Category: Recovery

Just when it seemed like things couldn’t be more challenging, those of us living on the West coast are expressing an abundance of patience. As I prepare this blog post, the air quality index outside is 406 which is considered “Hazardous.”

We press on because that’s how we are now directed. Nothing is so bad that a drink or drug won’t make it worse. I also know that God puts no more in my day than I can handle.

I used to complain to my Sponsor how complicated and challenging my life was and he would say, “Write a gratitude list!” and hang up.

This post a little longer than previous posts, but stick with it. I think you’ll discover something about what happens between Steps Five and Six.

As we start to get into the action of these steps, I need to say something about the process’s transfiguring nature. The process includes taking an inventory and sharing that inventory—that action in particular. When we move to the amends, this needs to be driven by a transfiguration, not a transformation. So what is the difference between these things? If I walk around the fire and I incantate, and I jump up and down, and I spit, and I do all kinds of things, then I might find that over time, a transformation occurs. It’s a transformation into a jumping around, incanting, spitter. 

What happens when someone walks through the fire is there will be something fundamentally changed about the individual, and that’s the transfiguration. It’s important to note that this action also comes with pain. Over time, we’ve boiled down a lot of the Steps. Whether in treatment or meetings, discussion today focuses on fundamentally intellectual concepts, or they primarily want to talk about yoga or meditation. What gets missed with all this “happy” philosophical reflection is the point of what this whole process is. It’s what Bill Wilson referred to as deflation at depth. Where the person is down about as far as they can go and then we stick a pin in them – deflate them some more.

The modern individual today doesn’t want to do that. They don’t want to feel that pain. They don’t want to make that transfiguration. And because they don’t want to do that and maybe can find enough people who would endorse them not doing that, they don’t do that. For them, the process is less than fulfilling. It’s less than life-changing. We’re talking about changing everything, and the only way to change everything is to commit to seeing who we are in the flesh, who we are at our very bare bones. From there, we make decisions about how we move forward in dealing with the following:

1. How we’ve hurt others
2. How we’ve behaved in the world.
3. How we’ve perceived the world and other people in the world.

We’ve seen people as pawns in our schemes. We’ve used people. We’ve used institutions. We’ve used situations and not always to the benefit of those people or situations or institutions. We have become as the Big Book describes a tornado through everybody’s lives. In good conscience, we cannot find a way back to any redemption by not taking full responsibility for the behavior that created this tornado. That’s the process of taking an inventory. We share it with another person, identifying our character defects, asking a power greater than ourselves to help us not let those rule us, and allowing them to be removed from us. Once we feel secure that we are moving forward and only occasionally having our defects poke out and hurt other people, we are now ready to start clearing up some wreckage. We have to do that with the full intent of doing just that. We don’t do this primarily because it might make us feel better. That would be the last reason we would do it. It’s because it is the next right thing to do at this period in the process.

Steps Five and Six

The space between these two steps may be a profound spot as a person begins to gain more time in sobriety. So what happens in Five? Well, the Step says, “Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.” I’ve taken an inventory in the Fourth Step, and I’ve tried to be as thorough as possible. And I’ve wanted to make sure that I’ve covered everything that I possibly can, leaving nothing out. I will then sit down and discuss what I’ve discovered in the taking of that inventory.

What’s happened over time is this Step has become reading your inventory. In some ways, this allows a person to express what they’ve discovered. They may also say things without any discovery. The interjections and experience from the people who are listening to the Fourth Step provide some enlightenment. But as is the case with most people in early recovery when they are working on this Step, they have some formula that they’re following. Either a procedure they’ve discovered on their own or a process that their sponsor has given them. Hopefully, the latter rather than the former. The sponsor provides some necessary direction rather than following the idea that somehow or another, we can work these steps by ourselves and benefit from them.

