After twenty-eight years of mind-obliterating alcoholism, I finally attended my first AA meeting. Within a few weeks, I became capable of memorizing the Third Step Prayer that I had positioned on my refrigerator door.

When I first came to A.A., I didn’t believe that I was an alcoholic… but I could agree that I was slightly nuts. As a matter of fact, when I showed up at the San Fernando Valley Central Office of A.A., on the morning of …

I opened the door and walked into the room, the first to arrive. Across
from me, displayed on the wall were the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics …

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.”
THE joy of living is the theme of A.A.’s Twelfth Step, and action is its key word. Here we turn outward toward our fellow alcoholics …

Step Eleven:
“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.”
Prayer and meditation are our principal means of conscious contact with God.

Step Ten:
“Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.”

AS we work the first nine Steps, we prepare ourselves for the adventure of a new life. But when we approach Step Ten …

Step Nine:
“Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.”
GOOD judgment, a careful sense of timing, courage, and prudence—these are the qualities we shall need when we take Step Nine.

Step Eight:
“Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.”
… Having carefully surveyed this whole area of human relations, and having decided exactly what personality traits in us injured and disturbed others, we can now commence to ransack …

Step Seven:
“Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.”
SINCE this Step so specifically concerns itself with humility, we should pause here to consider what humility is and what the practice of it can mean to us.

Step Six:
“Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.”
“This is the Step that separates the men from the boys.” So declares a well-loved clergyman who happens to be one of A.A.’s greatest friends.