A Shorter Path Through the Steps in the Big Book
Paul H. passed this forward to us, an expedited journey through the steps in the Big Book rather than page by page, line by line,
It is suggested to move through the process in order, as detailed below.
Best done with someone else!
The heart of the process is to give yourself the dignity of finding your own truth based on your own experience.
Dig down into your experiences guided by the quotes in green from the Big Book.
STEP ONE
"God, please set aside everything I think I know about Step 1 so that I might have an open mind and heart for a new experience. Please show me the truth. Amen.
(Letters A to O)
A.
"Of course an alcoholic ought to be freed of their physical craving for liquor."
(Doctor's Opinion bottom of the third page)
Notes:
I'm are not going to assume I'm an alcoholic but rather allow space for the dignity of finding out.
What is my inner experience of drinking?
Do I have a next drink once I take the first one?
And after that?
What usually happens after the first drink?
B.
"They took a drink a day or so prior to the date, and then the phenomenon of craving at once became paramount to all other interests so that the important appointment was not met. These peple were not drinking to escape, they were drinking to overcome a craving beyond their mental control.
There are any situations which arise out of the phenomenon of craving which cause people to make the supreme sacrifice rather than continue to fight."
(Doctor's Opinion bottom of the fifth page)
Notes:
Do I "crave" the next drink once I take the first one?
What tells the truth of the craving? The circumstances and drama of my drinking or the inner experience? Drama can create comparison and desperation "I didn't do that, feel that, experience that. I must not be an alcoholic!" Instead, of looking at the drama and circumstances, think about what happens when I take a drink.
What is my experience?
Consider: Might the "supreme sacrifice" be that of morals, values, and ethics? Is that why they call alcohol a "depressant?"
C.
"We believe and so suggested a few years ago, that the action of these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy, that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker."
(Doctor's Opinion top of the fourth page)
Notes:
This doctor is suggesting the alcoholic has an abnormal reaction to alcohol.
Please let me uncover the truth of my experience after the first drink...
For me, I see the craving happens for me with alcohol, sugar, and bulimia but not with marijuana, cocaine, mushrooms...
D.
"They are restless, irritable, and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks - drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience and entire psychic change, there is very little hope of their recovery."
(Doctor's Opinion bottom of the fourth and top of the fifth page)
Notes:
Assuming I'm an alcoholic, that if I'm here I'm in the right place, isn't helpful, doesn't resolve the denial, doesn't stop the questioning. The key to freedom is in looking at my experiences with drinking from the perspective the book is talking about and by sharing with others who have identified their own truth.
Living sober, do I have to find something which will give me the sense of purpose, of ease and comfort, of adventure, of freedom that alcohol gave me when it was working?
"Succumbing to the desire again" is now talking about the mental part of the disease.
E.
"One feels that something more than human power is needed to produce the essential psychic change."
(Doctor's Opinion middle of the fourth page)
Notes:
True? What can do it for me? Can people, places, and things change my mind?
F.
"Moderate drinkers have little trouble in giving up liquor entirely if they have good reason for it. They can take it or leave it alone.
Then we have a certain type of hard drinker He may have the habit badly enough to gradually impair him physically and mentally. It may cause him to die a few years before his time. If a sufficiently strong reason - ill health, falling in love, change of environment, or the warning of a doctor - becomes operative, this person can also stop or moderate although he may find it difficult and troublesome and my even need medical attention.
But what about the real alcoholic? They may start off as a moderate drinker; they may or may not become a continuous hard drinker; but at some stage of their drinking career they begin to lose all control of their liquor consumption, once they start to drink. "
(There is a Solution bottom of page 20-21)
Notes:
Was sufficient reason enough? We love to find differences and thereby justify our denial. Note that in Chapter 3, our friend Carpet Slippers had "sufficient reason" and was able to stop for decades. Yet, once he started to drink again in retirement, he was unable to stop and died within 4 years. Drugs, work problems, family problems, eating disorders, promiscuity, jail time, ER visits, whatever... might be part of what brings you to want sobriety, may be part of a "sufficient reason" and yet the real alcoholic is not defined by what happened to finally get a person to stop, but by what happens once that person starts to drink.
Consider, once that "sufficient reason" is "fixed" will I be able to control and enjoy my drinking?
G.
"We are equally positive that once the alcoholic takes any alcohol whatever into their system, something happens, both in the bodily and mental sense, which makes it virtually impossible for them to stop."
