The Step's Hidden Principles

We've all heard many times the last seven words of the 12th step, "practice these principles on all our affairs" --- but has anyone seriously asked, "What principles?" I suspect most if not all but me members of AA assume (which is to conclude without having asked the question) that the "principles" are equal to the preceding 11 or 12 "steps."

Well, I don't think so. And anyone who knows me will not be shocked. I haven't had a conforming thought for my entire life! I think that the principles are something more than the steps. I think that they are something different for each of us and we discover what these principles are by working or, better yet, being worked by these steps. The principles are hidden deep within and are meant to be discovered.

I remember once being at a meeting at the California state capital building one Friday noontime and the speaker shared with us a little wallet-sized card that listed the 12 Principles of AA's Steps. Someone had given it to him years before and he passed it around for each of us to look. I remember that I was so overjoyed that someone had discovered specifically what the damned principles were that were alluded to in the ending of the 12th step. Until that time, I had always held a resentment that Bill did not explicitly state what these principles were. In my mind, I thought that he should have included a parenthetical comment at the end of each step and summarized the principle for each step. The card listed 12 principles corresponding to each Step: Step 1 was Acceptance. Step 2 was Faith. Step 3 was Surrender/Trust.

I wrote them all down on the back of a checking account deposit slip and I've kept it in my wallet ever since. I'm not going to list them here because I eventually came to believe that this list has absolutely no "authority". It wasn't, as far as I know, something that Bill Wilson later wrote down or that has been adopted by the AA Fellowship. More importantly, I realized that what I was searching for, the authoritative list of AA principles, did not, could not and should not exist.

The unnamed principles referred to in the 12th step are known only to those who have worked these steps. Remember, this list on page 59 of "How It Works" -- which summarizes the 12 Steps of AA --- begins with the statement, "Here are the steps we took which are suggested as a program of recovery." As it says in the pamphlet, "A Member's Eye View of AA" these are not "commandments to be followed but reports of action taken."

The summarized list cannot list static statements of principles because these principles are different for each person working each step. The principles should not be definitively listed because that would only mislead those who've yet to take these steps. If you want to learn the principle underneath the 1st step, then you must work that step. You don't have to work that step or any other step: remember, it's only suggested that you work the steps. But if you want to know the principle underneath or within any of these steps, you must work them. It will do you no good to be told what the principles are: you must work these steps before you will know these principles. And you must know these principles, before you can practice them in all your affairs.

I think I came to understand this whole philosophy of the steps very early in my recovery. I somehow discovered that the steps were something I needed to do honestly and without compromise. I needed to work them without pretending. Without faking it. Ok, there's really no mystery for me as to how I came to understand this rather unique view of how to work the steps. It was all a direct result of having encountered a man named Dr. Earle. He gave me that freedom. He taught me, with his actions, the "no bullshit program of AA."

Today, I heard some one's story and I was profoundly struck at how much emphasis she has come to place on the 1st Step in her own program of recovery. She's been in (and out) of AA for 15 to 20 years and is now celebrating 6 months of continuous sobriety. In the room, her younger brother sat and listened to his sister --- he'd never been to that meeting before and he was truly surprised when his sister went up to sit at the table in order to share her story with us. He too has been in (and out) of AA for almost as long as his sister and I suspect from the carefully chosen words he used during his comments this afternoon, that he has something less than 6 months of continuous sobriety.

Anyway, as she shared her story today, she talked about the importance of the 1st step in her program today. A half-measured 1st step has apparently been something that has repeatedly tripped her up in her attempts to get and stay sober. While there were periods of time, months and sometimes years, where she would seem to "get it" --- there had always come a moment when she'd forget...and then she'd drink and/or use...or use and/or drink. But, she had always come back to AA. She has been a persistent one and it was a pure joy to listen to her today.

At some point in her share, she mentioned something I'd never heard before and that was the "Three 'A's of AA: Awareness, Acceptance and Action". For her, all three were important in her working of the 1st step: becoming aware of who she is as an alcoholic, accepting who she is as an alcoholic and acting on or in conformity with that awareness.

