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