks when the old timers pass away. Not at all.

The only reason the new comer is the most important person in the room is because that meeting they go to may be the only opportunity they will ever have to hear the message of hope that will inspire them to get started in the Recovery Program known as the 12 Steps of AA.

Many times we go to a meeting and hear more about how people used to drink than the solution they found to stay sober. So I want to share this message of recovery with you, like it was done for me. All that I ask is that you use the Big Book as your reference. Highlight your book with what you learn here and make the Big Book your own study and recovery book, then, pass on what you learn.

Fair enough?

What I have done is put together a guide through each individual step to help you along the way. Keep in mind that no single individual speaks for Alcoholics Anonymous. The Big Book itself contains the full prescription to a happy and sober life. The interpretation of that book sometimes causes some confusion because in was written in the language of 1939 but with the help of a good AA sponsor, a few Big Book Studies, and talking to your Higher Power on a regular basis, it will become clear.

The funny thing is once you see it, the simplicity will almost make you laugh. Perhaps you've heard it before: "I can't, He can, and now I'll let Him". It falls in line with HOW it Works. "Honesty, Open mindedness, and Willingness".

This is the roadmap to discovery (one step at a time) in what will prove to be a life changing journey for you in Alcoholics Anonymous. If you chose to use it.

Let's get started.

"We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable."

I want to point out the importance of seeing this step as two distinct statements. First that we are powerless over alcohol, and that our lives had become unmanageable. Lets start with the first part of this sentence:

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol.

When I first joined AA over 36 years ago it was pretty easy to admit I was powerless over alcohol because of my behavior while drinking. I still had some reservations because I didn't get in trouble every time I drank but when I did, it could get pretty bad. So I conceded to this statement in that context. However, as the years went by, and I watched newcomers and even some old-timers go back to drinking, I saw and understood the truth behind this powerful warning.

It meant I was powerless over alcohol even after all these years sober! After any period of sobriety, I was still powerless from taking that drink again. It did not matter how many days, months, or years I had accumulated, I was powerless to stop myself from drinking alcohol on a permanent basis. Matter of fact, that's exactly how my first sponsor put the first step to me. We went to his home the night after he became my sponsor and sat me down at his kitchen table.

He looked me square in the face and said "You need to understand that one day you will drink again and there is nothing you can do about it"! You could have knocked me over with a feather when he laid it on me like that!

After a minute of my standing there with my mouth open he smiled and said "But there is a solution". He had achieved in a few seconds what AA meetings had not yet achieved over the last 4 years. I had begun to really understand the true nature of this disease.

Let's consider how the Big Book gets this point across

More About Alcoholism

Chapter 3 (pg. 30) of Second Edition Alcoholics Anonymous

This chapter in the Big Book is dedicated to Step One exclusively. The importance of understanding the dilemma we are in and why. Without full knowledge of what we have, how can we understand what is needed to effectively deal with it?

Ive heard it said in meetings that you dont have to admit youre an alcoholic to do the steps. That is incorrect. Right at the start of the chapter it is stressed to us that we have to concede (give in and stop fighting) to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery.

Deep inside us is a desire to drink freely like other people. Its our release, the way to breathe again. However for us its also the way to ruin. We cant guarantee that the next time it will be different when we drink. There is no promise of control. Not over just our drinking, but also over our behavior.

We must remember that what defines us as a carrier of alcoholism is that we show the symptoms of the disease both drinking, and while we are sober.

While drinking we have the Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde syndrome of two personalities. Our perception of reality changes once we have a few drinks. Yet, everyone is different. Some may feel more relaxed and their sense of nervousness disappears (that was mine) or we become belligerent and easily argumentative. These are only a couple examples, there are hundreds of personality types alcoholics display when they drink but this gives you an idea of what Im saying.

The Big Book says the natural state of a (sober) alcoholic is irritable, restless and discontent, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and relief that comes with a few drinks.