MY ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON STEP TWELVE     

 

"Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs."

 

1. How is Action its keyword to your recovery?

 

The joy of living is the theme of A.A.'s Twelfth Step it is where we turn towards others to help them find recovery thru working the steps into their lives like we have worked these steps in to our own lives the twelfth step is practicing all the steps and given away what we have learned how we faced our troubles and walked thru the years of our pasts now we can show other how to do this

 

2. What price tag can anyone put on love?

 

Working the Twelfth Step is really talking about the kind of love that has no price tag on it who could put a price on seeing the joy of another person when they see the light at the end of the tunnel finding hope in the fellowship and finding the God of there understanding this is priceless

 

3. What is spiritual awakening?

 

For me a spiritual awakening is the awareness that I was not God and that God will help me if I let him his unconditional love for us all is what gave me the hope to become the person I am today thru my trust in His ways I had a white light spiritual experience that gave me the feeling of being at peace with everyone and everything in the world it was like He came down and held me in His arms to comfort me

 

4. Is a new state of consciousness and well being we receive a free gift?

 

To me this state of consciousness is the grace of God coming into my life His elegance beauty and love the generosity of His spirit given me the capacity to tolerate love and forgive people for harms done this grace is a gift of God to all the love mercy forgiveness and goodwill freely given to us by the God of our understanding our manner of making ready to receive this gift lies in the practice of the Twelve Steps in our program.

 

5. What are the different kinds of Twelfth Step work we can do?

 

Well this is just about anything we do like just being there for the new comer with our had out to welcome them to recovery or to speak at a meeting trying to share or own experiences strengths and hopes to carry A.A.'s message God can do for us that witch we could not do for ourselves or we can take on the tasks of our group being coffee maker secretary or treasurer become a GSR for our group Get active in all the affairs of aa as a whole this list can go on and on bottom line is anything we do for aa is 12 step work

 

6. What are the biggest problems of our Twelfth Step work?

 

To me the biggest problem I have had with this work is trying so hard to carry the message I some time start to carry the mess I want to fix people wanting them to do it my way and this just leads to decampment for me and more misery for the person I tried to help after all my way did not work for me why should I think my way will work for others also pride and ego can easily get in the way trying to force feed this program just does not work for any of us

 

7. What about the practice of these principles in all our affairs?

 

Well the steps are what lead us all into a new way of life by letting go of our old ideas and self-seeking we find ourselves in a new place and we have to put the steps into practice always watching out for our defects and shortcoming stay in check practicing them in all are life’s situations will safe guard us against our old inflated egos and the feeling of being superior over others

 

8. How do monotony, pain, and calamity turned to good use by practice of Steps?

 

This is where my faith and trust in God can keep me in the right frame of mind to face all the situations that come up in my life being sober does not mean we are free from life’s experiences we all have calamity and pain in our lives we lose loved ones and need to grieve for them we watch some travel down the same road we did and sometimes we have to watch them slowly killing themselves but a drink would not change anything that life brings on and prayer will get us thru anything we are never alone again

 

9. What are all the difficulties of practicing the twelfth step?

 

There was a time in my recovery that I saw nothing left to go to meetings for My life was going good I was getting busy with life and active in other thing in life besides meetings I was doing great had a fantastic job doing what I liked best Sandy and I need to put first things first rising the kids was trying to help them adjust to our new family life and AA meetings became less important soon only contact I had with recovery was with people at work I talked to who needed help but meetings were put aside I had a few years of sobriety and was getting bored with going to meetings did not take long I became God again started acting the same as I was before I stopped drinking and I was a raving manic once again I started to return to my meetings but this time I became more active more involved in the fellowship more caring and given got into service work and was reaching out to help others who were having a hard time

 

10. Why is growing spiritually the answer to all our problems today?

 

For me with out the help of God's grace I could not handle problems of life I could not face up to such problems like changing me and my attitudes towards people places and things that were bothering me I had to give up being the ruler of the universe king of my domain only thru growing spiritually could I ever see it was me who need to change not others in my life

 

 

11. Just how do we place spiritual growth first over everything else?

 

Well with out my growing spiritually I would not have any life or time for anything else I would be to busy drinking to care I needed an honest effort to practice these principles in all my affairs this above all is how we stay sober I learned that God came first followed by AA then my family friends work When I first got to the halls of AA I was told that the God of my understand is number one everything else I am given is a Zero and as long as I keep God number one those zero's after the one is how fantastic my life will get  1,10,100,1,000,10,000 ,100,000, 1,000,000,but if I take that one away all I will be left with is all the zero's  000000000000000000000000000000000 God of my understanding is first for me

 

12. How necessary is dependence upon God to recovery of alcoholics?

 

As I made spiritual progress It became clear that if I was ever going to feel emotionally secure I to would have to put my life on a loving given basis this would give me a sense of being in fellowship

With all those around me I need to give of myself without demands of receiving back what I freely give and I did find people were attracted to me as never before And dependence upon Gods forgiveness, and love was all I needed to live a happy life

 

13. What does our practicing these principles in all our affairs mean?

 

For me it means freedom and happiness for a new way of life the four absolutes come to mind absolute honesty absolute unselfishness absolute purity and absolute love the more we can give the more we will receive never thought I could give anything with out my pride and ego getting in the way I was always looking for the presages of the bucks or some other martial thing never thought freely given I would receive Gods love and blessings

 

12 STEPS AND 12 TRADITION

MY THOUGHTS ON STEP TWELVE

STEP TWELVE

AL’ S HOME PAGE

All E-mail Addresses are held in Strict Confidence