The lead in a recent meeting I attended was on the Twelfth Step:

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.

That day my mind zeroed in on the two words “spiritual awakening.” I flipped them and thought about my “awakening to the spiritual.”

We live in a physical world of space and time, but as one member commented after the lead, we are spiritual beings living for a finite time in this world. Your beliefs about spirituality and a Higher Power can be way different than mine. That’s one of the beautiful reasons why the program works for so many people.

In a Big Book meeting this morning, I read page 93 that encourages us to stress the spiritual aspect of the program freely with a newcomer. If the newcomer is agnostic or atheist, I can assure them that they don’t have to agree with my conception of a Higher Power (which I choose to call God). The newcomer can use whatever concept of a Higher Power makes sense to them as long as they are willing to believe that the Higher Power is greater than themselves and that they can live by spiritual principles.

Over time in my early sobriety, my understanding and acceptance of the spiritual side of the program grew. I saw changes in me and others around me as we worked the steps and each other. So much of what I experienced and witnessed seemed to come from something beyond what I or others could do on our own. I believed I was seeing the Higher Power work in my life and in others.

My awakening to the spiritual occurred as I:

  • (Step 2) Came to believe that a Power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.
  • (Step 3) Made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understood Him.
  • (Step 5) Admitted to God, to myself, and to another human being the exact nature of my wrongs.
  • (Step 6) Was entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
  • (Step 7) Humbly asked Him to remove my shortcomings.
  • (Step 11) Sought through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God as I understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry that out.
  • And as already mentioned, (Step 12) Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, I try to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all my affairs.

Today, I am in contact with God often during the day. I continue to struggle to accept and follow his will in all things. The problems and pain I experience in life often can be seen as the direct result of trying to impose my will over what God seems to want for me. The Big Book reading today drove home why that could be true:

“To be vital, faith must be accompanied by self sacrifice and unselfish, constructure action.” Alcoholics Anonymous Fourth Edition, page 93, (C) 2001