Perils, Pitfalls & Promise of the "Twelve & Twelve"

A.A. Co-Founder, Bill W.

In a letter dated October 5, 1953, A.A. co-founder and author, Bill W., wrote of the expectations he had for the newly-penned 'Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions'. "At first," he observed, "I was dubious whether anyone would care for it, save oldtimers who had begun to run into life's lumps in areas other than alcohol. But apparently, the book is being used to good effect even upon newcomers." ('Pass It On', at page 356.)

Of course, many in A.A. nowadays hold fast to the notion that the Twelve and Twelve is ruinous to A.A., and/or that its use, particularly its exclusive use, with newcomers is perilous to their prospects of attaining and maintaining sobriety. To my mind, and in my experience, such A.A. "fundamentalists" or "Big Book Thumpers" are right . . . but only partially right. Along with the perils and pitfalls that the Twelve and Twelve can present to overly-reliant newcomers, the book holds great promise and practical spiritual wisdom for the more seasoned alcoholic addict in recovery when he or she is presented with life's inevitable challenges.

In words that have quite literally saved the lives of millions of alcoholic addicts, and in a manner that the reader can use to see if he or she is alcoholic, the 'Big Book' ('Alcoholics Anonymous') clearly sets out the physical and mental aspects of the disease, a spiritual solution to this primarily mental illness, and a process of steps that can (and are) used to effect a spiritual solution to the malady. I know of few, if any, members with long-term sobriety that would start a newcomer off without going through the 'Big Book.' The methodology for working through the 12 Steps is invaluable, particularly the concise directions for getting through Steps 4 through Step Nine (a.s.a.p.) and, thereby, initiating a process of spiritual awakening that promises to arrest and alleviate the effects of the disease. Likewise, I know few (if any) old-timers who do not, or have not, benefited from what is laid out in the Twelve and Twelve.

My experiences with the 'Big Book' and the 'Twelve and Twelve' over several decades have been decidedly mixed, as I suspect the experience of many others probably have been.

In my case, by happenstance and misleading advertising, the first group I joined was a Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions group. (It was announced that February was "membership month" and that the group still had several "openings" which were available. Knowing nothing of A.A. - or recovery, for that matter - and being but a few weeks sober, I thought I had better grab one of those openings before I was shut out.) I stayed with that group, maintaining my sobriety without relapse, for over five years, until I left to help start up another group and, shortly thereafter, to move to another city. In that time, week after week, we would go through the Steps, one after another in relentless fashion.  I remember nothing of what I shared, and now shudderingly marvel that there was anything of value I could have shared!

I learned but little about the true nature of my disease, but much about how to stay sober in that time. Additionally, I read the 'Big Book' cover to cover, as suggested, but little sank in, due not to the message in the book but to the prejudice and contempt I had for all things spiritual or, somehow, 'Godly.' (Not that I wouldn't participate in the Serenity Prayer, Lord's Prayer etc., and not that I didn't read my daily meditations from the 'Twenty Four Hours a Day' book, or 'Daily Reflections' when it came out. I would grudgingly do the little I was told to do, but only that much!)

During that time I was, however, taken through the Steps both by my sponsor and then by a relative "oldtimer" within my group utilizing the 'Big Book.' I listed my resentments and fears, inventoried my sex conduct, made the list, made amends etc., and it was beneficial - to me, my family, and my employer, etc. - yet I failed to grasp the key understanding that my life in sobriety had become and continued to be "unmanageable." (See page 61.) Thus, I was handicapped from the start in my ability to "enlarge" my spiritual being.

Sobering up at age 28 in the late-Eighties, I was one of the younger members of A.A. in my area. I therefore took much false solace in the Twelve and Twelve's description of the younger "alcoholics who still had their health, their families, (and) their jobs," etc. I was mightily relieved to read that I had been "spared that last ten or fifteen years of literal hell (other A.A.s) had gone through." (Little did I know, or suspect, that years of "figurative hell" were to come.) Reading through the rest of that paragraph in the Twelve and Twelve's first chapter, I utterly failed to grasp the meaning or importance of the following question:

"Since Step One requires an admission that our lives have become unmanageable, how could such people as these take this Step?

That is a great question, indeed. For my part, and to myself alone, I saw Step One as: "Admitting that I was powerless over alcohol (and other drugs) and that my life had (potentially) become unmanageable (if I ever drank or drugged again)." Keeping all the parts in brackets to myself, I marched on in sobriety, determined to get "Good Orderly Direction" in my life. For the next five years, I relied on my Twelve and Twelve meeting, my sponsor, and thereafter on the fellowship of AA to stay sober. (This worked for me to the limited extent that I stayed straight, but I adamantly warn off others who would try it this way. I've seen too many fatalities via this route.)

Just shy of 10 years sobriety, having completed a university education and graduate school, with a wife now sober, and with two small girls - one of them named for my first sponsor - I started a job as a newly-minted professional in a new city. The days and weeks were very long, life seemed manageable, and I made a conscious decision to stop attending A.A. in order to spend what little time was left over with my wife and kids.

