SLAA Step 12 Questions

62. Read Chapter Seven,. “Working with Others” in the “Big Book.” Did you have a
spiritual awakening? Was it vital to your recovery? When did it take place? Can you
define it?

I have worked only tangentially with other addicts - talking after meetings, outreaches.  In AA I have gone to rehab clinics and spoken to the addicts there, but I've never had a sponsee.

Because of how SLAA/HOW structures and addresses sponsorsship, and declares everyone a sponsor after the first 3 steps - SLAA pushes people into sponshorship in a more effective way than AA does.  I actually think I'll be a SLAA sponsor before I am an AA one, as AA seems more pre-occupied with "time up" whereas SLAA considers you a sponsor after 30 days.

My spritual awakening has been long and slow.  And I've fallen asleep again numerous times.  As I've intimated elsewhere in my answers to these questions it is synonymous with my recovery.  The first inkling was in the early 90's in my first exposure to 12-step and I got the message from AA that God was not "owned" by the religions, but that I could seek him on my own.  The God that I didn't believe in was the wrathful judgmental God of the American south, and I'm still an atheist, as far as that God is concerned.

The god I've slowly begun to sense and connect with is almost exactly that described in Appendix II of the big book.  An unsuspected spiritual resource that requires me to maintain a spiritual condition of honesty, acceptance, willingness, and courage. 

It's not so much the spiritual awakening that is of note here.  More critical are the tools and behaviours I need to adopt in order to stay awake.  I've learned to my chagrin what happens if I lose my touchpoint with my higher power.  

Perhaps my awakening is not so much a dramatic change of state as is commonly understood by the phrase.  I think more accurately it's the simple awareness of the dynamics of spirituality and the thing I call God.

Actually, God is not a thing, it's a process.

63. Read pages 196 and 263 in “As Bill Sees It.” Reflect on and discuss the idea that the basic anecdote for fear is a spiritual awakening.

196 Antidote for Fear
When our failings generate fear, we then have soul-sickness. This sickness, in turn, generates still more character defects.

Unreasonable fear that our instincts will not be satisfied drives us to covet the possessions of others, to lust for sex and power, to become angry when our instinctive demands are threatened, to be envious when the ambitions of others seem to be realized while ours are not. We eat, drink, and grab for more of everything than we need, fearing we shall never have enough. And, with genuine alarm at the prospect at work, we stay lazy. We loaf and procrastinate, or at best work grudgingly and under half steam.

These fears are the termites that ceaselessly devour the foundations of whatever sort of life we try to build.

<< << << >> >> >>

As faith grows, so does inner security. The vast underlying fear of nothingness commences to subside. We of A.A. find that our basic antidote for fear is a spiritual awakening.


263 Fear and Faith
The achievement of freedom from fear is a lifetime undertaking, one that can never be wholly completed.

When under heavy attack, acute illness, or in other conditions of serious insecurity, we shall all react to this emotion -- well or badly, as the case may be. Only the self-deceived will claim perfect freedom from fear.

<< << << >> >> >>

We finally saw that faith in some kind of God was a part of our make-up. Sometimes we had to search persistently, but He was there. He was as much a fact as we were. We found the Great Reality deep down within us.


This statement seems pretty sound.  I've had fear and anxiety all my life.  It's still difficult for me to put aside the substances and behaviours that I've used my whole life to cope with my fear.  To put them aside means that I have found faith in God - faith in God's ability to guide me through life and accept its consequences on life's terms.  And I have a lifetime of running from fear by overloading my natural human drives until they turn around and control me.

It occurred to me in a meeting today, that to "use" (anything, anyone) - you are really just using yourself.  It *is* abuse of yourself - your ego is forcing you to perform some selfish, destructive, unhealthful act in order to run from fear.  You are far from God in these moments.




64. Read pages 449-451 in the "Big Book.' Discuss and reflect on how “acceptance is the answer to all of our problems.”

Acceptance is the opposite of Fear, not courage.  Courage is merely the ability to face fear.  Fear means that you don't accept your imaginary fantasies of outcomes that don't meet your expectations.

You aren't in control of life.  Your role is to be the best person you can be no matter what happens.  

When you fully accept yourself as you are, defects and all, you see that the defects aren't going anywhere unless you put in work.

If you were born with only 1 leg, you'd use a crutch.  If you were born hard of hearing you'd use a hearing aid.  With the defects I was born with (or learned) I need to use rigorous honesty and compensate for my natural tendencies by retraining myself, seeking help, and emulating God in every way I can.

In this way I change the trajectory of my life from an orbit around myself to something that faces and seeks to help my fellow man.

But until I accept myself and reality the way it is, I'm going to be putting myself in the driver's seat and trying to control everything.  And in the selfish, short-sighted way I attempt that, disaster is sure to follow.



65. Read in "As Bill Sees It," pages 3, 5 and 163. Write about how working the program has brought joy to your life.

3 Pain and Progress
"Years ago I used to commiserate with all people who suffered. Now I commiserate only with those who suffer in ignorance, who do not understand the purpose and ultimate utility of pain."

