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12 Steps and 12 Traditions Information and Discussions related to the 12 Steps and The 12 Traditions |
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08-07-2013, 11:43 AM | #1 |
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Steps By The Big Book
The 12 STEPS of ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS [Spiritual Principles] Step 1 We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable. [Honesty] Step 2 Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. [Hope] Step 3 Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him. [Trust] Step 4 Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. [Courage] Step 5 Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. [Integrity] Step 6 Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. [Willingness] Step 7 Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. [Humility] Step 8 Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. [Compassion] Step 9 Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. [Justice] Step 10 Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. [Perseverance] Step 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. [Spiritual awareness] Step 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. [Service] http://www.stepsbybigbook.net/ To Be Continued
__________________
"No matter what you have done up to this moment, you get 24 brand-new hours to spend every single day." --Brian Tracy
AA gives us an opportunity to recreate ourselves, with God's help, one day at a time. --Rufus K. When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. --Franklin D. Roosevelt We stay sober and clean together - one day at a time! God says that each of us is worth loving. |
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08-07-2013, 11:43 AM | #2 |
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INTRODUCTION
Study and Practice How can we alcoholics in recovery live happy, joyous, and free? (Alcoholics Anonymous, 133: 0) Alcoholics Anonymous is the life changing program formed by two desperate alcoholics in 1935. In the Big Book, as the text Alcoholics Anonymous is known, we read the written words of the first 100 men and women of AA as they were put in the way of a spiritual awakening. Where did their words come from? What were their practices of the day by day disciplines that became the 12 Steps? How did they do it? The Steps are suggested guides for recovery. There is no rule that says anyone has to do them, and there is no regulation about how they should be done. This Steps by the Big Book workbook is for those who are willingto grow along spiritual lines (60: 1) by studying the first 103 pages of the Big Book while actually doing the Steps. Our goal is to study the Steps as a friendly, focused group, and work them as the authors of the Big Book described. We wish to make the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous part of our lives by collaborating with a power greater than ourselves – an inner knowing, our own best and highest nature. To this end we ask ourselves two primary questions: -What do the Big Book authors say about the Steps? -What does the Big Book say to each one of us about our own real practice of the Steps? Some of us in the recovering community in the Brattleboro, Vermont, area found that we did better studying the Big Book as a group rather than on our own. It is our belief that the only wrong way to work the Steps is alone. Together we can do it! The work of this group study supports the pass-it-on process of one alcoholic talking with another. This manual is for those in recovery who want to go through the Steps again; or freshen up on their Steps prior to working with a sponsee; or for sponsors and sponsees who want to progress through the Steps together. The only requirements are to show up, study the Big Book, and do each Step. This guide comes from these experiences. This is an introduction to the spiritual riches of the Big Book’s directions to the 12 Steps. We hope this guide is useful throughout recovery, whether one is working the Steps for the first time, or has followed the Steps for many years. Perhaps your group may craft its own manual, the better to reflect the warmth and strength of the safe haven found in the 12 Steps. If appropriate, simply say your own addiction in place of alcohol. To Be Continued
__________________
"No matter what you have done up to this moment, you get 24 brand-new hours to spend every single day." --Brian Tracy
AA gives us an opportunity to recreate ourselves, with God's help, one day at a time. --Rufus K. When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. --Franklin D. Roosevelt We stay sober and clean together - one day at a time! God says that each of us is worth loving. |
08-08-2013, 10:53 AM | #3 |
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Your Group
Please be aware that everything in this workbook comes from our experience, strength, and hope. Every process and suggestion in this workbook is optional. Our Steps by the Big Book group sessions are not official AA meetings because we limit enrollment to a specific number of participants.