(There is a Solution top of page 23)
Notes:
What were/are some of my justifications for the next drink once I start to drink?
Did I come into AA because I drank too much but because I couldn't drink enough.
H.
"These observations would be academic and pointless if our friend never took the first drink, thereby setting the terrible cycle in motion. Therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic centers in their mind, rather than in their body."
(There is a Solution top of page 23)
Notes:
Was my thinking distorted when I got to AA? Was and is my thinking distorted in sobriety? Then how can I go to my mind for a solution? How tragic that I go to the same mind that brought me here for a solution.
I.
"The fact is that most alcoholics for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called will power becomes practically nonexistent, We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink."
(There is a Solution top of page 24)
Notes:
Have I lost the power of choice ?
Have I lost control?
Have I lost power?
If I encounter resistance, keep saying the set aside prayer.
Remembering won't keep me sober.
What does my experience show me?
J.
"For those who are unable to drink moderately the question is how to stop altogether. We are assuming, of course, that the reader desires to stop. Whether such a person can quite upon a nonspiritual basis depends upon the extent to which they have already lost the power to choose whether they will drink or not."
(More about Alcoholism middle of page 34)
Notes:
Can I stop on my own power?
Can I live sober sanely on my own power?
The moment I think I can choose, have I deluded myself?
K.
"If you are as seriously alcoholic as we were, we believe there is no middle-of-the-road solution. We were in a position where life was becoming impossible, and, if we had passed into the region from which there is no return through human aid, we had but two alternatives; One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could, and the other, to accept spiritual help."
(There is a Solution bottom of page 25)
Notes:
Explore what would happen in AA if everyone did it their own way.
L.
"We were having trouble with personal relationships, we couldn't control our emotional natures, we were prey to misery and depression, we couldn't seem to be of real help to other people - was noto a b asic solution of these bedevilments more important than whether we should see newsreels of lunar flight?"
(We Agnostics middle of page 52)
Notes:
How is it going for me in each of these areas with or without sobriety? Were alcohol and other addictions the solution, ultimately not "the problem?"
No power. Step 1 is not about not drinking. Did I perhaps come into AA, not so much because I wanted to stop drinking, but because I wanted to stop suffering?
M.
"He had much knowledge about himself as an alcoholic. Yet all reasons for not drinking were easily pushed aside in favor of the foolish idea that he could take whiskey if only he mixed it with milk!
Whatever the precise definition of the word may be, we call this plain insanity. How can such a lack of proportion, of the ability to think straight, be called anything else?"
(More about Alcoholism bottom of page 36, top of 37)
Notes:
What are some of my experiences with picking up again from a sober state?
Can I feel the insanity of those experiences?
What are some of my experiences of denial of my alcoholism in sobreity?
Can I feel the insanity of that denial?
N.
"But the actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self knowledge."
(More about Alcoholism top of page 39)
Notes:
Will self-knowledge keep me sober and sane?
O.
"We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed. "
(More about Alcoholism middle of page 30)
Notes:
Am I willing to concede to my innermost self that I have no power. Do I need a new manager?
Is the truth of my Step 1 that unless something happens, I will drink again or be insane sober?
I came to the process in the book because SOBER, I had a hole in my soul filling it up with men, with approval, with controlling and managing my body and food, with isolation, with analysis, with meetings...
STEP 2
Change the Set Aside Prayer to focus on Step 2.
"God, please set aside everything I think I know about Step 2 so that I might have an open mind and heart for a new experience. Please show me the truth. Amen.
P.
"Lack of power, that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves. Obviously. But WHERE and HOW were we to find this Power?
Well, that's exactly what this book is about. Its main object is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself which will solve your problem."
(We Agnostics middle of page 45)
Notes:
Why is does the book say "problem" rather than "problems?"
Q.
"Many times when we talk to a new person and watch their hope rise as we discuss our alcoholic problem and explain our fellowship. But their face falls when we speak of spiritual matters, especially when we mention God... We know how they feel. We have shared their honest doubt and prejudice."
(We Agnostics middle of page 45)
Step 1 showed me I need a spiritual solution, that alcohol was a spiritual solution for me, that ultimately killed my Spirit.
What is the source of my "doubt and prejudice," if I share that?
Was I hurt by religion? by a church, synagogue, mosque, or temple? by Godly people?
