Lessons from 12-Stepping

What I retained from AA after 20 years

Joining Alcoholics Anonymous was about the best decision I ever made. After being a drunk for about 30 years, I quick drinking “cold turkey” — I just stopped on day. A year later I was so miserable, I took someone’s advice and went to an AA meeting.

AA worked for me mainly in two ways: It gave me a set of principles to live by, and I got to hear stories from people who were much more messed up than me, who got better by working the program. Some of the principles are pithy (or trite, if you don’t like that sort of thing) sayings, and some require more words, like the 12 steps themselves.

I worked the program hard for a couple of years and my life got better. One AA principle I did NOT follow was “Keep coming back!” I did not feel the need for meetings after two or three years, and I am successfully 20+ years sober now. My life today is pretty good, pretty much exactly how I want it to be. (Too bad civilization took this opportunity to collapse. Bad timing for me.)

What principles that I learned in AA do I still remember, and practice in my daily life? I started making a list.

From the 12 steps in particular, I remember:

• I will always be an insane, recovering alcoholic. It is not something I can control by myself. (The way I was killing myself with drinking can only be characterized as insane.)
• I don’t need to control the world. I can “Let Go and Let God” control it, and things will be okay. God can be who or however I conceptualize him/her/them/it, but they are a higher power than me.
• I must be brutally honest with myself about my bad behavior and the wrong decisions I made while I was drinking and drugging, and, indeed, every day even today. I must make amends to those I hurt. But I also must forgive myself.

Pithy sayings and other principles:

• One day at a time. I will not drink today. I cannot guarantee that I won’t drink tomorrow or next week, but not today. Take things in bite-sized steps. Baby steps. (Of course this aphorism is highly identified with AA.)
• Sweeping my side of the street: I am responsible only for sweeping my side of the street. I don’t need to worry about or take responsibility for the other side of the street.
• “Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation — some fact of my life — unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.” I think about this quote from the Big Book of AA whenever I see myself or my partner upset about something. I looked it up just now to get the wording right for you.
• The Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference.”
• Take what I need and leave the rest. This applies to AA principles, practices, and stories, and is a great principle for life in general.
• Fake it ‘till you make it. If I want to be a particular kind of person, I just start acting like that person, even if I feel like I’m faking it. If it is a right thing for me, eventually I will find I’m not faking it anymore, it has actually become a part of me.
• Keep coming back! Back to these principles, at least, even though I choose not to go back to AA meetings … at least for today.