What happens to the person filling out the inventory is they begin to experience an emotional reaction to what they’re writing. Again, without going into too much detail about how to do a Fourth Step, it’s essential to understand that certain things probably cause more stress than relief. When dealing with either resentments or sexual conduct or fears, we make the error of working the Fourth Step across. That is, we take it one item at a time and go all the way across the grid we’re using. It’s unlikely we’ll get very far before we have a strong emotional reaction to our writing.

In some cases, this leads to a return to use. The recommendation most often is that, in the case of resentment, the first column – who do we resent or what do we resent or who are we mad at – is just a list of names, institutions, and situations with whom we have developed a resentment. If we make that list, that’s not very harmful. Sometimes once the name of the institution or person is put down, the person writing down those things will look at that list and say, “I’m not sure why I resent that person. I’m not sure why I’m mad at that institution.” Because once it’s out of their head and becomes right-sized on paper, many of the things written down look frivolous.

As I mentioned earlier, over time, the Fifth Step became “Read to God, ourselves and to another human being our Fourth Step.,” rather than admitting the exact nature of our wrongs. The Fourth Step is a comprehensive process, where we discover the core of our defects. We then further understand that the heart of our shortcomings or wrongs explain why we feel compelled to do or say or act in specific ways that we might not otherwise have done. We will gain the ability to see where fear, anger, dishonesty, impatience, plus intolerance, self-centeredness, self-seeking, and self-aggrandizement, have created a character who responds to life using these defects. Maybe more correctly to say re-acted out using those defects of character. Because most of those defects are triggered when we are triggered and started by whatever the events are around us, and our reactions are what they are. That reaction is usually incorrect, grandiose, or too large to be believed.

So when we look at the exact nature of our wrongs, we are looking at the modes of operation we use to react to life? Those particular shortcomings or defects have dogged us early in our lives. We have probably been fearful for a long time and felt not quite equivalent to the world around us; it’s like we don’t fit in. That could have happened when we were in Kindergarten or even earlier. Long before taking a drink or having a drug even entered our minds. Those feelings are pretty strong, and we have no other recourse than to react based on those feelings. We’re often angry or sad; we usually have hurt feelings because of being misunderstood or misunderstanding others. The actual respite we get from these emotions is when we discovered alcohol or drugs. What those do for us nothing else does. Nothing else we’ve found will do for us what alcohol or drugs do. Sometimes it’s called “social lubricant.” Sometimes it’s described as getting an immediate sense of peace and ease. We are just feeling better about ourselves. We feel like we fit in and are a part of rather than apart from as in the past.

Step Five is really about coming to an understanding and accepting how these character defects managed my life. The things I wrote down in my inventory explained that it wasn’t so much my acting out. I re-acted out and used these defects as the mechanisms by which I dealt with whatever I confronted. This Step’s process should be quite an eye-opening experience for anybody who has no clue why they drink and/or use drugs. Also, why their world has become so small that they only seem to be able to get along with people who use the way they do or see the world the way they do. It’s one reason addicts and alcoholics can talk to each other because many of the reactions and defects of character are identical.

What is clear is that the problem is different. The problem a person faces in life, whatever that may be, can be as diverse as one’s DNA or fingerprints. What is alike is the solution we chose to use to cope with the problem and how we change how we feel. Using is how we change our perception of a world that seems to be after us. How we change our interactions with others, How we get people to do what we want them to do. These are some of the fundamentals with which somebody early in recovery deals. More than any other, the Fifth Step recognizes our struggle with those devices that we have in our quiver, and they’re the only arrows we have. The truth for us is that these devices, whatever they are, have stopped working for us. If we don’t discover this in Step Five, then it’s hard for us to recognize what defects we’re entirely ready to remove in Step Six.

My problem with Step Six early on was there was so little written about it. As a result, it felt almost misunderstood or neglected compared to the rest of the steps. Nothing could be further from the truth. Step Six is probably one of the most profound and life-altering steps because of how it manifests itself throughout the alcoholic or addict’s lifetime. Once I have determined in my Fifth Step, the exact nature of my wrongs or my “character defects,” I’ll notice there’s not a lot of them. I don’t have a page of 35 defects of character. If I do, I probably need to go back to my sponsor and get further education about precisely what character defects are and are not. I may also need direction on what defects of character I have written down that maybe one thing. I have ten items written down that could all be listed under “fear.”