Little did I know that the five years after that fateful decision would be an at-first slow descent into madness, a madness in which I finally lost marriage, family, career, house and my mind. Just as the oldtimers had warned me, all those things that I had put in front of my sobriety I had lost. Beaten by life and this disease, obsessing over escape from a painful and seemingly hopeless life via the bottle, I was brought back to A.A. and to a wise and loving sponsor who took me back through the Steps. The 'Big Book' was read and explained to me. Re-doing the Steps with a new understanding, I experienced the spiritual release that is available through our program of action. My mind was opened, and with the help of several spiritual mentors, day-by-day I began - with several epiphanies along the way - to grow spiritually.

Interestingly, not only had the import and significance of the 'Big Book' - its application to my life and circumstances - soared, but the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions had also become inextricably important to my growth in spirit and consciousness. With fifteen years clean and sober - most of it being "stark, raving sobriety" - I had become one of those whom Bill so mildly puts it "had begun to run into life's lumps in areas other than alcohol."

There are, indeed, perils and pitfalls along the way if one ignores the 'Big Book' in favour, grudgingly, of the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, as I did. Some seem to avoid the mistakes that are so often made. I did not. But having survived these perils and pitfalls, I know that the Twelve and Twelve, holds much promise for further growth, written as it is for those who have already completed the 12 Steps as outlined in the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous.

My closest spiritual mentor, a profoundly dedicated man with 35 years of sobriety at the time, often stressed that having taken the Steps and having recovered from the hopeless state of alcoholism - wet or dry - it is imperative that one incorporates Step Three, Step Seven and Step Eleven into one's daily life; relying on Step Ten where we screw up, and utilizing Step Twelve in carrying the message where we can. It is here, and in this process, that the experience of Bill's years of sobriety, as set out in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, becomes so important. Indeed, I find it is needlessly hard, if not impossible, to practice these Steps without the various spiritual nuggets of wisdom he shares there.

Consider, as examples, the following passages from the essays on Steps Three, Seven and Eleven:

• "Our whole problem had been the misuse of willpower. We had tried to bombard our problems with it instead of attempting to bring it into agreement with God's intention for us. To make this increasingly possible is the purpose of A.A.'s Twelve Steps, and Step Three opens the door."
  
  "Once we have come into agreement with these ideas, it is really easy to begin the practice of Step Three. In all times of emotional disturbance or indecision, we can pause, ask for quiet, and in the stillness simply say: "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. Thy will, not mine, be done."" (Step Three, pp. 40-41. Emphasis added.)

• "For us, the process of gaining a new perspective was unbelievably painful. . . . It was only at the end of a long road, marked by successive defeats and humiliations, and the final crushing of our self-sufficiency, that we began to feel humility as something more than a condition of grovelling despair. . . . The admission of powerlessness over alcohol . . . is but the barest beginning. To get completely away from our aversion to the idea of being humble, to gain a vision of humility as the avenue to true freedom of the human spirit, to be willing to work for humility as some thing to be desired for itself, takes most of us a long, long time."
  
  "We saw that we needn't always be bludgeoned and beaten into humility. It could come quite as much from our voluntary reaching for it as it could from unremitting suffering. A great turning point in our lives came when we sought for humility as something we really wanted, rather than as something we must have. It marked the time when we could see the full implication of Step Seven: "Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings."" (Step Seven, pp. 72-73, 75.)

• "There is a direct linkage among self-examination, meditation and prayer. Taken separately, these practices bring much relief and benefit. But when they are logically related and interwoven, the result is an unshakeable foundation for life. Now and then we may be granted a glimpse of that ultimate reality which is God's Kingdom." (Step Eleven, p. 98.)

 As it says in 'Pass It On' (at page 352):

"If (the) 'Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions' is a small volume in terms of length, it is large in its depth and content. Whereas the Big Book, written in 1938, radiates Bill's joy and gratitude at having finally found a way to stay sober, the 'Twelve and Twelve' reflects an entirely different mood. In 1951 and 1952, when Bill wrote the second book, he was suffering almost constant depression and was forced to confront the emotional and spiritual demons that remain "stranded" in the alcoholic psyche when the high tide of active alcoholism recedes. The 'Twelve and Twelve' provides a highly practical and profoundly spiritual prescription to exercise those demons."

Thus, in my experience there are indeed grave perils and deep pitfalls that can be (as they were for me) life-threatening if one overly (or solely) relies on the Twelve and Twelve without reference and reliance on the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous. That being said, there is great promise to alleviate the residual suffering of "the alcoholic psyche" after, but not before, "the high tide of active alcoholism recedes."

The spiritual path that is so meticulously laid out and explained in the two volumes, if walked day-by-day, promises us a new perspective on life and what it means to be sober, indeed it offers us "a gift that amounts to a new state of consciousness and being." (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 107.)