Am I cynical, skeptical? Why? What caused that cynicism?
Am I arrogant, stubborn, judgmental, or sensitive when people speak of a Power Greater? Do I "bristle with antagonism?" (top of page 48)
Why? What caused that resistance?
Dig down into your experiences just as you did with alcohol.
Pray the set aside prayer in order to see the truth!
R.
"Yet, in other moments, we found ourselves thinking, when enchanted by a starlit night, "Who, then, made all this?" There was a feeling of awe and wonder, but it was fleeting and soon lost."
(We Agnostics middle of page 46)
Notes:
When have I had experiences of "awe and wonder," of a Power Greater than myself, of God, of the Realm of Spirit, of the Supernatural, of Deep Love, of Divine Order, of Divine Choreography?
S.
"We found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power, which is God.
Much to our relief, we discovered we did not need to consider another's conception of God. Our own conception, however inadequate, was sufficient to make the approach and to effect a contact with Him
(We Agnostics middle of page 46)
Notes:
Use experiences of "awe and wonder" to describe your past experience(s) of a Power Greater than yourself.
Use all faculties, including imagination, hope, prayer, reflection to form a conception of a Power Greater. It really must be something which can not be controlled or manipulated by a human being.
T.
We needed to ask ourselves but one short question. "Do I now believe, or am I even willing to believe that there is a Power greater than myself?" As soon as a person can say that they do believe, or are even willing to believe, we emphatically assure them that they are on their way. It has been repeatedly proven among us that upon this simple cornerstone a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built."
(We Agnostics middle of page 47)
Notes:
What is the purpose of a structure's cornerstone?
An EFFECTIVE spiritual structure is being built. Does it make sense that willingness to believe is the cornerstone of that structure?
Q.
"Had this power originated in him? Obviously it had not, There had been no more power in him than there was in me at that minute; and this was none at all."
(Bill's Story bottom of page 11)
Not because I drank too much but because I couldn't drink enough.
I came to the process in the book because SOBER, I had a hole in my soul filling it up with men, with approval, with controlling and managing my body and food, with isolation, with analysis, with meetings...
(Bill's Story page 11)
Paul H. passed this forward to us, an expedited journey through the steps in the Big Book rather than page by page, line by line,
It is suggested to move through the process in order, as detailed below.
Best done with someone else!
The heart of the process is to give yourself the dignity of finding your own truth based on your own experience.
Dig down into your experiences guided by the quotes in green from the Big Book.
STEP ONE
"God, please set aside everything I think I know about Step 1 so that I might have an open mind and heart for a new experience. Please show me the truth. Amen.
(Letters A to O)
A.
"Of course an alcoholic ought to be freed of their physical craving for liquor."
(Doctor's Opinion bottom of the third page)
Notes:
I'm are not going to assume I'm an alcoholic but rather allow space for the dignity of finding out.
What is my inner experience of drinking?
Do I have a next drink once I take the first one?
And after that?
What usually happens after the first drink?
B.
"They took a drink a day or so prior to the date, and then the phenomenon of craving at once became paramount to all other interests so that the important appointment was not met. These peple were not drinking to escape, they were drinking to overcome a craving beyond their mental control.
There are any situations which arise out of the phenomenon of craving which cause people to make the supreme sacrifice rather than continue to fight."
(Doctor's Opinion bottom of the fifth page)
Notes:
Do I "crave" the next drink once I take the first one?
What tells the truth of the craving? The circumstances and drama of my drinking or the inner experience? Drama can create comparison and desperation "I didn't do that, feel that, experience that. I must not be an alcoholic!" Instead, of looking at the drama and circumstances, think about what happens when I take a drink.
What is my experience?
Consider: Might the "supreme sacrifice" be that of morals, values, and ethics? Is that why they call alcohol a "depressant?"
C.
"We believe and so suggested a few years ago, that the action of these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy, that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker."
(Doctor's Opinion top of the fourth page)
Notes:
This doctor is suggesting the alcoholic has an abnormal reaction to alcohol.
Please let me uncover the truth of my experience after the first drink...
For me, I see the craving happens for me with alcohol, sugar, and bulimia but not with marijuana, cocaine, mushrooms...
D.
"They are restless, irritable, and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks - drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience and entire psychic change, there is very little hope of their recovery."
