WEEK 17 - STEP 12 (SPIRITUAL AWAKENING)
[Note to reader: ask someone from the meeting to be ready to read out the promises out
at the end of the talk, and before you hand over to the guest speaker (p83, "If we are
painstaking..." to p84, "... if we work for them.")]
This week we are considering that very first phrase in Step 12. "Having had a spiritual
awakening as the result of these steps..."
We were told when we first came that this is
something that makes AA unique - no spiritual tradition or programme apart from the steps
of Alcoholics Anonymous can guarantee a spiritual awaking as a result of taking certain
actions. The information about the other spiritual traditions may or may not be correct; but we
know that this is a true promise for those who follow the AA programme. On hearing this,
you may react as some of us did: "What is a spiritual awakening? And what's so good about a
spiritual awakening anyway? I came here to get sober."
One of the appendices of the Big Book tell us that, "an awareness of a Power greater
than ourselves is the essence of a spiritual experience". For many of us, this experience is
gradual, beginning with Step Two, where we came to believe that a Power greater than us
could restore us to sanity.
We are also told that the result of a spiritual awakening is very simple, "a life of sane,
happy usefulness". We don't become 'spiritual' people as a result of the steps (whatever that
really means). As a result of doing spiritual things, we have overcome our insane attitude to
drink, we have a sense of purpose in our lives and we feel happy. Misery really is optional.
The chapter A Vision for You describes the great happiness that is on offer with the
programme. In fact it goes further than this, it highlights the necessity
for alcoholics to be
happy if we want to avoid drinking.
Many suffering alcoholics feel lonely and isolated. We crave fellowship. We are told
that our continued drinking is, in part, a vain attempt to relieve our loneliness, and that the
fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous is "a substitute [for alcohol]
and it is vastly more than that".
That substitute is the relief of loneliness gained from this contact with a Higher Power.
The Big Book refers to it as the Fellowship of the Spirit. It offers us the deep inner peace we
desire, and in doing the steps, we both ensure our sobriety and feel this gift of peace.
If we are feeling down, we are craving fellowship. What can we do to get this
fellowship? If you have not yet done so, the answer is to get a sponsor and go through the
steps. If we have been around a while, we can always reapply ourselves to the programme.
We can ask ourselves: Am I doing my daily suggestions? Am I doing anything that goes
against spiritual principles, which I should stop? Am I taking daily inventory on resentments?
Am I doing my Step-11 prayer and meditation?
If I am doing all these things as best I can, there is still one vital element missing. That
is service. It is through the action of helping another alcoholic that we convert all this into
happiness. This is the "happy usefulness" that was mentioned earlier.
Just going to meetings will not give us the fellowship we crave for very long. We can
meet people and make friends. We all like to have friends and most of us have made
wonderful friendships in AA. That is good, but it is not enough and after a while we all felt
that something was missing if that is all we are doing. Some respond by just stepping up the
number of meetings they attend. But this will not help. Certainly, we need to be attending
meetings, but we have found that the answer lies in a change of approach at the meetings we
go to.
Rather than thinking about what the meeting can give to us, we start trying to think
about how we can give to the meeting. And especially, how we can help the newcomers at the
meeting. By offering fellowship to the newcomer, we, in turn, experience a sense of
fellowship ourselves. In giving we receive. This is what really relieves our loneliness.
It is worth remembering at this stage that none of these steps can be done in isolation,
and this is as true for our twelfth step as it is for any other. The point is that when we practise
all the principles of the programme as best we can, then it is the final act of helping another
alcoholic that seems to convert it all into that deep inner happiness that we seek for ourselves.
Give first, then receive. This is the principle that is heard at so many meetings in the
reading of the last two paragraphs of A Vision for You, when it says: "Give freely of what you
find and join us. We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit..."
There is a description of what this is like on page 83 of the Big Book. The passage we
are about to here is usually called "The promises". A promise is a guarantee. This is what is
on offer to each of us, if we follow the programme, as it is described in the Big Book.
Now before we hand over to tonight's speaker [Name1], I have asked [Name2] to read out
the promises.......