Group Norms While there are no rules in AA, there are written Traditions and unwritten norms (i.e. identifying oneself as an alcoholic in meetings). In order to ensure that your group runs smoothly, we suggest considering these questions:
To Be Continued
__________________
"No matter what you have done up to this moment, you get 24 brand-new hours to spend every single day." --Brian Tracy
AA gives us an opportunity to recreate ourselves, with God's help, one day at a time. --Rufus K. When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. --Franklin D. Roosevelt We stay sober and clean together - one day at a time! God says that each of us is worth loving. |
08-08-2013, 10:53 AM | #4 |
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Join Date: Aug 2013
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Working with a Sponsor or Buddy
Our group experience has shown that it is useful for group members to work closely with one or more members of the group (“buddies”), in a manner that compliments working with a sponsor. The support and stimulus of working the Steps with a buddy, a sponsor, or both, leads to personal growth and change. We read the Big Book chapters or selections together. Together, we work on our reflections and writings about the focus questions and inventories. Together we get and give support for this process of working the Steps, and for sharing our discoveries, doubts and experiences in the group. How a Session May Go Typically we read the session material on our own and write our responses. This is a team effort. We meet as a committed group of equals once or twice a week, or as the group sees fit. We open with a time of quiet, followed by a very brief check-in as to how each member is doing with studying and working the Steps. We read selections from the Big Book on a particular Step, and then for 10 minutes or so one group member speaks of her or his personal experience doing this Step by the Big Book. Every member then shares their writings or reflections on that session’s Step work. Discussion is encouraged, as long as we speak out of our own experience. Some groups choose to expand or contract the session material, or take a short break after working Step 4. We may close with reciting the Step and a meditation or prayer. http://www.stepsbybigbook.net/ To Be Continued
__________________
"No matter what you have done up to this moment, you get 24 brand-new hours to spend every single day." --Brian Tracy
AA gives us an opportunity to recreate ourselves, with God's help, one day at a time. --Rufus K. When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. --Franklin D. Roosevelt We stay sober and clean together - one day at a time! God says that each of us is worth loving. |
08-09-2013, 09:39 AM | #5 |
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Guide to This Guide
__________________
"No matter what you have done up to this moment, you get 24 brand-new hours to spend every single day." --Brian Tracy
AA gives us an opportunity to recreate ourselves, with God's help, one day at a time. --Rufus K. When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. --Franklin D. Roosevelt We stay sober and clean together - one day at a time! God says that each of us is worth loving. |
08-09-2013, 09:40 AM | #6 |
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Steps by the Big Book typical session outline
__________________
"No matter what you have done up to this moment, you get 24 brand-new hours to spend every single day." --Brian Tracy
AA gives us an opportunity to recreate ourselves, with God's help, one day at a time. --Rufus K. When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. --Franklin D. Roosevelt We stay sober and clean together - one day at a time! God says that each of us is worth loving. |
08-11-2013, 10:56 AM | #7 |
Administrator
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 73,854
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__________________
"No matter what you have done up to this moment, you get 24 brand-new hours to spend every single day." --Brian Tracy
AA gives us an opportunity to recreate ourselves, with God's help, one day at a time. --Rufus K. When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. --Franklin D. Roosevelt We stay sober and clean together - one day at a time! God says that each of us is worth loving. |
08-11-2013, 10:57 AM | #8 |
Administrator
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 73,854
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__________________
"No matter what you have done up to this moment, you get 24 brand-new hours to spend every single day." --Brian Tracy
AA gives us an opportunity to recreate ourselves, with God's help, one day at a time. --Rufus K. When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. --Franklin D. Roosevelt We stay sober and clean together - one day at a time! God says that each of us is worth loving. |
08-13-2013, 06:01 AM | #9 |
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ONE GROUP MEMBER’S DAILY DISCIPLINES:
__________________
"No matter what you have done up to this moment, you get 24 brand-new hours to spend every single day." --Brian Tracy
AA gives us an opportunity to recreate ourselves, with God's help, one day at a time. --Rufus K. When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. --Franklin D. Roosevelt We stay sober and clean together - one day at a time! God says that each of us is worth loving. |
08-13-2013, 06:01 AM | #10 |
Administrator
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 73,854
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__________________