<< << << >> >> >>

Someone once remarked that pain is the touchstone of spiritual progress. How heartily we A.A.'s can agree with him, for we know that the pains of alcoholism had to come before sobriety, and emotional turmoil before serenity.

<< << << >> >> >>

"Believe more deeply. Hold your face up to the Light, even though for the moment you do not see."


5 Maintenance and Growth
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. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.

If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison.



163 Release and Joy
Who can render an account of all the miseries that once were ours, and who can estimate the release and joy that the later years have brought to us? Who can possibly tell the vast consequences of what God's work through A.A. has already set in motion?

And who can penetrate the deeper mystery of our wholesale deliverance from slavery, a bondage to a most hopeless and fatal obsession which for centuries possessed the minds and bodies of men and women like ourselves?

<< << << >> >> >>


We think cheerfulness and laughter make for usefulness. Outsiders are sometimes shocked when we burst into merriment over a seemingly tragic experience out of the past. But why shouldn't we laugh? We have recovered, and have helped others to recover. What greater cause could there be for rejoicing than this?

The program, to me, is a simple and basic way to structure and realise a god-oriented life.  There are probably other ways to do this, but I'm not aware of them.

As I said above, I equate my "spiritual awakening" and my recovery, and both are made possible by having "worked the program" and the people I've encountered along this journey.

After a lifetime of compulsive behaviours and substance abuse, I've had years now free of them - with only a few slips - and a growing maturity and emotional equilibrium.  I've discovered something I'm happy to call God.  My experiences with prayer and meditation have brought experiences of pure love, bliss and serenity into my life.  I've felt the joy of working with and helping other people through the dark places in their lives.

66. Read in 'Came to Believe,' pages 46, 47 and 48, 'The Belief will come' and in "As Bill Sees It,' page 331. Discuss what needs to be done to be most effective in helping those who still suffer.


331 The Great Fact
 We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask Him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. The answers will come, if your own house is in order.

But obviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got. See to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the great fact for us.

To the Newcomer:
Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the road of happy destiny.


May God bless you and keep you -- until then

To be the most effective in helping those who still suffer: I think of the third step prayer where we ask God to remove our difficulties so we can bear witness to those we would help.  The most effective thing I could do would be to focus on my recovery and opening myself to God so that the message of recovery is strong.

Coming to meetings, sharing my recovery, approaching newcomers, making outreach calls.  Participating in my new life and fellowship.

SLAA Step 11 Questions

55.Read from "As. Bill Sees It”, pages 93, 108, 127, 189, and 243. Discuss and reflect on how taking time daily to set myself apart with God improves my conscious contact with Him and changes my life. 

93 Atmosphere of Grace
Those of us who have come to make regular use of prayer would no more
do without it than we would refuse air, food, or sunshine. And for
the same reason. When we refuse air, light, or food, the body
suffers. And when we turn away from meditation and prayer, we
likewise deprive our minds, our emotions, and our intuitions of
vitally needed support.
As the body can fail its purpose for lack of nourishment, so can the
soul. We all need the light of God's reality, the nourishment of His
strenth, and the atmosphere of His grace. To an amazing extent the
facts of A.A. life confirm this ageless truth.

TWELVE AND TWELVE, PP. 97-98

108 Learn in Quiet
In 1941, a news clipping was called to our attention by a New York
member. In an obituary notice from a local paper, there appeared
these words: "God grant us the serenity to accept the things we
cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the
wisdom to know the difference."
Never had we seen so much A.A. in so few words. With amazing speed
the Serenity Prayer came into general use.
<< << << >> >> >>
In meditation, debate has no place. We rest quietly with the thoughts
or prayers of spiritually centered people who understand, so that we
may experience and learn. This is the state of being that so often
discovers and deepens a conscious contact with God.
1. A.A. COMES OF AGE, P. 196

2. TWELVE AND TWELVE, PP. 100-101

127 Persistence in Prayer
We often tend to slight serious meditation and prayer as something
not really necessary. To be sure, we feel it is something that might
help us to meet an occasional emergency, but at first many of us are
apt to regard it as a somewhat mysteriousskill of clergymen, from
which we may hope to get a secondhand benefit.
<< << << >> >> >>
In A.A. we have found that the actual good results of prayer are
beyond question. They are matters of knowledge and experience. All
those who have persisted have found strength not ordinarily their
own. They have found wisdom beyond their usual capability. And they
have increasingly found a peace of mind which can stand firm in the
face of difficult circumstances.
TWELVE AND TWELVE
1. P. 96

2. P. 104

189 Experimenters
We agnostics liked A.A. all right, and were quick to say that it had
done miracles. But we recoiled from meditation and prayer as
obstinately as the scientist who refused to perform a certain
experiment lest it prove his pet theory wrong.
When we finally did experiment, and unexpected results followed, we
felt different; in fact, we knew different; and so we were sold on
meditation and prayer. And that, we have found, can happen to anybody
who tries. It has been well said that "Almost theonly scoffers at
prayer are those who never tried it enough."

TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 97

243 Morning Thoughts
On awakening, let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We ask
God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced
from self-pity and from dishonest or self-seeking motives. Free from
these, we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for God
gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be on a higher plane
when our thinking begins to be cleared of wrong motives.
If we determine which of two courses to take, we ask God for
inspiration, an intuitive thought, or a decision. Then we relax and
take it easy, and we are often surprised how the right answers come
after we have tried this for a while.
We usually conclude our meditation with a prayer that we be shown all
through the day what our next step is to be, asking especially for
freedom from damaging self-will.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, PP. 86, 87


I'm also reminded of this by Franz Kafka: 

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
 
I think the step 11 questions will be good ones - this is one gift of 12-step that I have not failed to accept.  My morning ritual is one of my most strongly-observed "suggested things".

The value of taking a pause is the opportunity to reframe my life.  Otherwise I settle into a reality (that is not a reality) where my life is a small, cramped self-filled box - I'm contained by the internal ebb and flow of self-centered emotional upheaval and whatever drama is ongoing at work.

When I have a ritual to reframe and put my head in its place by meditating and praying then I give a chance for the vastness of my God and a sense of humility to take root in my larger consciousness - and somehow seep by osmosis into the petty consciousness where I spend most of my time.

I had the good fortune to listen to Eckhart Tolle reading A New Earth - so much of his intuition about the ego fits perfectly with what I'm learning about myself and the power of meditation and prayer.

56. Read pages 85-89 in the “Big Book.” How has prayer and meditation helped you to be free of self-will run riot? 

Prayer and meditation are not a direct form of control, but they're an exposure to a non-self-run universe that infuses me with humility (in the form of my joyfully dependent prayers to my higher power) and serenity (in the form of contact with the deep unconditional love and peace of God when I meditate).

Constant and daily exposure and a relationship something outside and larger and greater than my ego is slowly (and will take years) infusing my ego with a tiny echo of that tranquility.  And its reassuring me that outside of my fragile ego I can trust God to be constant.

57. Read "As Bill Sees It," pages 33, 117, 101, and 331.  Step Eleven is for mental 

efficiency, for spiritual strength and for physical endurance.  What does this mean to 

you? 

33 Foundation for Life
We discover that we receive guidance for our lives to just about the
extent that we stop making demands upon God to give it to us on order
and on our terms.
<< << << >> >> >>
In praying, we ask simply that throughout the day God place in us the
best understanding of His will that we can have for the day, and that
we be given the grace by which we may carry it out.
<< << << >> >> >>
There is a direct linkage among self-examination, meditation, and
prayer. Taken separately, these practices can bring much relief and
benefit. But when they are logically related and interwoven, the
result is an unshakable foundation for life.
TWELVE AND TWELVE
1. P. 104
2. P. 102
3. P. 98

117 The Sense of Belonging
Perhaps one of the greatest rewards of meditation and prayer is the
sense of belonging that comes to us. We no longer live in a
completely hostile world. We are no longer lost and frightened and
purposeless.
The moment we catch even a glimpse of God's will, the moment we begin
to see truth, justice, and love as the real and eternal things in
life, we are no longer deeply disturbed by all the seeming evidence
to the contrary that surrounds us in purely human affairs. We know
that God lovingly watches over us. We know that when we turn to Him,
all will be well with us, here and hereafter.

TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 105

101 "The Spiritual Angle"
How often do we sit in A.A. meetings and hear the speaker declare,
"But I haven't yet got the spiritual angle." Prior to this statement,
he has described a miracle of transformation which has occurred in
him -- not only his release from alcohol, but a complete change in
his whole attitude toward life and the living of it.
It is apparent to everyone else present that he has received a great
gift, and that this gift is all out of proportion to anything that
may be expected from simple A.A. participation. So we in the audience
smile and say to ourselves, "Well, that guy is just reeking with the
spiritual angle -- except that he doesn't seem to know it yet!"

GRAPEVINE, JULY 1962

331 The Great Fact
We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more
to you and to us. Ask Him in your morning meditation what you can do
each day for the man who is still sick. The answers will come, if
your own house is in order.
But obviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got. See to
it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will
come to pass for you and countless others. This is the great fact for
us.
To the Newcomer:
Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to
Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give
freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the
fellowship of the spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you
trudge the road of happy destiny.
May God bless you and keep you -- until then.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, P. 164

Mental efficiency, spiritual strength, and physical endurance.

OK so there is one person on the committee to write these questions that I just don't get.  Whenever one of their questions comes up (and I can sort of sense them as we move through these -- I find that I really don't understand where they're coming from - their grasp of the spiritual universe is different to mine.)

The readings don't really address the question either to my mind.

If I play with it I'm taken back to my therapist's definition of the beginnings of self care: plenty of rest, going to the gym, and eating right.  And my spiritual guru's statement that in order to hold spiritual energy, I needed to be physically fit.

I think at the end on this question I'm just led to the idea that for me to be the person I am meant to be on this planet - to use the gifts of my mind and body in the way they were intended, and not as tools for distraction, mortification, and indulgence, that I need my higher power.  And that in the process of becoming more like my higher power - infusing myself with those qualities, that my mind, spirit, and body will return to health and higher purpose.