Six says, “We are entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.” This language is definitive in the sense that it says we are “entirely,” thoroughly, without reservation, with no trepidation ready to have God remove all of my wrongs. I’m going to look at the nature of my wrongs, I’m going to make this list, and I’m going to be entirely ready, fully ready for God to remove all these character defects. In the Big Book, it literally states it is an hour following the Fifth Step. It says, go and sit for an hour. (pg. 75) And think about how thorough you were with the Fifth Step. That’s the first thing it wants you to do. The instructions are directing you to think about how complete you were with Step Five. That’s how important and repetitive the idea of thoroughness is. It’s vital because it asks us to make sure we’ve “got” everything at literally the halfway point of the Twelve Steps. We have looked as deeply as we possibly could, but more importantly, we’ve examined our past as thoroughly as possible. We’re not leaving anything out. Even the stuff that’s “Ah. who’s going to care?” Once we’ve done that, then Six becomes what we do, and it’s not something that we do lightly. It’s probably not something that we do very well the first time we do it.

Step Six’s action is to be “entirely ready” to have God remove “all” these character defects. I have to dig deep into myself and accept that these character defects genuinely belong to me and cause me problems. Doing this Step the first time won’t change my behavior that much. I would like it to be that simple that I could be “entirely ready” to have God remove “all” these character defects. Please put them in the paper bag, set the bag on fire, throw the bag into the air, or what’s left of it, and have those defects wholly removed. All of a sudden, I behave correctly. I automatically know how to react to every situation. An immediate change will not happen. It will not happen because I’m committing to the willingness to see each time my behavior reflects one of these character defects. At first, I’m not going to want to do that all the time. I’m probably not going to want to do it most of the time.

If I continue to put off dealing with these defects of character and how these defects impact the way I react to life, then my recovery is going to continue to be relatively painful. It’s painful because I’m resisting the change that’s necessary for me to move on.

Six moves into Seven, but Six must be thorough in terms of our willingness to see not only what our defects of character are, but also what are the advantages of removing these defects. We inevitably have defects that work pretty well for us, and we’re not interested in getting rid of them. That will stop this process dead in its tracks. After years in the program, I know that you will realize either you’re all in or eventually you’re out. That’s the problem with this Step for most people. Step Seven is a commitment that’s different than the Step Three commitment because the Step Three commitment was a decision — “Yeah, I could do that. I’m not sure God’s will is something that I want, but I can do that.” With Step Six, we are starting the process of making good on that Step Three decision. Now we’re beginning to commit. A commitment is different than a promise or a decision in that it asks for change. A commitment asks for an elimination of behavior that has sustained us up until this very point. The scary part is eliminating those aspects of ourselves with which we’ve become comfortable. They’re crappy. We don’t like them. They make us feel bad. We are in pain with them. But that doesn’t mean we want to get rid of them. There’s something warm and wonderful about this pile of crap we’re sitting in.

This Step is where I find myself in a problem. I continue from this point and go from Six to Seven. I humbly ask Him to remove my shortcomings. And then I’ll plow right on to do the amends. As I begin to talk about this more, it will become apparent that doing amends without being exceptionally thorough in our Step Six and Seven has its pitfalls. I will discuss these various pitfalls next time.

It truly seems like the time between my posts gets longer and longer. I read people who post almost every day. I’d love to be one of those people, but I’ll make no promises.

Since my last post, things have gotten more and more challenging. At this point, recovering people have been away from their in-person recovery meetings for several months. I am seeing many stories daily about what a strain this has been for people in early recovery. My hope is that with the easing of restrictions around the country, we will once again, soon, be able to join in fellowship.

