ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3.Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.
4.Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5.Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6.Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7.Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
8.Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became 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.
10.Continued to take personal inventory and, when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11.Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out.
12.Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
If you study each of these steps carefully, you will see that the program is deeply, though not specifically, Christian. Steps One, Two, and Three invite us to give up our natural tendency to want to be in total control—to be managing directors—and instead to let God be God in our lives. Steps Four, Five, and Ten call on us constantly to examine our lives and to confess our wrongs. Steps Six and Seven prompt us to let God change us from the inside out. The Eighth and Ninth Steps encourage us to mend broken relationships wherever we can. The Eleventh Step shows us how to grow in our relationship with God on a daily basis. Last, but not least, the Twelfth Step challenges us to share the hope of recovery with other strugglers and sufferers. Can you see how close these steps are to the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth and the writings of the New Testament?
What is most important is that the Twelve Step program be seen as a way of life, not just a set of rules. It does not offer us a theory for change, but a way of living, rooted deeply in the biblical wisdom that leads to change. These steps are not meant to be done once, and then checked off as completed, never to be done again. They are steps to be taken regularly, sometimes several times in one day. We must not just think about them; we must do them. As AA’s Big Book reminds us: “The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it.”2
In reflecting on these Twelve Steps from the perspective of someone who is not an alcoholic, I hope that I have been faithful to the spirit and content of the Alcoholics Anonymous program. If you are already involved in AA or some other recovery group, please don’t change what you are doing. However, if you sense that God may be nudging you toward living for a change and you are not too sure how to go about it, I hope these steps will guide and help you. May they also draw you into a more personal and living relationship with God and enable you to live with greater joy and freedom and serenity.
In closing, this book should be seen as a companion to The Serenity Prayer,3 which is a series of meditations that I wrote on that prayer. Together, these two books express my gratitude to Alcoholics Anonymous for the way it has helped throw light on biblical treasures sometimes neglected by the Christian church. I also hope that these two books together will make available to a wider audience the spiritual wisdom contained in these wonderful treasures.
We admitted we were powerless
over alcohol—that our lives
had become unmanageable.
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. . . . I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.
—Romans 7:15, 18
There is one subject that we tend to avoid. Strangely, it is not the subject of sex or money or politics or death or even religion. What we often prefer not to talk about openly is the topic of our weaknesses. We are seldom prepared to discuss this aspect of our lives honestly—not even with our loved ones or close friends. We would much rather dodge the issue. When someone asks how we are doing, our usual answer is, “Fine, thank you.”
There are a number of reasons why this is so. To begin with, the word weakness has negative connotations. We tend to think negatively about people we consider to be weak-willed or weak-kneed or weak-minded. They are the losers, the ones who are usually defeated, the unfortunates who lack what it takes to succeed. In today’s society such people are looked down upon. We do not want to be thought of in this way.
Another reason might be that, from an early age, many of us are taught to be strong, especially those of us who are male. We receive a clear message: The successful are those who are in control, who have it all together. Even if we are not on top of things, it becomes important to pretend that we are. And so we continually try to look stronger or smarter or more successful than we really are. We cannot mention our weaknesses too loudly. The weak perish, we are told, and only the strong survive.
A third reason could simply be that we are often quite blind to our own weaknesses. Usually we prefer to notice them in others. Or we deny them. Or we try to rationalize them away. We have a remarkable capacity for self-delusion and denial. When confronted about our failures, we say something like, “I don’t know what came over me. I just wasn’t myself.” Quite frankly, what comes over us are our weaknesses, whatever they may be.
The wonderful news is that we can live beyond our weaknesses. They are the place where new life can often break forth. In other words, we do not have to remain stuck. There is a tried and tested program for us to grow and to change into better people. The Twelve Step program, as some have called it, is available to everyone. It’s down to earth, practical, and filled with biblical wisdom. But before we can begin to experience its benefits and blessings, there is an important precondition. We first need to admit our weaknesses. So let me ask you, are you someone who is willing to do this?
I have put together a simple, homemade “Quick Quiz” to help you think about this question. You might go through it quickly, answering each question with a simple yes or no.
QUICK QUIZ
•Do you struggle to admit to problems when you have them?
•Do you struggle to ask others for help?
•Do you find it easier to serve than to be served?
•Are you afraid to cry, to show deep emotion?
•Would you struggle against going for counseling?
•Do you tend to blame others for your failures?
•Do you sometimes wear a mask of self-sufficiency and confidence?
•Do you struggle to
