(The following is a post from one of our members.)
As they say at the close of a whole lot of SA meetings: "It works if you work it!" And then at some they add, "It won't if you don't!"
Yep, my story too. I spent a lot of years working "my program". My program wasn't the SA/AA program of the whole 12 Steps, and I certainly wasn't "fearless and thorough from the very start." (AABB Chapter 5)
Turns out that the SA program is simply the 12 Steps. The AA book makes it so simply clear when it says, "Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery," and then promptly list the 12 Steps.
So I finally admitted defeat and worked the 12 Steps as my sponsor told me to work them. And by the time I had gotten to Step 12, I had had what the SAWB talks about as a result of working the first eleven Steps.
"If a person is experiencing the reality of Steps One through Eleven, he or she is manifesting the truth of that new life."
"Staying sober is our initial objective; a spiritual awakening is the unintended result. If our experience tells us anything, it is that there is no healing without such an awakening. And the difference between merely not acting out our addiction (being "dry") and healing is the new life. If we want the old life intact, simply minus the habit, we don't really want healing, for our sickness is the old way of life." (SAWB p. 143)
At this time in my working of the Steps, I'm continuing to work Steps 10-12. Some people refer to these Steps as the maintenance Steps. You just never stop working them, since they become a new way of life for someone in recovery.
My Step 12 action last night was to meet with a new member who has asked me to sponsor him. We worked on Step One together. Then before going to bed, there was time for meditation through literature reading, and this morning there was more time for reading literature and prayer (Step 11), before my breakfast meeting with my spiritual growth partner. The ongoing program is still about working the 12 Steps, "to practice these principles in all our affairs." This is "that new life."
It works if you work it! It really does.