Although I doubt she understands this, I'm looking back at her share this afternoon realizing that she's coming to understand the principles hidden in her 1st step: awareness, acceptance and action. And I can certainly identify these same principles in my 1st step: waking up one morning and becoming aware, once again, that "I can't stop drinking!" And then, for some reason, carrying that Step Zero thought one step further, I became aware that "Not being able to stop drinking is called 'alcoholism' --- that alcoholism is a disease and I just happen to have it!" That awareness was then followed, in a nanosecond, by the utter and penetrating acceptance that having this dis-ease was perfectly OK! Ahhhh!

The action for me is sort of odd in that I did it without moving my body. The action occurred that morning when imagined myself sitting in a big circle of people at my son's recovery program. It was at one of the Thursday night "Multi-Family Group" sessions. I'd been going to these Multi-Family Groups for about 10 months as my son was beginning his recovery and as I was falling farther and farther into my disease.

The parents of the kids who were in the Adolescent Chemical Dependency Program would sit in a circle, along with their recovering ones, as well as any other siblings who wished to join us for these sessions. The sessions were designed for us to talk about whatever was going on in our families as we were attempting to support the member of our family who was trying to get/stay clean and sober. At the beginning of these sessions, we'd start off by going around the room and we'd check in. Checking in for the parents meant saying along these lines: "I'm Mike, I'm here for my son Pat and we have had (or have not had...as the case may have been) a clean and sober house this past week. And I do (don't) have something to talk about tonight." If we did have something to talk about, the leader would make note of that and then the next person would check in.

Checking in for the recovering addicts meant saying, "I'm Pat and I'm an addict. I've been clean for X days/months. I haven't smoked cigarettes for 15 minutes (this program wanted the addicts to also stay nicotine free for 90 days in order to "graduate" from the program--my son, with his sponsors and parent's support, decided early on that staying free of alcohol and other drugs was big enough of a challenge at this point in his life without having to worry about dying of cancer later on... He'd deal with that later.). And I do (or don't) have something to talk about tonight.

For the past ten months, I'd lied every time I checked in to that Thursday night meeting. I lied when I said that we had a clean and sober household. It was a lie, not because of my son; it was my lie because there were only a handful of days/nights during those ten months when I walked into our house without alcohol in my body. But the morning of October 20, 2001 --- something different happened if only in my mind.

After waking up to the awareness of my incapacity to stop drinking and the acceptance of this physiological disease of mine --- I took the action of checking in to this imaginary group of people and raised my hand and said, "My name is Mike and I'm an alcoholic." When I took that action, albeit in my mind while laid there next to my sleeping wife of 20 years, something miraculous happened. I experienced a freedom from the obsessions (1) to drink and (2) to not be an alcoholic like my dad, that had plagued me for 30 years. I was free. While I couldn't stop drinking, I could try to stay sober one day at a time.

I floated in that freedom for three days before I attended my first meeting of AA. The first two days were just simple bliss, but I began to realize that this gift of sobriety was something very fragile. It wasn't the result of my thinking or figuring something out. It was a gift and I needed to nurture it. I quickly understood that I needed to do what my son had been doing. I shared my truth with my wife on the following Monday night---had I shared that with anyone before her would have hurt her even more deeply than the real daily betrayals I had been making with her in terms of my drinking for the last ten months.

After sharing this truth with my wife, I then shared this truth with my son who was then 5 months and 10 days ahead of me in this journey of recovery. His reaction my confession of absolute failure as a father and human being was astounding: "Gee, Dad, this is Great! We're both addicts!" I shook my head in disbelief and told him that although I wasn't all that thrilled about being an addict, I was overwhelmed with joy over the fact that we were going to be able to share our recovery with one another. Sharing that recovery wasn't something that I was able to do with my own father (he'd died of alcoholism some years before) but that I could share it with him was the best thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life. Then I took my son to his NA meeting and I went on to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.

The principles of my 1st step now include Awareness, Acceptance and Action. What an amazing program!

Take care!

Mike L.