Seeing Each of the 12 Steps in Two Parts
Someone with good time (and, more importantly, a sobriety that I admired), said during a share that his sponsor offer to have him look at each of A.A.’s 12 Steps in two parts.
He only reference the First Step in that share, but I took such great interest in the idea of each Step being in two parts that I searched — with some input from my sponsor — for two parts each each of the remaining shares. Here is what I came up with…:
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
We can’t drink sanely or safely / We can’t think (on our own) sanely or safely
“We can’t drink sanely or safely / We can’t think (on our own) sanely or safely”
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
There are other ways for us to think and feel / And some of those ways could make our lives more manageable.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
We accept the responsibility that we ourselves have a choice between our will and faith / And we then choose faith.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
We decide to finally take an honest look at ourselves / And we choose to be as thorough and fearless as possible while doing so.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
We admit to ourselves that we have character defects / And we, in faith and without fear, share this honest self-appraisal, especially where we need “work”, to others, including our HP.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
We choose to be 100% willing / to address and hope to remove 100% of our character defects. (“Half-measures availed us nothing.”)
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
We are ready to do whatever it takes / To help us get rid of these character defects.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
We made a list of all persons we had harmed / And become willing to make amends to them all. :)
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
We own up — and try to correct, compensate for, and capitulate — to where we have harmed others / And in wanting to do so, are also aware enough to avoid doing so as to not do more harm than good.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
We make Steps 4 and 5 a daily practice / And we make Steps 8 & 9 a daily practice.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
We make self-aware efforts to connect with the source of our better guidance (HP) / Remembering to ask only for knowledge of what the “next right thing” is, as well as the strength to perform it.
12. 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.
Finally enjoying a mere modicum of spiritual sobriety — heretofore unavailable to us — we continue to develop, maintain, and enjoy this newfound hopeful and content way of life by sharing how we do this with others who may want what we have / And as well continue to develop, maintain, and enjoy this newfound hopeful and content way by continue to work these 12 Steps in the whole of our lives (not just inside “the rooms”, but outside the rooms as well.
“A.A. shouldn’t be your whole life, but it can make your life whole.”
— Shared in a meeting I attended my 2nd year of sobriety.