Daily Reprieve

Step Seven: “Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings..”

7th Step Principle:  One of the most powerful acts of our free will is to replace our isolating self view with the connected Self and thus activate the usefulness of our lives within the collective mind, and this change is the result of a mystical intimacy with our Higher Power. (Principles after the First Step are constructed from personal reflection and acceptance. Use my version or formulate your own.)

AA Extracted Value: Humility

ACA Extracted Values: Humility

Other Extracted Values: Courage

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“As you grow up, always tell the truth, do no harm to others, and don’t think you are the most important being on earth. Rich or poor, you then can look anyone in the eye and say, ‘I’m probably no better than you, but I’m certainly your equal.’ “

~ Harper Lee

Humility is knowing who we are, while respecting and empathizing with others for who they are. If we are honest, kind and unselfish in our judgments and conduct, we are more easily able to relate to our fellows, inside and outside of A.A. In Lee’s classic book To Kill a Mockingbird, the lead character Atticus Finch says: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” As an emotionally sober alcoholic, we walk around other alcoholics’ skins every day in the Fellowship, and it is a humbling experience, for we know we are all equals.

~ Alex M., Practice These Principles, page 200

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Do you believe in magic? Do you believe that people can transform from fearful mortals protecting their territory into something. . . more? I suspect that the brevity of life and the challenges in the cruelty of the mundane lock us into a twitching vigilance; a pitiful surrender of the predatory-prey dynamic. Piece by piece I accumulate evidence of a whispering parent of humanity, that seems to give a damn about our outcome but does not want to disturb our growth. Our free will, for some reason, must remain intact. The shadowy embrace refuses to imprison me or my fellows. It does not overwhelm us with an intimidating appearance that would most certainly obliterate our intelligent response to the Infinite One. It lets us struggle and find the reality of God in the soul of our fellow humans. Rejecting the shards of god embedded within every human being makes it impossible to embrace the Source of those Self-aware ones. Does that seem reasonable? The Higher Power approaches us much more humbly than one would expect from the center of all power. Now I emulate that behavior in reciprocated desire for intimacy.

Do you believe in magic? I do. We in the AA Fellowship do. We humbly ask the invisible parent to make us more than our fears.

Step Six: “Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.”

6th Step Principle: After establishing an objective awareness of my reasons for using and embracing my defects of character, I become willing to fulfill those needs through my connection with the Higher Power. (Principles after the First Step are constructed from personal reflection and acceptance. Use my version or formulate your own.)

AA Extracted Value: Willingness

ACA Extracted Values: Honesty & Trust

Other Extracted Values: Truthfulness

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“Reminding ourselves that we have decided to go to any lengths to find a spiritual experience, we ask that we be given strength and direction to do that right thing, no matter what the personal consequences may be. We may lose our position or reputation or face jail, but we are willing. “

~ Alcoholics Anonymous, Into Action, page 79

There are three places in the Big Book where we commit to go to any length to recover from our illness of alcoholism. The first time we commit is in “How It Works:” 1) “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program…If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get–then you are ready to take certain steps” (How It Works, p.58). We next commit to go to any length in making our amends: 2) “We have a list of all persons we have harmed and to whom we are willing to make amends…If we haven’t the will to do this we ask until it comes. Remember it was agreed at the beginning we would go to any lengths for victory over alcohol” (Into Action, p. 76). 3) Finally, in the excerpt above, we are asked to go to any lengths to find a spiritual experience, or a change in our attitudes and actions sufficient for recovery from alcoholism; changes which should grow stronger as we complete the 12 Steps.

~ Alex M., Practice These Principles, page 177

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Unlike drinking alcohol, my misused natural instincts are not normally suicidal. In their proper place, they help me live life on life’s terms. In order to deal with my faults, I seek to go through a transformation of thought and attitude without abstinence from instinct. I discover how those exaggerated instincts were of benefit to me and offer that place of prominent need to my Higher Power. It ultimately becomes another excuse to connect with my Creator. It is an invitation to expand the life-saving covenant I initiated in the 3rd Step. I accept this invitation.

Step Five: “Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”

5th Step Principle: Facing the exact nature of our wrongs makes us internally aware of connective obstacles; presenting them to our Higher Power establishes thoroughness in the pursuit of release from our guilt; and expressing them aloud to another human being creates a social fearlessness in our lives. (Principles after the First Step are constructed from personal reflection and acceptance. Use my version or formulate your own.)

AA Extracted Value:  Integrity

ACA Extracted Values: Honesty & Trust

Other Extracted Values: Openness

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In this book you read again and again that faith did for us what we could not do for ourselves. We hope you are convinced now that God can remove whatever self-will has blocked you off from Him. If you have already made a decision, and an inventory of your grosser handicaps, you have made a good beginning. That being so you have swallowed and digested some big chunks of truth about yourself. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous, How it Works, page 70.

A deeply honest, comprehensive and thorough fourth step inventory, followed by a review of our inventory with our sponsor in Step Five, should reveal the truth about ourselves. This is only the starting point. We can’t change our past, but we can change our future by changing our attitudes and actions going forward. This is the purpose of the 12 Steps – to provide us with the tools to change our life for the better. Half-measures bring us nothing. We are either all in, or not in at all; It’s our choice. ~ Alex M., Practice These Principles.

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I have discovered that identifying the exact nature of my short-comings allows me to also recognize some of the specifics about other aspects of my character. I am not a walking blob of ugly transgressions. I can resist the yeast-like contamination of shame when I know what is not included in the inventory of actual guilt. I can vanquish the condemning judge when I am willing to become the objective scientist. I can turn the fungus of guilt into the penicillin of recovery. I don’t want an ambiguous, secret shame oozing out of possible misbehavior. I want the exact nature identified and severed from my valuable personality traits. I want to be free from quarantine, openly walking among my fellow humans. Let the process of recovering my true self continue.

Step Four: “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”

4th Step Principle: The most powerful act of strength in my life is to appraise my internal stock and find what is productive and what is predatory, what is connective and what is isolating, what is animal impulse and what is high intelligence and then become willing to assume responsibility for where it has been destructive and where it offers me greater freedom. (Principles after the First Step are constructed from personal reflection and acceptance. Use my version or formulate your own.)

AA Extracted Value: Courage

ACA Extracted Values: Self-honesty & Courage

Other Extracted Values: Responsibility

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“No one in A.A. ever told me to take the cotton out of my ears and put it in my mouth, but I understood the implication of the advice. For months I barely uttered more than my name at an A.A. meeting, but I paid close attention to what other members said. There were no distractions. My cell phone was off; I had no side conversations while others were speaking, and I took pen and paper to jot down key points. I stayed after meetings and spoke with newcomers and oldtimers alike, mostly asking them how I could make it through the rest of the day without drinking.

~ Practice These Principles by Alex M.

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I can remember when I started bringing paper with me, tucked away in my Big Book, so that I could remember what had been shared in the meetings. Just the act of writing it down seems to mark it in my brain as something important to remember. And those old scraps of paper provide ideas to review when I get stuck in the morbid self-reflection of isolated rumination.

I think it is also important to share at meetings if I am needing connection, or if I am being overwhelmed by the squirrels in my head and I need the light of the collective mind to scatter those obsessive thoughts.

Balance.