In the meantime, there are thousands of Zoom meetings across the United States. Give yourself a treat and visit meetings from outside your area. Sobriety and Recovery are everywhere and if you are like us, a meeting is the only place where everybody understands what you’re talking about.

Continuation of Steps Three and Four

I don’t know how anyone can complete the Fourth Step without psychological damage, given the amount of information spread these days.

Before we go there, there’s just a little more to say about the Third Step. The Big Book says that “though this decision was a vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face, and to be rid of the things in ourselves which had been blocking us.’

Here is an essential distinction in the Big Book where it says “at once.” That’s a key. A lot of people wait and wait and wait to move from Three to Four. Sometimes this is the discretion of their sponsor. By and large, though, I think this is at the discretion of the individual who puts it off and puts it off because it feels like something that either A) they are going to fail or B) they relinquish control of their history in some way.

These are the issues with which some people are concerned. “I’m not going to be able to do this thing correctly.” All of a sudden, we went from some discussions about spiritual things, about turning things over, about turning over the need to control things. Now, all of a sudden, we have “homework.” And when we start to face homework, especially if we tend to be poor students, that causes a great deal of anxiety. It even causes stress among people who consider themselves good students.

All the information, instruction, and education about doing the Fourth Step are everywhere, in every town, in workshops, pamphlets, and online guides with an explanation on how to do the Fourth Step. Then you also have people within the program itself who say, “You just do it the way the book says.” And by and large, the experience for most people is that the book is hard to comprehend.

Sometimes it requires a person to fumble through a Fourth Step, maybe using a form, possibly using some online guide, to fully understand how the Big Book approaches what the individual is supposed to do. If an individual is truly ready to take a Fourth Step, then the process isn’t that difficult. Some people do significant, complicated Fourth Steps where they delve into every nook and cranny of their past (or “every dark cranny of the past” pg. 75. Some crevices are darker than others.) and write down every nickel they stole from their mother’s purse and every other wrongdoing, which of course, becomes the “immoral” inventory. They’re truthful, but they’re digging up things that probably aren’t causing them a great deal of distress at the time. More importantly, are those things that they’re not putting down because they do cause pain. They are concerned about what somebody who reads this might think. Or what a person might think of them if they were to tell them about this deed of theirs that feels dirty or secret to them. It feels overwhelming in such a way that it’s easier not to talk about it and focus on those little things; several small things that don’t cause them to feel bad about themselves or feel dirty. To make a connection between Three and Four, what we need to decide is what exactly is it that is blocking us. What is it that we need to uncover of which we need to be rid? And how is it that this Step naturally leads from a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understood Him?

When I make that decision, and I follow it with the action suggested, what the Big Book describes as “uncovering and getting rid of the things that are blocking me.” It may be unlikely that I have “that” in mind. In other words, I don’t know that I look at this as the objective of the inventory.

What I look at is that my sponsor or the Big Book or people in the program are telling me that I have to do a Fourth and Fifth Step, or I will probably drink again. And for some of us, that’s a scary proposition, especially if we’ve spent a lot of time going to meetings and reading the Big Book and talking to our sponsor and talking to other recovering people and making an effort to stay sober. We learn that all the work we’ve done up to now will be for naught. We need to follow through and immediately or “at once,” as the book says, complete a Fourth Step. So, it just feels again like homework. It just feels like one of those checkboxes that I have to check, and it seems like it’s a daunting task.

There’s a lot of information I have to write down. I have to write down resentments. Who do I resent? Well, hell, I don’t know if I even have resentments. Do I have people I’m mad at, do I have institutions I’m mad at, do I have situations that I got myself involved with that make me angry or uncomfortable? These are all things that I need to write down. And then I have to look at the reason I feel the way I do about them. And I have to look at where I am at fault. I do that not only for resentments, I also do it for fears, but I too do it for sexual conduct, and then I look at the harms I’ve done others. There are basic things I need to look at in every inventory. Probably the most important thing I need to look at is what is the exact nature of these wrongs because I’m later going to be discussing that. And the nature of these wrongs is probably, without question, the thing that blocks me from other people, most assuredly, and by extension prevents me from connecting with a Higher Power.

