STEP 12: Having had a spiritual awakening as
the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to
other alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our
affairs.
How It Works
Practical experience shows that
nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as
intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when
other activities fail. This is our twelfth suggestion:
Carry this message to other alcoholics! You can help
when no one else can. You can secure their confidence
when other fail. Remember they are very ill.
Life will take on new meaning. To
watch people recover, to see them help others, to watch
loneliness vanish, to see a fellowship grow up about
you, to have a host of friends - this is an experience
you must not miss. We know you will not want to miss it.
Frequent contact with newcomers and with each other is
the bright spot of our lives.
-A.A. Big Book p.89
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 who are still in distress. Here we experience
the kind of giving that asks no rewards. Here we begin
to practice all Twelve Steps of the program in our daily
lives so that we and those about us may find emotional
sobriety. When the Twelfth Step is seen in all its full
implication, it is really talking about the kind of love
that has no price tag on it.
- Twelve Steps and Twelve
Traditions, p. 106
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The selfless service of this work
is the very principle of Step Twelve. We received our
recovery from the God of our understanding, so we now
make ourselves available as His tool to share recovery
with those who seek it. Most of us learn in time that we
can only carry our message to someone who is asking for
help. Sometimes the only message necessary to make the
suffering addict reach out is the power of example. An
addict may be suffering but unwilling to ask for help.
We can make ourselves available to these people, so that
when they ask, someone will be there.
Learning the art of helping others
when it is appropriate is a benefit of the N.A. Program.
Remarkably, the Twelve Steps guide us from humiliation
and despair to a state wherein we may act as instruments
of our Higher Power. We are given the ability to help a
fellow addict when no one else can. We see it happening
among us every day. This miraculous turnabout is
evidence of spiritual awakening. We share from our own
personal experience what it has been like for us. The
temptation to give advice is great, but when we do so we
lose the respect of newcomers. This clouds our message.
A simple, honest message of recovery from addiction
rings true.
- Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text,
Chapter 4/Step 12
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Helping others is a significant
part of the program, and there are many ways the program
gets passed on. When you live the program and share it
with others, you are carrying the message, especially
when you sponsor new members. In practicing the Twelfth
Step you will find that -
By witnessing to others, your
appreciation of the program and the program's impact on
your life deepens.
By hearing the stories of new
members, you are reminded of where you were when you
started.
By modeling to others, you become
aware that you need to practice what you preach.
By giving to others, you develop
bonds with new people who really need you
By helping others, you give what
you have received.
By supporting new beginnings, you
revitalize your own efforts.
- A Gentle Path Through the Twelve
Steps, by Patrick Carnes, p. 197
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Although we enter recovery to heal
a particular affliction, we find that, in the end, we
have received far more than a specific healing of an
addiction; we have received the gift of a profound
spiritual awakening...
The second phrase in Step 12
reads: "we tried to carry this message to others."
Twelve Step programs place great emphasis on outreach to
those who still suffer. Another oral tradition says,
"You can't keep it unless you give it away." Having
received healing and spiritual renewal, we can retain
them only as we offer them to others...
On a practical level,
psychologists have long believed that there is a special
capacity for empathy between persons who have shared the
same addictions. That is why Bill Wilson encouraged
alcoholics to help other alcoholics, and it is also why
we now have such a proliferation of recovery support
groups for different dependencies. Again, the premise is
that people who have suffered from an addiction and have
found spiritual healing from it are in better positions
to understand and help others with similar problems.
- Serenity, A Companion for Twelve
Step Recovery, p. 76,77
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Step Twelve is considered to be so
important that it takes up much more space in the
literature than any other step. It's almost three steps
in one. I have divided it into three parts to look at in
this chapter.
Having had a spiritual
awakening...
We tried to carry the message to
others...
And to practice these principles
in all our affairs.
1... In the Twelve Step community
the word spiritual usually doesn't mean the same thing
as the word religious. For many, spiritual refers to
being in touch with and living on the basis of
"reality". A spiritual woman, for instance, would be in
touch with her own reality, her own feelings, her own
controlling and diseased behaviors and character defects
as well as her own preciousness and gifts. She would be
in touch with the reality of other people and with
ultimate reality in the experience of a Higher Power,
God. In that sense a "spiritual awakening," whatever
else it might include, is an awakening to seeing and
dealing with reality in one's own life and in
relationships with other people and with God...
2... in the Twelve Steps, where
people learn about God through their own experiences
with him, there is no need to "persuade" with theology
or verbal arguments. We let pain do the persuading,
because we know that it is only through pain that the
hunger for healing comes that will make us ready to
admit our powerlessness. We know that until the pain of
our lives was greater than the fear of swallowing our
pride and going for help, we were not hungry enough for
healing to go for it through the Twelve Steps...
3... When we first read that we
were to "practice these principles in all our affairs,"
some of us didn't understand. How could we use the
Twelve Steps to deal with conflict in a personal
relationship or a decision about buying a house?
Gradually we realized that "practicing principles" means
taking specific usable pieces of truth out of larger
truths and applying the smaller principles to a
different situation...
- A Hunger for Healing, by J.
Keith Miller, p. 196, 199, 210
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