Even in my late 40's, moving toward health and growth is god's plan for me.

58. Read page 164 in the "Big Book.' Discuss and reflect on how to "See to it that your relationship with Him is right" and the importance of it for you today. 

As I've said many times throughout my answers to these questions, my new SLAA-question inspired understanding of step 3 is that it is a path from self-driven ego to selfless god-nature.  And that turning my will and my life over to God means that I have made a decision to dedicate my life to that path, and that although I will stray and stumble, I will keep returning to that path as long as I live.

In order to move along that path, I have to surrender, and surrender ego-structures I've clung to my whole life.  As I make myself worthy of moving closer to God, and take each step along that path, that's keeping my relationship with God right.  As I move forward on this path, I have to give up my defects that keep me back.  They fall away from me, through forward progress toward God.

That's my understanding of the real work of my life.

59. Read "As Bill Sees It" pages 270 and 172.  How do you apply the principle that your recovery depends upon God? 

270 Honesty and Recovery
In taking an inventory, a member might consider questions such as:
How did my selfish pursuit of the sex relation damage other people
and me? What people were hurt, and how badly? Just how did I react at
the time? Did I burn with guilt? Or did I insist that I was the
pursued and not the pursuer, and thus absolve myself?
How have I reacted to frustration in sexual matters? When denied, did
I become vengeful or depressed? Did I take it out on other people? If
there was rejection or coldness at home, did I use this as a reason
for promiscuity?
<< << << >> >> >>
Let no alcoholic say he cannot recover unless he has his family back.
This just isn't so. His recovery is not dependent upon people. It is
dependent upon his relationship with God, however he may define Him.
1. TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 50-51

2. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, PP. 99-100

172 This Matter of Honesty

"Only God can fully know what absolute honesty is. Therefore, each of

us has to conceive what this great ideal may be -- to the best of our

ability.

"Fallible as we all are, and will be in this life, it would be

presumption to suppose that we could ever really achieve absolute

honesty. The best way we can do is to strive for a better quality of

honesty.

"Sometimes we need to place love ahead of indiscriminate `factual

honesty'. We cannot, under the guise of `perfect honesty', cruelly

and unnecessarily hurt others. Always one must ask, `What is the best

and most loving thing I can do?'"

LETTER, 1966

Judeo-Christian notions of an external, paternalistic, controlling, santa claus higher power persist in 12-step.  If you look closely Bill writes that our recovery depends on our relationship with God, not God.

Having a relationship with God is key to recovery - you might even say that it IS recovery.  All I know about God is that it is outside my limited ego, but it is still part of me or within me.  Its easily neglected or ignored.  And that living life by a fairly precise code of conduct is necessary before I can access the love and serenity that I feel when I connect with "it".  As I move from selfishness to selflessness, my defects quiet down.

That's all I know.

60. Read pages 202 and 250 in "As Bill Sees It." Discuss the importance of spending daily quiet time alone with your higher power.  How do you do this in your life on a daily basis? 

202 The Hour of Decision
"Not all large decisions can be well made by simply listing the pros
and cons of a given situation, helpful and necessary as this process
is. We cannot always depend on what seems to us to be logical. When
there is doubt about our logic, we wait upon God and listen for the
voice of intuition. If, in meditation, that voice is persistent
enough, we may well gain sufficient confidence to act upon that,
rather than upon logic.
"If after an exercise of these two disciplines, we are still
uncertain, then we should ask for further guidance and, when
possible, defer important decisions for a time. By then, with more
knowledge of our situation, logic and intuition maywell agree upon a
right course.
"But if the decision must be now, let us not evade it through fear.
Right or wrong, we can always profit from the experience."

LETTER, 1966

250 Prayer Under Pressure
Whenever I find myself under acute tensions, I lengthen my daily
walks and slowly repeat our Serenity Prayer in rhythm to my steps and
breathing.
If I feel that my pain has in part been occasioned by others, I try
to repeat, "God grant me the serenity to love their best, and never
fear their worst." This benign healing process of repitition,
sometimes necessary to persist with for days, has seldom failed to
restore me to at least a workable emotional balance and perspective.

GRAPEVINE, MARCH 1962

The time I spend in the morning in prayer, contemplation, and meditation is key to the quality of my day.  This is one of the most easily validated of the "suggested things" - I can utterly tell the difference when I've not taken that moment to center myself and reframe my ego and consciousness with my higher power.

Prayer helps me be humble and center myself in my desire to change.  Meditation quiets my soul and enables contact with a deep sea of tranquility and love that I attribute to my higher power.  These two things together, along with a fairly regular assessment of my state and reconnection if necessary.

61. Read page 264 in 'As Bill Sees It.' Discuss and reflect on the idea that we shall locate our trouble in our misunderstanding or neglect of Step Eleven, prayer, meditation and the guidance of God. 