So in recognizing that my Higher Power is the source—I’m not the source, I’m a pipe—and I open that pipe to not only receive the source but be the conduit for it as well. The things that block me from others or block me from God are the things that might be called character defects. Those are the most prominent things I find about myself when I do an inventory. I won’t spend a lot of time discussing the completion of a Fourth Step inventory, because there’s plenty written about that. That’s not an area into which I want to go. With this one provision, if a person currently feels they have done the Fourth Step and have not felt the relief reported to happen by others, then there is something of a disconnect between Step Three and Step Four. That disconnect is an understanding of why the inventory needs to be thorough, complete. It needs to be careful and comprehensive because we don’t want to leave anything to block us. If I’m turning my will and my life over, and that’s everything, then cleaning out everything that prevents me from that goal I need to do. And I may not know whether I’ve done that or not. I may not have a clear idea about what I’m keeping hidden.

Usually, the things that people keep hidden are the things that have power over them but have little meaning to those who aren’t them. So, for example, you can tell your sponsor the worst thing you ever did or the worst thing you thought you ever did, and your sponsor’s response could be, “Yeah, we do a lot of crazy things when we’re drinking.” Now, the individual who feels like this is the worst thing they’ve ever done would be potentially offended by such a cavalier response. But the truth is the sponsor doesn’t have the emotional attachment to the nonsense that I’m putting down on that piece of paper. Exactly why, when I put it down on the piece of paper, a great deal of it looks nonsensical or inane or tacky or trivial. And there are going to be pieces of the stuff I put down that are not those things. But by and large, most of the things I write down in a Fourth Step over time become negligible. Because the person I wrote about was who I was and what I did when I was under the influence of something else. I didn’t understand there was a solution to the feelings I had of not fitting in. All the feelings I had about not been a part of or not succeeding. I felt like I was a failure because I wasn’t smart, handsome, or able to dance.

What causes me to stall on Step Three is that second part of the Step where I’m turning my will and my life over to “God as we understood Him.” God, as I understand him. God, as I perceive him. God, as I conceptualize him. However, I want to put that. So I’m using a word, “God,” which is full of all kinds of harmful or pejorative meaning to me. I’m trying to apply that in a microcosm. I’m trying to use that in a niche. Because at this point, when I’m working the steps, I’m working them sort of as an exercise. So, they have a narrow conceptualization for me. They have a small achievement—a kind of spiritual checklist experience. Either I do it, or I don’t do it.

I’m probably not even aware of the profoundness unless I happen to be a philosophy major, which I’m not. But I probably don’t notice that there is a quality to these steps that makes them change and move over time. All I can see right now is that I have something of which to take care. And when I hit Three, this seems like too significant a commitment for me to do in a niche. In other words, I’m not even sure I have the ability or the capacity to do what this Step is asking me to do. I’m turning my will and my life over. I have no idea what that is. I don’t know what my will is, and I don’t know what my life is because I haven’t fully lived it yet. So I’m not sure what I’m doing when I make this decision. And then I have this new thing of turning it over to God. Now we’re into a quagmire of understanding. We’re going back and forth about is there a God or is there not a God. This word, as a benchmark over time, has become kind of its detriment as opposed to its asset. Because what we’re honestly talking about is the recognition that we must give up the fact that we are at the center of the universe.

We need to believe that there are actions, people, groups, nature, intelligence that are greater than we are in a collective way. Low and behold, there is relief for this crap  I’ve been carrying around because I thought I had to. I could conceivably turn over a great deal of it to something more powerful than me and take away my need to manage things I don’t need to manage. My management of these things is illusionary anyway. It’s like control. I don’t have it, I just think I do. Or I just believe that I can impact how people feel about me. If I wish hard enough, I can make the weather be beautiful tomorrow for our outing. I will make sure that there are no bugs for the camping trip. Whatever it might be, I feel like there’s this sense of control. And when those things don’t turn out the way I think they should, I take responsibility for that. I take responsibility for the failure. And this is the downside of control. If I’m deciding to turn my control, my will, and my life, over to the care of something greater than myself, then I no longer have to take responsibility when things don’t work out. I do what I can, but the outcome is going to be whatever the result is, and I am not responsible.