"No matter what you have done up to this moment, you get 24 brand-new hours to spend every single day." --Brian Tracy
AA gives us an opportunity to recreate ourselves, with God's help, one day at a time. --Rufus K. When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. --Franklin D. Roosevelt We stay sober and clean together - one day at a time! God says that each of us is worth loving. |
08-14-2013, 12:33 PM | #11 |
Administrator
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 73,854
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__________________
"No matter what you have done up to this moment, you get 24 brand-new hours to spend every single day." --Brian Tracy
AA gives us an opportunity to recreate ourselves, with God's help, one day at a time. --Rufus K. When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. --Franklin D. Roosevelt We stay sober and clean together - one day at a time! God says that each of us is worth loving. |
08-14-2013, 12:34 PM | #12 |
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STEP 3 I humbly offered myself to God, as I then understood Him, to do with me as He would. I placed myself unreservedly under His care and direction. I admitted for the first time that of myself I was nothing; that without Him I was lost. (Bill’s Story, 13: 2) Heard in a meeting: “The problem is Me! The solution is Beyond Me! And the program of action is Let It!” "Is the stone heavy? Put it down and rest." The central affirmative action in Step 3 is a decision. We become willing to take action to do something different. We stop exhausting ourselves as if we were in charge of making things happen in this world. We loosen our grip on our fearful sense of self. We were never meant to do it alone. We are asked to turn our will and lives over to the care of what we do not understand. Yet we may define our own conception of this power, as we may for our own understandings of other spiritual expressions and spiritual terms. (47: 1) By working Step 3 we are allowing an unsuspected inner resource (567-568) to care for us, not control us or conduct our lives for us. We are not giving anything away; we are not struggling to become something we are not. We are learning to cooperate with what we always were. We are complete and whole as we are; the stuff we mixed in was to survive. We may discover that we are very sure what God is not for us, but not what God is, and that is fine. Working Step 3 will help us discover what works best for us. We are aligning ourselves with a Spirit of the Universe (46: 2) – one with our own best and highest nature. Spirituality is our tool based on personal experience, which gets better the more we experiment with it and use it. Step 3 reflects a spiritual progression through practice from hope to faith to trust. We begin to experience the distinction between self-sufficiency and “God-sufficiency.” (52: 4-53: 0) The decision to turn our will and lives over to the care of a higher power of our own understanding is one we may make each day, one day at a time. The authors of the Big Book call Step 3 the keystone (62: 3) to the wonderfully effective spiritual structure (47: 2) of a spiritual awakening that is being built by the discipline of the practice of the 12 Steps within the fellowship. How do we work Step 3? We do it by working Steps 4 – 12. http://www.stepsbybigbook.net/
__________________
"No matter what you have done up to this moment, you get 24 brand-new hours to spend every single day." --Brian Tracy
AA gives us an opportunity to recreate ourselves, with God's help, one day at a time. --Rufus K. When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. --Franklin D. Roosevelt We stay sober and clean together - one day at a time! God says that each of us is worth loving. |
08-15-2013, 10:26 AM | #13 |
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Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 73,854
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__________________
"No matter what you have done up to this moment, you get 24 brand-new hours to spend every single day." --Brian Tracy
AA gives us an opportunity to recreate ourselves, with God's help, one day at a time. --Rufus K. When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. --Franklin D. Roosevelt We stay sober and clean together - one day at a time! God says that each of us is worth loving. |
08-15-2013, 10:26 AM | #14 |
Administrator
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 73,854
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__________________
"No matter what you have done up to this moment, you get 24 brand-new hours to spend every single day." --Brian Tracy
AA gives us an opportunity to recreate ourselves, with God's help, one day at a time. --Rufus K. When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. --Franklin D. Roosevelt We stay sober and clean together - one day at a time! God says that each of us is worth loving. |
08-16-2013, 11:24 AM | #15 |
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1.) Mental Obsession
2.) Physical Compulsion
3.) Drinking to Excess:
4.) Psychic Change
p. 17
__________________
"No matter what you have done up to this moment, you get 24 brand-new hours to spend every single day." --Brian Tracy
AA gives us an opportunity to recreate ourselves, with God's help, one day at a time. --Rufus K. When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. --Franklin D. Roosevelt We stay sober and clean together - one day at a time! God says that each of us is worth loving. |
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