WEEK 15 - STEP 12 (ETHICS)
Step 12 says: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried
to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practise these principles in all our affairs.
The
chapter Working With Others is the vital guide for the traditional �12th step� work: working
with the alcoholic before they get to a meeting. This week we are considering the second part
of this step:
PRACTISING THESE PRINCIPLES IN ALL OUR AFFAIRS
The first question is what principles are we talking about? The first part of that answer
is the principles of the rest of the programme, so we take regular Step 10 inventory, we pray
and meditate as Step 11 suggest, and we carry the AA message of hope in recovery to
alcoholics who still suffer.
The second part of the answer is that we try to live the whole of our lives according to
spiritual principles. We often hear the phrase in AA, �Do the right thing, and the right thing
happens.� This could be put another way: �Try to practise spiritual principles in all your
affairs, and your Higher Power will look after you and keep you sober.�
We are talking about trying to live a morally good life (after all, we took moral
inventory when we looked at what was going wrong in our lives). Many of us were resistant
to this. It helped for us to be reminded that the Big Book is not proposing this through any
religious zeal. Step 12 is like all the other Steps, built on experience (sometimes bitter
experience) of what is necessary to stay sober. So, rather than thinking of spiritual principles
as constraints on our behaviour, we have found it easier to think of them as guidelines for a
happy and sober life. We are free to ignore them if we want to, but we believe, with the
writers of the Big Book, that God wants us to be �happy, joyous and free� and he has shown
us, through these principles, how to accept that gift. It can be difficult to trust that spiritual
principles are the best guidelines in every part of our lives, especially as it can seem at times
as though nearly every advertisement, magazine article, TV programme and movie seems to
be created on the assumption that we should put ourselves first. The Big Book begs to do the
opposite and follow spiritual principles when it says: �Abandon yourselves to God, as you
understand God.�
The danger arises for us when we don�t concede that all areas of our lives should be
lived according to spiritual principles. Then we start to feel bad as a result of what we do.
And, not wishing to face the fact that our own conduct is to blame -- because that would mean
we would have to stop doing it -- we will dishonestly blame other things for our gradually
increasing inner turmoil. So those might be, in succession, our sponsors, our home groups and
then, when there is nowhere else to go in AA, we say the programme doesn�t work or that we
have a problem other than alcoholism and head for a psychiatrist. For us, at the end of this
trail sooner or later lies a drink, unless we start to do what is right.
This leads us to our next question. How do I know what is the right thing to do in any
situation? One approach used by the Big Book is to try to develop what it calls �ideals� for
right behaviour, that is, we work out how we think we should
behave in any given situation
and then see if it is consistent with spiritual principles. The Big Book illustrates with an
example when it describes how we can do this for our sexual conduct. To help us to form this
ideal, we can be guided initially by our conscience, but then we must go further. We subject
our ideal to the scrutiny that the Big Book suggests: it must not allow for selfish or even
inconsiderate behaviour. Spiritual principles exist, in part, to show us how we can be fully
considerate of others and so avoid harming them. So our behaviour must be consistent with
spiritual principles, otherwise we are harming others in some way. The Big Book tells us
what spiritual principles to use when it says on page 93, �We represent no particular faith or
denomination. We are dealing only with general principles common to most denominations.�
So for example, with this in mind we can ask ourselves: �Is my idea of what is good
behaviour consistent with the principles set out by most of the great faiths or religions? What
do they have to say about what I want to do?�
Once we have formed our ideal, we have to keep trying to live up to it. When
opportunities present themselves, it is often tempting to tone down our ideal until it matches
what it is we want to do. This will not help us. We can fail as many times as we try, but as
long as we do acknowledge what is right and are sorry for what we have done we will be fine.
However, the book adds a pretty tough warning on page 70:
�If we are not sorry, and our
conduct continues to harm others, we are quite sure to drink. We are not theorizing. These
are facts of our experience.�
We have also come across other ways of testing whether our behaviour is right. Perhaps
they might be helpful to you: If we are faced with a choice, it is often easier to say what is not
God�s will. For example, it cannot be God�s will that we do anything dishonest, impure,
selfish or unloving (these were the guides used by a lot of the early AAs).
Also, in considering whether or not to go with gut instincts: many experienced in
spiritual matters say that if the conscience pricks and gives us a strong sense that something is
wrong, then there is every chance that our conscience is right and that we should listen to it
(and at the very least, take guidance). However, the reverse is not true if something �just feels
right�. Gut instinct alone is no reason for deciding to do something. Going with things that
�just feel right� is another way of saying, �I will do what I please�. It was doing as we pleased
that got many of us into AA in the first place. We should ask ourselves as well: does this
conform to spiritual principles? Is it a good thing to do?
Through this process of continually checking our motives and the right or wrong of an
action, our intuition does get better. But still, we should never rely on instinct alone. If we
have an opportunity, we have found that it is often best to ask our sponsor who can offer an
objective viewpoint. This is especially helpful for any major decisions.
Sometimes one hears that one should aim to do �the opposite of what our head [or our
defects] tells us�. As we understand it, this phrase is meant to indicate that we should act in
the opposite way to any selfish or resentful motives. For us, this is not always the best
approach to use. The aim is to do what is right. Sometimes our selfishness can lead us to do
the right thing for the wrong reasons. The point is to disregard our resentful/self-centred
attitudes and do what is right anyway. We try to be guided by reason rather than emotion.
There is no suggestion that feelings are unimportant, just that if we only consider how we
feel, we can end up in trouble. We try to do right actions, and be guided by good motives. We
are not saying that we never do what we want to, just that we should consider as well whether
or not it breaks spiritual principles. Provided the action does not break spiritual principles, we
can do whatever we want and be certain that the right thing will happen for us. We never need
to be plagued by indecision, or by anxiety about the result.
Also, sometimes we hear the phrase �people pleasing� as though there is something
wrong with this. On the contrary to what you sometimes hear, it is always good to please
people, just as it is always good to be helpful to others. The difficulties occur for us if our primary motive is to get them to like us or to influence their behaviour for our own ends. That
is manipulation (and very often not even perceived as helpful by the person on the receiving
end anyway). We are not really trying to please them. We are trying get them to please us. It
is bound to end in our unhappiness, because we can never manipulate things completely to
our satisfaction. It is just like the overbearing director of the play, described in the Big Book
in connection with Step Three, who is convinced of the goodness of his actions, but is
frustrated when it doesn�t go precisely as planned. It is a question of honesty. The answer is
not to stop helping people, but to aim to do what is genuinely helpful for them. As it says in
the Big Book on page 89: �To be helpful is our only aim.� Sometimes the most helpful thing
will be for us to leave them in peace.
We have discussed so far ways in which we can decide what is right action. As
alcoholics, our primary motive for wanting to do the right thing, is to stay sober. Many, who
are more experienced in spiritual matters than us, say that in time we grow to love this way of
life. Then we want to do the right thing, because when sober, we can do God�s will. It is to
the degree that there is a harmony between our will and God�s will that the promises
materialize for us. And they will always materialize for us, as the book says, sometimes
quickly and sometimes slowly.
That is the end of the talk. Now I am delighted to hand over to [Name] who will disclose in a general way, what it was like, what happened, and what it is like now.