Finally, next time we will move on through Step Four and get to the space between Step Five and Step Six.

There is a curse that goes, “May you live in interesting times.”  It seems we may all be living with that curse right now. In reality, this is a gateway for great opportunity if one is prepared.

Recovery is the greatest preparation there is for accepting and using change. We in recovery from addiction are better prepared than most “normal” people to deal with what is happening to us right now. Where others see strife and inconvenience, we see new possibilities. We have faced down the known that was killing us and jumped headlong into the unknown that is the life we have now, one day at a time.

Part III – Steps Three and Four (continued)

There is a saying in AA that if you hang around long enough you will eventually hear someone tell your story. Clearly, no one is going to tell my whole story, but there will be enough similarity for me to identify more fully with the speaker’s experience. With the wide variety of experiences, it’s pretty unlikely that all of my story will mesh perfectly with all of someone else’s story.

The instructions for telling your story are laid out in the Big Book as: “Our stories disclose, in a general way, what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now.” When we talk about what we used to be like, the identification can come in the common problem. When we talk about what we are like now we are referring to the common solution. It is the area of “what happened” that shows a bridge of potentially uncommon experience. How did I get here and if I am here, where am I? Is where I am merely a physical space or is it more expansive than that?

This ultimate change process has been the subject of study for many professionals over the years. Some have spent their entire careers on this one subject. The study of change generally breaks down into two areas: what motivates a person to take actions that bring about change and what causes a person to resist taking actions that could bring about change. In these studies, the result of the change seems irrelevant. 

The human reaction to most things requiring change is when there has been time to process it, and the alternatives have become untenable, then making a change may be embraced. It is an arduous process and for many things the process of avoiding change becomes protracted for as long as necessary with little adverse effect. When we are asked to change something we have come to depend on to the point of not being able to imagine a life without it then this very human process begins to work against us. This is what creates the avid resistance even in the face of tremendous negative consequences inherent in not changing.

The decision and motivation to change have to feel like ours. When it feels imposed, the instinct to reject it kicks in. This manifests itself in many ways. The most common is the impairing of hearing. It’s not that the ears are suddenly unable to hear sound — it’s that the brain is unable to translate what is being heard correctly. In some cases this is explained as the “addict brain” protecting the addiction. As mentioned earlier — when we’ve come to depend on something we are not always prepared to hear anything that contradicts what we’ve come to believe.

It’s this that creates the greatest initial barrier to the Third Step. In Step One, we have been presented with a reality that we may not be able to accept completely — powerlessness means loss of the power of choice. If things have gotten bad enough, a person can accept this premise long enough to do something different. But for many, this is merely an intellectual exercise — more convincing is in order as is clear by the amount of pages dedicated to it in the Big Book (Alcoholics Anonymous).

When confronted with Step Three, it’s as if we’re saying, “Yes, what you intellectually admitted to in Step One must be committed to in Step Three.” That’s a little more extreme than what’s actually said anywhere, but an accurate reaction to a brain that’s not ready to make that kind of commitment.

The next question is, “How committed to this change do I have to be in order to get any benefit from continuing?” The answer is, “not very committed.” Moving into action — any action — changes the thought process. The impetus and objective of the first five chapters of the Big Book is to move the person into action — which is also the title of Chapter Six.

In truth, the first “action” is the personal inventory. This is what Step Three moves the person towards. This action doesn’t necessarily seal the deal, but it moves people into new territory. Once the action is taken the person’s attitude and thinking has a chance to change. It’s not a guarantee of change but it’s a start.