(Doctor's Opinion bottom of the fourth and top of the fifth page)
Notes:
Assuming I'm an alcoholic, that if I'm here I'm in the right place, isn't helpful, doesn't resolve the denial, doesn't stop the questioning. The key to freedom is in looking at my experiences with drinking from the perspective the book is talking about and by sharing with others who have identified their own truth.
Living sober, do I have to find something which will give me the sense of purpose, of ease and comfort, of adventure, of freedom that alcohol gave me when it was working?
"Succumbing to the desire again" is now talking about the mental part of the disease.
E.
"One feels that something more than human power is needed to produce the essential psychic change."
(Doctor's Opinion middle of the fourth page)
Notes:
True? What can do it for me? Can people, places, and things change my mind?
F.
"Moderate drinkers have little trouble in giving up liquor entirely if they have good reason for it. They can take it or leave it alone.
Then we have a certain type of hard drinker He may have the habit badly enough to gradually impair him physically and mentally. It may cause him to die a few years before his time. If a sufficiently strong reason - ill health, falling in love, change of environment, or the warning of a doctor - becomes operative, this person can also stop or moderate although he may find it difficult and troublesome and my even need medical attention.
But what about the real alcoholic? They may start off as a moderate drinker; they may or may not become a continuous hard drinker; but at some stage of their drinking career they begin to lose all control of their liquor consumption, once they start to drink. "
(There is a Solution bottom of page 20-21)
Notes:
Was sufficient reason enough? We love to find differences and thereby justify our denial. Note that in Chapter 3, our friend Carpet Slippers had "sufficient reason" and was able to stop for decades. Yet, once he started to drink again in retirement, he was unable to stop and died within 4 years. Drugs, work problems, family problems, eating disorders, promiscuity, jail time, ER visits, whatever... might be part of what brings you to want sobriety, may be part of a "sufficient reason" and yet the real alcoholic is not defined by what happened to finally get a person to stop, but by what happens once that person starts to drink.
Consider, once that "sufficient reason" is "fixed" will I be able to control and enjoy my drinking?
G.
"We are equally positive that once the alcoholic takes any alcohol whatever into their system, something happens, both in the bodily and mental sense, which makes it virtually impossible for them to stop."
(There is a Solution top of page 23)
Notes:
What were/are some of my justifications for the next drink once I start to drink?
Did I come into AA because I drank too much but because I couldn't drink enough.
H.
"These observations would be academic and pointless if our friend never took the first drink, thereby setting the terrible cycle in motion. Therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic centers in their mind, rather than in their body."
(There is a Solution top of page 23)
Notes:
Was my thinking distorted when I got to AA? Was and is my thinking distorted in sobriety? Then how can I go to my mind for a solution? How tragic that I go to the same mind that brought me here for a solution.
I.
"The fact is that most alcoholics for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called will power becomes practically nonexistent, We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink."
(There is a Solution top of page 24)
Notes:
Have I lost the power of choice ?
Have I lost control?
Have I lost power?
If I encounter resistance, keep saying the set aside prayer.
Remembering won't keep me sober.
What does my experience show me?
J.
"For those who are unable to drink moderately the question is how to stop altogether. We are assuming, of course, that the reader desires to stop. Whether such a person can quite upon a nonspiritual basis depends upon the extent to which they have already lost the power to choose whether they will drink or not."
(More about Alcoholism middle of page 34)
Notes:
Can I stop on my own power?
Can I live sober sanely on my own power?
The moment I think I can choose, have I deluded myself?
K.
"If you are as seriously alcoholic as we were, we believe there is no middle-of-the-road solution. We were in a position where life was becoming impossible, and, if we had passed into the region from which there is no return through human aid, we had but two alternatives; One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could, and the other, to accept spiritual help."
(There is a Solution bottom of page 25)
Notes:
Explore what would happen in AA if everyone did it their own way.
L.
"We were having trouble with personal relationships, we couldn't control our emotional natures, we were prey to misery and depression, we couldn't seem to be of real help to other people - was noto a b asic solution of these bedevilments more important than whether we should see newsreels of lunar flight?"
(We Agnostics middle of page 52)
Notes:
How is it going for me in each of these areas with or without sobriety? Were alcohol and other addictions the solution, ultimately not "the problem?"
No power. Step 1 is not about not drinking. Did I perhaps come into AA, not so much because I wanted to stop drinking, but because I wanted to stop suffering?
M.
