12 stupid steps

“if there is a wet drunk out there reading this, I tell you this now, that if you follow the 12 steps as outlined in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and do so thoroughly and with the aid of a sponsor, you will get and stay sober. That is a promise.”

i qualified that promise with the key word “thoroughly” that is the one thing that separates success stories from repeated failure.

In my opinion, the reason most men don’t succeed is they can’t or won’t proceed in a process they don’t believe will work for them.
How can 12 stupid steps printed on the wall pay my rent? How can they get my girlfriend back? Or get the law off my back?
The new man is right in as far as he takes it, the 12 steps won’t pay his rent, or keep him out of jail, that’s not what they work on. That’s not what they do.

I accept that you might not believe that a spiritual experience is real, you are hardly alone in that. I didn’t believe it myself when I was first exposed to it. I honestly thought that these people were misguided. Kind enough, but suffering from some form of mass hysteria. Each one of them reinforces this fictitious belief system in each other.

But I was blessed with no more good ideas. And this is of critical importants to the new person just coming in, I was willing to listen to someone else within whom the problem had been solved. And I was willing to commence actions that I did not entirely believe would work in my case.

What the steps are designed to do is, to slowly do for us what alcohol did quickly. Change this world from a hostile, unfriendly place into a more warm welcoming one.

The book puts it very well…
on page 27 it reads and I quote.
"he said to the doctor, “is there no exception?”
“yes replied the doctor, there is. Exceptions to cases like yours have been occurring since early times. Here and there, once in a while, alcoholics have had what are called vital spiritual experiences. To me these occurrences are in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them."

that is what those 12 stupid steps, as outlined in the program of alcoholics anonymous, and done thoroughly and with the aid of a sponsor, will do in a hopeless alcoholic’s life.

Thank God
Your friend on this long strange trip,
Richard