In January, 2020, I am presenting a workshop entitled “The Spaces Between the Steps” at the Dan Anderson Renewal Center on the Hazelden Betty Ford campus in Center City, MN. I presented this program a few years ago at DARC, but felt at the time that I hadn’t gotten the core ideas to the place I intended before conducting the workshop.
For the next couple of months, as I delve into this topic, I will be posting what I am “musing about” and writing about what I believe the core concepts of this idea are. What follows is some of the work I did initially while trying to flesh out this concept.
PART I
The idea that the steps need to always be approached in a specific way or a traditional sequence has always bothered me a little. In fact, what I am doing right now has always been a little irritating – one more expert explaining the steps to the poor unenlightened.
The process of “working the steps” has become so pedantic as to foster great conversations, weekend book studies and retreats where the steps, their meaning, and the collective experience are hashed and rehashed.
So what I hope to accomplish over the next few months is an investigation and a study of the sequencing of the steps. I’m not planning to take them out of sequence, just a “rebundling” of sorts.
I know for a fact that my view of being in recovery or being sober is “my view” and it’s not better or worse than anyone else’s. If it’s successful in keeping people from practicing the particularly unique brand of insanity addiction seems to burden us with, it’s worth pursuing.
The way I have described this idea to others is from some thoughts I’ve had about the way the steps are generally approached by those who attempt to present them in most cases today. There is nothing wrong with this sequence and there is nothing wrong with any of the approaches that have been proposed regarding the presentation of the steps. How the steps are presented in general isn’t the issue at all. How the steps are presented to the newcomer vs. the long-timer may have some bearing on this but not really. How the steps are presented will not be altered by someone writing a book with a different approach to the steps. There are frankly many of those out in the market place.
The other thing this is not going to be is an alternative way to look at the steps offering any other insight than is already inherent in the steps. Because the steps are a profound “way of life” that is recommended to a particular set of individuals, it remains always open to interpretation. I think one of the first misinterpretations is that these steps are for everyone. It’s often heard–especially for someone who is approaching these directions for the first time–that “everyone” would benefit from what these steps offer especially as applied to navigating life. In truth, the circumstances or experiences that bring a person to a willingness to make these changes are in themselves powerful and severe. Most people don’t have the need or motivation to make these suggested changes unless their lives are pretty much in shambles. There is also an element of “if other people in my life followed this program they would behave in a way I like” or “could deal with.”
It’s true that many of the principles that went into the development of the steps are generally viewed as “good rules to live by” and are in fact already used naturally by people who don’t find a need to make vast personal changes in order to get on with their lives. The other element of this has to do with wanting to “give back.” This is seen time and time again among people who have experienced the “profound alteration.” They feel they have found a secret that needs to be shared. Again, the people they generally are trying to share this information with either have no interest in the information because they don’t have the problems the person trying to share with them have or they do have those problems and aren’t ready to deal with them, at least not in the ways suggested by the sharer.
I propose looking at the spaces between the steps, especially those steps that are not ordinarily “bundled” together when discussed. In most standard step studies, the following is the standard characterization for three “sets” of action steps: four and five, six and seven, and eight and nine. Because there has always been a sense of “ready, set, go” to these steps, one being the preparation for the step before it and the next step the action that naturally follows the preparation, this has determined how the steps should be presented. For those new to the process, this may look like the only true preparation there is. At meetings the sharing about the steps (hopefully based on the sharer’s experience) is very straightforward and doesn’t usually go very far afield from what the basic understanding of the step may be. In other words, there isn’t very much straying from concepts that have been shared and espoused about the steps for years. The person who speaks most effectively won’t necessarily sway people any better than someone who rambles, but clearly has an experiential understanding of the step.
This process would have a focus on the bridges between the key steps. the breakdown of the steps would be like this: Three and Four, Five and Six, Seven and Eight, and then, Nine and Ten. The information to be discussed between these steps are some substantial transitional things.
Perhaps someone has come up with this approach before, but I haven’t actually heard of it being implemented. Sometimes people are funny about these kinds of things, thinking that changes of this nature present significant threats to the sanctity of AA or the Twelve Steps or some other nonsense. There isn’t the hint that this is a change to what already exists in people’s own experience, especially if they’ve approached the steps as many in recovery have — as a living, breathing thing and not a set of “to-dos” from another century.
The changes to this sequence may actually have the capacity to illuminate areas which sometimes run the risk of being skipped over. Sometimes the person “working the steps” may be eager to complete them so they can say they have. This may run roughshod over the “touchy-feely” mentality that often accompanies writing on these subjects, but the entire truth is people take the steps for a wide variety of reasons, without realizing why themselves. The why of it often gets lost in the doing of it. But never be fooled into believing you know what motivates people most. It’s particularly difficult to predict.
Another way to look at this is the potential for “freshness” of vision. When I am forced to think about the transition between two steps that are paired up in what might be considered an “untraditional” way. I want to be able to look at what “links” these steps together. It’s important for me to talk about that in more detail. I need to also keep my mind away from what’s been written on this subject before. There is much written on this topic, but the same percentage of people stay sober. So one would have to believe that it isn’t the preponderance of things written on recovery that is making the big difference. It might be more about the approach. There is also that cachet of the guru that makes some writing all of a sudden passé.
This reminds me of something an Old-timer told me. He said that when he took a “new guy” through the book, he would buy a new book. That way he wouldn’t be distracted by all the highlighting and notes that he might have put in the book the last time. I thought this concept was brilliant because it tapped into the idea of coming to everything we do or experience for the first time because it is changed by everything we do and experience before we come to it. I haven’t been greeted with that same attitude by others I’ve told that story to. Most cling to the idea that the sum total of their knowledge and experience is in the highlighting and hen-scratching they put in their book when they first went through it. (Actually, it was my sponsor.)
I need to make it clear that I’m not recreating a “book study.” There are already plenty of those around. What I’m going to do is go through this process for myself. As a result, the discovery for me will be the information I pass along. This isn’t a lone project or a project designed for a lone soul. It’s a project that is informed by everyone I’ve come in contact with, every meeting I’ve ever attended, every person I’ve considered my sponsor (whether I asked him or not), and everyone I’ve ever touched with my own recovery, both my struggles and my successes.
Once I made it to the idea of changing this sequence into somewhat non-standard chunks, I was able to actually see that the writing might be more beneficial to me than it is to anyone reading it. So the going forward will really be about writing about the steps in a little different approach, but strictly the way I see it and not authoritative. Frankly, I would be tremendously dubious of anyone presenting themselves as an authority.
I think it would be wise to discuss Steps One and Two in a way that allows one to see the fundamental understanding of preparing to change. See how these steps may lead one toward doing something that they don’t believe in. I have repeated, over time, the observation that the people who get into and stay in long-term recovery are those whose consequences (or perceived consequences) are finally so severe they are willing to do things they don’t believe in. I added the part in the parenthesis because that describes me within the context of this sentiment and I fully believe this sentiment. I wanted to call specific attention to this because it helps me understand what I am about a little better. I want to be able to communicate with those who struggled as I did with the general understanding of that. THE TRICK IS IN THE DISCOVERY AND NOT IN THE KNOWING.
Stay tuned for Part II.
Take good care – RCC
Notes from the Half Measures Seats 