It would be great if a person could just finish a Fourth Step and have their whole life change for them. That doesn’t happen. In fact, there are people who literally take these two steps over and over to no permanent or even long-lasting effect. One of the first questions one would ask at this point has to do with how thorough the person was when making this inventory. Often it’s believed that people leave out key issues from their inventory and keeping secrets that continue to generate their ingrained illness and an inability to stay sober.

I also believe the leap one makes from Step Three to Step Four is often farther than the newly sober person is ready to take. Remember, the idea of the individual “being convinced” seems to be key to moving forward. Is it just conviction that allows us to move forward and be as thorough as possible or is there more to it? A person can move forward without being convinced as long as they are eventually “convinced.” This comes through the process of working the Steps. Many have the conversion from unconvinced to convinced after doing a Fourth and Fifth Step. Others may not find it until they begin to make amends in Steps Eight and Nine. It’s not just working steps that causes this to come about. If a person is committed to going to meetings and participating in the fellowship, this exposure can eventually move a person towards a conviction to this new way of life. NOTE: There are many in recovery who disagree with this observation.

There are quite a number of elements at play here:

1. Where is the person coming from? In other words, how bad has it been before they arrive at this first of many thresholds in the change process. It’s a mistake to believe that only those having lost everything are more willing to change than those who have only lost a little. What’s been lost is much more powerful than how much. Even then, the power of the “what” is as varied as the individual attempting to make a change. In that, weight is the true motivation, but that itself is usually not enough to convince someone to change.
2. What is the person’s true reason to seek change? Again, this is as varied as the parade of newly “non-drinking” and “non-using” candidates for recovery. It is a peculiarity that this problem attracts people who have a difficult time being honest and forthcoming about anything. Not the least of these is honestly expressing what they are feeling. It is just as hard to get them to be truly forthcoming about why they might be seeking change. Seeking change should not be confused with a desire to change or even a commitment to change. The motivation to seek change may be entirely separated from the need or ability to change. When we delve into this area, we will encounter a world of smoke and mirrors as the person begins to protect what they perceive to be their freedom to make a choice.
3. Are they finally willing to do things they don’t believe in? Some people I know don’t adhere to this concept because it imagines people blindly following the orders of others and they may have an opinion about the suitability of these others to lead people properly. All of the people involved in this are damaged in some way by the disease of addiction. There truly isn’t one person more qualified to share their experience with another than anybody else. The process truly begins with one addict/alcoholic talking to another addict/alcoholic. Are there really qualifications? 

The treatment field has done a lot to help people suffering from addiction, and they have been able to make great strides at looking at the causes and conditions which often lead someone to this disease. Unfortunately today, the same institutions that were started on the outskirts of the recovery movement are now in a scramble for how to get what they do paid for by an ever increasingly resistant insurance market. As a result, those fundamentals of recovery that used to arm everyone leaving treatment are now made available, mostly through happenstance, only to a few. The ever increasing desire to get paid for something, has allowed people to be sicker and more “excused” for their condition and by extension their behavior. 

There is probably as many conceptions of what constitutes Step Four as there are people taking it. This has created a sort of “cottage industry” of Fourth Step instruction. The steps have become fairly pedantic as most of those in recovery long-term seek to “protect” the sanctity of the program and the steps from those who would seek to change it or god forbid improve it. What may have been lost in all of this is the ultimate goal of taking this step and this is seeing where we were wrong. The error handed to many is the idea that we are to look at “our part” which is argued that it makes the process more understandable to those new to the process. I contend that it allows for a potentially slurry or fuzzy utilization of the process. If we are given a pass to do the easier way we will most likely do that and not seek to do any more or seek any further.

When ultimately this plan doesn’t work, we don’t immediately jump to “I guess this didn’t work because I was completely dishonest in my fourth step.” Instead, we toy around with the idea of failure and being “constitutionally incapable,” etc. This is just another way of seeking to take less responsibility. If we are not ready to take full responsibility (including things that we may be unclear about being responsible for) then we aren’t really ready to move forward to the next step.

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