264 The Step That Keeps Us Growing
Sometimes, when friends tell us how well we are doing, we know better
inside. We know we aren't doing well enough. We still can't handle
life, as life is. There must be a serious flaw somewhere in our
spiritual practice and development.
What, then, is it?
The chances are better than even that we shall locate our trouble in
our misunderstanding or neglect of A.A.'s Step Eleven -- prayer,
meditation, and the guidance of God.
The other Steps can keep most of us sober and somehow functioning.
But Step Eleven can keep us growing, if we try hard and work at it
continually.

GRAPEVINE, JUNE 1958

Interesting.  A lot of peopIe call 10, 11, and 12 the "maintenance steps" but I've always felt that they were the "growth" steps.  Steps 1 - 9 were about accepting ourselves and the past and opening up to change.  10-12 are about the change and working the steps into the fabric of our lives.

I think my answer to the previous question unwittingly covers this one as well.

If we are on the beam - we are in contact with our higher power and being nourished and informed from that source.  Our ego becomes a servant to our greater good, rather than the master.  Our reality is that of giving and service and radiance, rather than consumption and avarice.

The model for me is that if I am full of God, and radiating God, then I am not empty and craving to fill myself or distract myself with compulsions or substances.  If I keep myself fit to maintain that connection then I'm in good condition.  But I can only stay fit for a day before I have to build the connection anew, and in a new way that isn't rote, but fresh, vital, meaningful, and alive.  This is the way life wants to be led.

Emotional Sobriety, by Bill W

"I think that many oldsters who have put our AA "booze cure" to severe but successful tests still find they often lack emotional sobriety. Perhaps they will be the spearhead for the next major development in AA, the development of much more real maturity and balance (which is to say, humility) in our relations with ourselves, with our fellows, and with God. 

Those adolescent urges that so many of us have for top approval, perfect security, and perfect romance, urges quite appropriate to age seventeen, prove to be an impossible way of life when we are at age forty-seven and fifty-seven. 

Since AA began, I've taken immense wallops in all these areas because of my failure to grow up emotionally and spiritually. My God, how painful it is to keep demanding the impossible, and how very painful to discover, finally, that all along we have had the cart before the horse. Then comes the final agony of seeing how awfully wrong we have been, but still finding ourselves unable to get off the emotional merry-go-round. 

How to translate a right mental conviction into a right emotional result, and so into easy, happy and good living. Well, that's not only the neurotic's problem, it's the problem of life itself for all of us who have got to the point of real willingness to hew to right principles in all of our affairs. 

Even then, as we hew away, peace and joy may still elude us. That's the place so many of us AA oldsters have come to. And it's a hell of a spot, literally. How shall our unconscious, from which so many of our fears, compulsions and phony aspirations still stream, be brought into line with what we actually believe, know and want! How to convince our dumb, raging and hidden ‘Mr. Hyde' becomes our main task. 

I've recently come to believe that this can be achieved. I believe so because I begin to see many benighted ones, folks like you and me, commencing to get results. Last autumn, depression, having no really rational cause at all, almost took me to the cleaners. I began to be scared that I was in for another long chronic spell. Considering the grief I've had with depressions, it wasn't a bright prospect. 

I kept asking myself "Why can't the twelve steps work to release depression?" By the hour, I stared at the St. Francis Prayer ... "it's better to comfort than to be comforted". Here was the formula, all right, but why didn't it work? 

Suddenly, I realized what the matter was. My basic flaw had always been dependence, almost absolute dependence, on people or circumstances to supply me with prestige, security, and the like. Failing to get these things according to my perfectionist dreams and specifications, I had fought for them. And when defeat came, so did my depression. 

There wasn't a chance of making the outgoing love of St. Francis a workable and joyous way of life until these fatal and almost absolute dependencies were cut away. 

Because I had over the years undergone a little spiritual development, the absolute quality of these frightful dependencies had never before been so starkly revealed. Reinforced by what grace I could secure in prayer, I found I had to exert every ounce of will and action to cut off these faulty emotional dependencies upon people, upon AA, indeed upon any act of circumstance whatsoever. 

Then only could I be free to love as Francis did. Emotional and instinctual satisfactions, I saw, were really the extra dividends of having love, offering love, and expressing love appropriate to each relation of life. 

Plainly, I could not avail myself to God's love until I was able to offer it back to Him by loving others as He would have me. And I couldn't possibly do that so long as I was victimized by false dependencies. 

For my dependence meant demand, a demand for the possession and control of the people and the conditions surrounding me. 

While those words "absolute dependence" may look like a gimmick, they were the ones that helped to trigger my release into my present degree of stability and quietness of mind, qualities which I am now trying to consolidate by offering love to others regardless of the return to me. 

This seems to be the primary healing circuit: an outgoing love of God's creation and His people, by means of which we avail ourselves of His love for us. It is most clear that the real current can't flow until our paralyzing dependencies are broken, and broken at depth. Only then can we possibly have a glimmer of what adult love really is. 

If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at the root of it some unhealthy dependence and its consequent demand. Let us, with God's help, continually surrender these hobbling demands. Then we can be set free to live and love: we may then be able to gain emotional sobriety. 