"He had much knowledge about himself as an alcoholic. Yet all reasons for not drinking were easily pushed aside in favor of the foolish idea that he could take whiskey if only he mixed it with milk!
Whatever the precise definition of the word may be, we call this plain insanity. How can such a lack of proportion, of the ability to think straight, be called anything else?"
(More about Alcoholism bottom of page 36, top of 37)
Notes:
What are some of my experiences with picking up again from a sober state?
Can I feel the insanity of those experiences?
What are some of my experiences of denial of my alcoholism in sobreity?
Can I feel the insanity of that denial?
N.
"But the actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self knowledge."
(More about Alcoholism top of page 39)
Notes:
Will self-knowledge keep me sober and sane?
O.
"We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed. "
(More about Alcoholism middle of page 30)
Notes:
Am I willing to concede to my innermost self that I have no power. Do I need a new manager?
Is the truth of my Step 1 that unless something happens, I will drink again or be insane sober?
I came to the process in the book because SOBER, I had a hole in my soul filling it up with men, with approval, with controlling and managing my body and food, with isolation, with analysis, with meetings...
STEP 2
Change the Set Aside Prayer to focus on Step 2.
"God, please set aside everything I think I know about Step 2 so that I might have an open mind and heart for a new experience. Please show me the truth. Amen.
P.
"Lack of power, that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves. Obviously. But WHERE and HOW were we to find this Power?
Well, that's exactly what this book is about. Its main object is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself which will solve your problem."
(We Agnostics middle of page 45)
Notes:
Why is does the book say "problem" rather than "problems?"
Q.
"Many times when we talk to a new person and watch their hope rise as we discuss our alcoholic problem and explain our fellowship. But their face falls when we speak of spiritual matters, especially when we mention God... We know how they feel. We have shared their honest doubt and prejudice."
(We Agnostics middle of page 45)
Step 1 showed me I need a spiritual solution, that alcohol was a spiritual solution for me, that ultimately killed my Spirit.
What is the source of my "doubt and prejudice," if I share that?
Was I hurt by religion? by a church, synagogue, mosque, or temple? by Godly people?
Am I cynical, skeptical? Why? What caused that cynicism?
Am I arrogant, stubborn, judgmental, or sensitive when people speak of a Power Greater? Do I "bristle with antagonism?" (top of page 48)
Why? What caused that resistance?
Dig down into your experiences just as you did with alcohol.
Pray the set aside prayer in order to see the truth!
R.
"Yet, in other moments, we found ourselves thinking, when enchanted by a starlit night, "Who, then, made all this?" There was a feeling of awe and wonder, but it was fleeting and soon lost."
(We Agnostics middle of page 46)
Notes:
When have I had experiences of "awe and wonder," of a Power Greater than myself, of God, of the Realm of Spirit, of the Supernatural, of Deep Love, of Divine Order, of Divine Choreography?
S.
"We found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power, which is God.
Much to our relief, we discovered we did not need to consider another's conception of God. Our own conception, however inadequate, was sufficient to make the approach and to effect a contact with Him
(We Agnostics middle of page 46)
Notes:
Use experiences of "awe and wonder" to describe your past experience(s) of a Power Greater than yourself.
Use all faculties, including imagination, hope, prayer, reflection to form a conception of a Power Greater. It really must be something which can not be controlled or manipulated by a human being.
T.
We needed to ask ourselves but one short question. "Do I now believe, or am I even willing to believe that there is a Power greater than myself?" As soon as a person can say that they do believe, or are even willing to believe, we emphatically assure them that they are on their way. It has been repeatedly proven among us that upon this simple cornerstone a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built."
(We Agnostics middle of page 47)
Notes:
What is the purpose of a structure's cornerstone?
An EFFECTIVE spiritual structure is being built. Does it make sense that willingness to believe is the cornerstone of that structure?
Q.
"Had this power originated in him? Obviously it had not, There had been no more power in him than there was in me at that minute; and this was none at all."
(Bill's Story bottom of page 11)
Not because I drank too much but because I couldn't drink enough.
I came to the process in the book because SOBER, I had a hole in my soul filling it up with men, with approval, with controlling and managing my body and food, with isolation, with analysis, with meetings...
(Bill's Story page 11)
Document by Jeffrey Gibson: Mississippi Choctaw: the sharp edges of the painting contrast with the flowing edges of the stretched deer hide used as a canvas.
How do we live in the confines of this world?
How do we live in our own skin?