Of course, I haven't offered you a really new idea --- only a gimmick that has started to unhook several of my own hexes' at depth. Nowadays, my brain no longer races compulsively in either elation, grandiosity or depression. I have been given a quiet place in bright sunshine" 

Bill Wilson

SLAA Step 7 Questions

HUMBLY ASKED GOD TO REMOVE OUR SHORTCOMINGS

9. Read AS BILL SEES IT. 22, 6I, 75. How has working the twelve steps helped me work through fear?

22

The chief activator of our defects has been self-centered fear -- primarily fear that we would lose something we already possessed or would fail to get something we demanded. Living upon a basis of unsatisfied demands, we were in a state of continual disturbance and frustration. Therefore, no peace was to be had unless we could find a means of reducing these demands.

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For all its usual destructiveness, we have found that fear can be the starting point for better things. Fear can be a steppingstone to prudence and to a decent respect for others. It can point the path to justice, as well as to hate. And the more we have of respect and justice, the more we shall begin to find love which can suffer much, and yet be freely given. So fear need not always be destructive, because the lessons of its consequences can lead us to positive values.

61

Fear somehow touched about every aspect of our lives. It was an evil and corroding thread; the fabric of our existence was shot through with it. It set in motion trains of circumstances which brought us misfortune we felt we didn't deserve. But did not we often set the ball rolling ourselves?

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The problem of resolving fear has two aspects. We shall have to try for all the freedom from fear that is possible for us to attain. Then we shall need to find both the courage and the grace to deal constructively with whatever fears remain.

75

When a job still looked like a mere means of getting money rather than an opportunity for service, when the acquisition of money for financial independence looked more important than a right dependence upon God, we were the victims of unreasonable fears. And these were fears which would make a serene and useful existence, at any financial level, quite impossible.

But as time passed we found that with the help of A.A.'s Twelve Steps we could lose those fears, no matter what our material prospects were. We could cheerfully perform humble labor without worrying about tomorrow. If our circumstances happened to be good, we no longer dreaded a change for the worse, for we had learned that these troubles could be turned into great values, for ourselves and for others.

Fear and Pain.  Such strong but mistaken and misunderstood motivators in my life.  Anxiety, that is, fear, has been a constant in my life and underlies my alcohol use.

It's really hard to understand and relate the complex warping of my life that avoidance of fear and pain have caused.  So many people I admire I'd call "fearless" - they don't seem to have this crippling self doubt and questioning that I have.  And self-centered fear... how this hits the nail on the head, because it's not just fear, it's a myopic, cross-eyed sense of imminent self-destruction, of penury, of being robbed, of being abandoned and left for dead, and that all this selfishness seems to be constructed to fight back that fear, all these things must be hoarded and consumed and used in order to inflate and construct a hard self to weather the world

10. Do you truly understand humility? Read Step 7 in the AA ‘12 x 12’. Discuss and reflect on how humility has affected your life.

Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.

I love this step. It's the simplest and most direct of the steps.  I wish they were all this simple.  When I read the steps through when I'm lucky enough to get to read How It Works at meetings, this step always causes a slight catch for me.  It's the emotionally loaded of all the steps for me.

Humility has been a key part of understanding the workings of my disfuntional emotional structures: I'm so childish and selfish and prideful.  As I am able to return to humility and simplicity and gratitude, so clarity returns to me.  Humility is acceptance of one's self with proper perspective.

I know that "turning it over" is a key underpinning of our philosophy, and its about surrender - but clearly when you acknowledge the truth of sayings like "God will steer if we row the boat" - and that "faith without works is dead" then clearly there is an act of will involved in sobriety - however, it's not the act of will to control our disease or our lives, I accept that for me, this level of control is impossible, it's simply the act of will to surrender, to keep surrendering, and to take the actions required to maintain a solid spiritual contact.

I'm sorry to bring cosmology into this but there's a whiff of the old patriarchal god in some of this language that not only turns me off, but which I find to be spiritually incorrect.  Also I had a very controlling father.

And I say this because rather than say "hand it over" I want to say "connect with God".  God is not outside of me, God acts through me, if I make myself open to that power in my life.  The removal of shortcomings comes about not by an action of God, but by the constant and applied pressure over years of you keeping yourself in a spiritual condition for God to inform your actions.  

11. Read from AS BILL SEES IT, Page 139 ‘Basis of all Humility’, and page 212, "Faith and Action". Discuss and reflect on the act of:

(a) Humbly asking God to remove defects

(b) Having faith that is vital, accompanied by self-sacrifice and unselfish, constructive

action.

139 Basis of All Humility

For just so long as we were convinced that we could live exclusively by our own individual strength and intelligence, for just that long was a working faith in a Higher Power impossible.

This was true even when we believed that God existed. We could actually have earnest religious beliefs which remained barren because we were still trying to play God ourselves. As long as we placed self-reliance first, a genuine reliance upon a Higher Power was out of the question.

That basic ingredient of all humility, a desire to seek and do God's will, was missing.

212 Faith and Action

Your prospect's religious education and training may be far superior to yours. In that case, he is going to wonder how you can add anything to what he already knows.

But he will be curious to learn why his own convictions have not worked and why yours seem to work so well. He may be an example of the truth that faith alone is insufficient. To be vital, faith must be accompanied by self sacrifice and unselfish, constructive action.

Admit that he probably knows more about religion than you do, but remind him that, however deep his faith and knowledge, these qualities could not have served him well, or he would not be asking your help.

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Dr. Bob did not need me for his spiritual instruction. He had already had more of that than I. What he did need, when we first met, was the deflation at depth and the understanding that only one drunk can give to another. What I needed was the humility of self-forgetfulness and the kinship with another human being of my own kind.

humbly asking god to remove defects

vital faith, self-sacrifice, unselfish constructive action

Operating from a place of true humility is immensely empowering.  I think that sounds ironic, but only from the bottom can you truly look up.  Once you leave behind selfishness, you've lost the expectations, entitlement, worry and regret that make up a sad set of empty boxes that limit so many people's lives, and clutter their view of life in a way that obscures god.

And this is what I tried to say with my answer to the last question: the acts which keep your spiritual horizon clear for contact with god: a vital faith, humility, self-sacrifice, gratitude, *are* in fact God's will.  The act of reaching for God is all God wants from us.  The journey is the destination.  The process is the deliverable.

Got does not remove your defects, you relinquish them as you grow closer to God.

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12. The mental hygiene and spiritual housecleaning we have started in our inventories and continued in Step Five reach their climax in Step Seven. Read pages 48, 103, 136, 196, 281, 327 in AS BILL SEES IT. Are you ready to fully subject your will to God? Do you wish to surrender to Him all your moral imperfections?

48 Live Serenely

When a drunk has a terrific hangover because he drank heavily yesterday, he cannot live well today. But there is another kind of hangover which we all experience whether we are drinking or not. That is the emotional hangover, the direct result of yesterday's and sometimes today's excesses of negative emotions -- anger, fear, jealousy, and the like.

If we would live serenely today and tomorrow, we certainly need to eliminate these hangovers. This doesn't mean we need to wander morbidly around in the past. It requires an admission and correction of errors -- now.

103 Principles Before Expediency

Most of us thought good character was desirable. Obviously, good character was something one needed to get on with the business of being self-satisfied. With a proper display of honesty and morality, we'd stand a better chance of getting what we really wanted. But whenever we had to choose between character and comfort, character-building was lost in the dust of our chase after what we thought was happiness.

Seldom did we look at character-building as something desirable in itself. We never thought of making honesty, tolerance, and true love of man and God the daily basis of living.

<< << << >> >> >>

How to translate a right mental conviction into a right emotional result, and so into easy, happy, and good living, is the problem of life itself.

136 Giving Up Defects

Looking at those defects we are unwilling to give up, we ought to erase the hard and fast lines that we have drawn. Perhaps in some cases we shall say, "This I cannot give up yet...." But we should not say to ourselves, "This O will never give up!"

The moment we say, "No, never!" our minds close against the grace of God. Such rebellion my be fatal. Instead, we should abandon limited objectives and begin to move towards God's will for us.

 

196 Antidote for Fear

When our failings generate fear, we then have soul-sickness. This sickness, in turn, generates still more character defects.

Unreasonable fear that our instincts will not be satisfied drives us to covet the possessions of others, to lust for sex and power, to become angry when our instinctive demands are threatened, to be envious when the ambitions of others seem to be realized while ours are not. We eat, drink, and grab for more of everything than we need, fearing we shall never have enough. And, with genuine alarm at the prospect at work, we stay lazy. We loaf and procrastinate, or at best work grudgingly and under half steam.

These fears are the termites that ceaselessly devour the foundations of whatever sort of life we try to build.

<< << << >> >> >>

As faith grows, so does inner security. The vast underlying fear of nothingness commences to subside. We of A.A. find that our basic antidote for fear is a spiritual awakening.

281 Ourselves as Individuals

There is only one sure test of all spiritual experiences: "By their fruits, ye shall know them."

This is why I think we should question no one's transformation -- whether it be sudden or gradual. Nor should we demand anyone's special type for ourselves, because experience suggests that we are apt to receive whatever may be the most useful for our own needs.

<< << << >> >> >>

Human beings are never quite alike, so each of us, when making an inventory, will need to determine what his individual character defects are. Having found the shoes that fit, he ought to step into them and walk with new confidence that he is at last on the right track.

There's a continuum from Step 3 to Step 7 - made a decision to turn our wills and our lives over to God - then asking God to remove the defects of character

Emotional hangovers - maybe i've been on an anxiety bender this last week or so.

I used to think that good character was just an opinion and that morality was a moveable feast.  I now implicitly understand that there is a single way of behaviour that clears the decks for a connection to God.

Choice of giving up defects: if you take your eyes off yourself and lift them to God, there is only the beatitude of drawing close to God

Fear of loss and emptiness - that you can fill the void instead dive into the void, there is God

Subject your will - if that means focus all my energies on moving toward God - then yes.

There is no other answer for me.

This is my path, but I will not tread it perfectly.

13. What has there "never been enough of” for you?

This is a great question, and a deep one.  It goes way back.

Security, love, money, sex.  Food and alcohol actually pretty easy to get... not sure yet about the complexities of my food issues.  Alcohol is only available at certain times of the day and from certain places - and you can be assured that during active alcoholism I went to great lengths to assure my supply was secure.

But strictly, it's the model or mode of "perceived scarcity" that underlies many of my behaviours, even when the supply of these things was not in question.  And as every marketer knows, percieved scarcity plays directly into percieved value and importance.  

Around love and sex, the scarcity was mostly a bolster to my flagging self-esteem.

Around security and money, more a distrust of my ability to make my way in the world, and a distrust of others as well.  Additionally with money, my desires far outpaced my earnings potential, and I continue to make unwise spending and saving decisions to this day.

14. How do you make, or how can you make honesty, tolerance and true love of man and God the daily basis of living?

As we work through these Step 7 questions I keep thinking of Thomas à Kempis and his "Imitation of Christ".  As much as I'm not a Christian, as I pursue my spiritual path and become accustomed to its rise and fall, I do understand the notion of a Buddha or Christ, as someone who was somehow capable of remaining in Grace.  And what a model that is for behaviour and aspiration.

So I'm not buddha, or a buddha, or a bodhisatva.  Go figure.

Part of the way I see spirituality is that there is a continuum, a spectrum, maybe a conduit between selfishness and grace.  Or perhaps journey is a better word - a journey, a path from selfishness to the utter unconditional love and serenity that is God.  As I've said before each step on this path toward God can be the relinquishment of resentment and fear, a bit of self-knowledge, the putting aside of illusions, the recognition and taking up of God's task for you on this planet.  Somebody recently shared that a sponsor had asked him if a (figurative) step he was taking was a step toward or away from his disease, but I choose to ask if it's a step toward or away from God.

I do not choose to believe that God created us in prehistoric time, although perhaps God is implicit in the fabric of the universe that quickens matter to give it love and thought, I prefer to think that God is our Source, every second of every day, and seeks to create us in every moment.

When I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to God - it's the implicit acceptance of this path.  I know that I will stray, that I will backslide, that I will fail myself and God - that's fine, I'm human.  The point is that to the best of my ability, I return again and again to the path, and here Camus' Sysiphus guides me. Camus was working with existentialism with his insight that the meaning of life for poor Sysiphus was not the endless pushing of boulders up hills, but during the walk back down the mountain to get the boulder agin.  So likewise for me, I think that the most growth occurs not on the path, but on those countless journeys BACK to the path when I have strayed.  This captured with the muslim saying "astaghfirallah al azim" - in asking for forgiveness they admit they have strayed from the path and are asking Allah to help them return.

Honesty, tolerance, and true love of man and God are godlike qualities that are steps, wayposts, conditions, or gates along the journey to God.

15. Do you still place self-reliance first and are you still rebellious.

I think this may be a trick question.  The putting aside of self-reliance is a life-long goal.  It's going to kick in again and again, it's how we were raised.

The calling toward god is a path, but we'll fall off the path over and over.

It's not so much rebellion as clinging to old ways.  Expectations and anxiety are still a part of my fabric of existence.

When I can, as much as I can, I try to remember to have God first.

16. How can humility give us serenity?

Humility is being right-sized, it's acceptance, it's the smallest ego one could have.  If Ego is one end of the continuum that leads to God, then the smaller we make it, the more godlike we are, and share in His serenity, peace and love.

17. How does the taking of the 7th Step aid in the reduction of Ego?

This step echoes three and six - in making the decision to turn my will and my life over, in becoming entirely ready to embrace the journey of divestment from ego toward god, and humbly asking god to remove the defects - each of these is a stance and a move away from ego.

God doesn't ACTIVELY remove defects - if we say again and again in every dealing with God that WE are the engine and the actor, God provides the wisdom and direction.  It's the process of feeding energy into the transformation and grooming and creating of something from ourselves toward the nature of God, that's how we lose ego.

18. Make a gratitude list of what God has done for you that you could not do for yourself.

I have to translate all these paternalistic judeo-christian ideas for them to make sense for me.  Like I said, I do not see God as an actor, god is a principle.  Did gravity make the apple fall from the tree?  Possibly.  But really the apple had no support.

I think what really is happening in this question is that we are trying to illustrate the difference between an ego-directed life, one this is not moving along the spectrum toward god (or moving the wrong direction), and one that is.

I am so, so grateful for:

Ability to put aside my addictions

the ability to attract Marhiza

The beginning of an ability to see past a lifetime of fear

The gift of self esteem

19. What unreasonable demands have you made upon others, yourself and God? How did self-centered fear play a part?

OMG what a question.

May I address it backwards? 

In other words, I already know that self-centered fear is the main culprit of a misguided life.

an an elucidation of unreasonable demands is its own delightful exercise in self- awareness.

It lets us know how we are not accepting. things

myself: that I be perfect, that I know all and never mess up

that i will know how to get through life and that everyone will like me

that 

that others recognise my brilliance and honor me - I could itemise but this is essentially narcissism at its core, no real need to go further.

not really any demands on God - God was a nonentity until only fairly recently - and I still do not accord him the power of action - that's me.