It is exceedingly difficult and painful, in my experience, to sober up and remain sober without a firm foundation in the 'Big Book.' It is equally difficult and even more painful, I have found, to remain mentally and emotionally sober without a firm foundation in the Twelve and Twelve.

Dealing With Anger

"When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. In dealing with resentments, we set them down on paper. We listed people, institutions or principles with whom we were angry. We asked ourselves why we were angry. In most cases it was found that our self-esteem, our pocketbooks, our personal relationships (including sex) were hurt or threatened. So we were sore. . . . "

"We saw that these resentments must be mastered, but how? . . ."

"This was our course: We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. Though we did not like the symptoms and the way they disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. When a person offended we said to ourselves, "This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done."" (Emphasis added.)

 Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 64-67

"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self . . . to be made new in the attitude of your minds . . . to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore . . . “In your anger do not sin." Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry."

Ephesians 4: 22-26

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Resentments are, simply put, thoughts that anger us which we hold onto over time. Thus, in all the world's great wisdom teachings, anger is seen as a base emotion that must be addressed promptly as it separates the person who is angered from Wholeness. 

In Buddhism, anger is seen as one of the "three poisons" that perpetuate the suffering of the unenlightened being. A Chinese proverb observes that "anger is a toxic poison that eats away the vessel which contains it from the inside out." In Christian teachings, anger is seen as one of "the seven deadly sins" - meaning one of the seven ways in which our thoughts are misdirected and harmful. (Thus, we are advised not to "let the sun go down" while we are still angry, for anger held over time becomes deep resentments that separate our being in consciousness from God.) 

In A.A. parlance, "anger" is seen as one of the character defects of the ego which must be removed in order to allay the spiritual malady (i.e., the separation from Wholeness) which lies at the heart of our alcoholic addiction." Thus, we are cautioned (at page 66) in the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous that:  

"If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison."

But what a subtle, varied, yet powerful, emotion anger is. How deeply held are the "old ideas" that give rise to our anger in the form of resentments; and how powerfully do anger and resentments continue to affect us. "To be angry," observes Rev. Ted Nottingham (in the attached video), "puts us outside of God's will."

"According to the Holy Teachings, not only of (the Christian) religion, but of all Great Teachings, "he points out, "anger is a poison, anger is a lie. Because when we are angry all that we can see is what justifies us. . . . We can only see that little piece that we think allows us to be angry. We'll never give that to the other person who is angry - we'll never justify their anger - but we can always come up with lots of good reasons for (ours). . . . (Yet) suddenly all of our justifications, all of our self-righteousness, all of our bad habits are laid bare (and) shown for what they are."

"It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us. If somebody hurts us and we are sore, we are in the wrong also. But are there no exceptions to this rule? what about "justifiable" anger? If somebody cheats us, aren't we entitled to be mad? Can't we be properly anger with self-righteous folk? For us of A.A. these are dangerous exceptions. We have found that justified anger ought to be left to those better qualified to handle it."

The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 90

"Be sure," Rev. Nottingham notes, "that every time you are angry you are turning away from the Holy (and) disabling . . .  Spirit in your life." And this is true, it seems, irrespective of the many variations of anger that may manifest in our consciousness, including (according to Nottingham): "malice, irritability, rejection, resentment, hatred, intimidation, dissatisfaction, complaining, criticizing, condemnation, annoyance, frustration (and) indignation.

"The way we live!" he exclaims. "You can go from first thing in the morning until the last thing at night and (anger) is all you have got. No wonder," he notes, "people can't find God. We are cutting ourselves off. . . . We are supposed to oppose that part of us that is turned away from the will of God."

Anger: "A Dubious Luxury"

"Anger is a toxic poison," goes a Chinese saying, "that eats away the vessel that holds it from the inside out." Yet, how easily we (alcoholic addict and non-addict alike) become "intoxicated" with our petty angers and resentments. With no more than a thought arising within us, we can be carried away beyond all reason with anger, and the memory of a supposed "wrong" can send us reeling with resentment. It is no mere coincidence, then, that the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous points out that "we cut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit" when we harbor such feelings.

"If we are to live," we read, "we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison."

[Alcoholics Anonymous, page 66.]

Of course, anger doesn't work out so well for so-called "normal men" either, but the insights they have gained into their anger can, perhaps, help us to gain insight into our own. Thus, in "The Genesee Diary," author Henri J.M. Neuwen discusses the insights he gained when debilitating anger grabbed hold of him during his nine month stay at a Trappist monastery in upstate New York.

"The longer I am here," he writes, "the more I sense how anger bars my way to God. Today I realized how, especially during work which I do not like much, my minds starts feeding upon hostile feelings. I experience negative feelings toward the one who gives the order, imagine that the people around me don't pay attention to my needs, and think that the work I am doing is not really necessary work but only there to give me something to do. The more my mind broods, the father away from God and neighbor I move."

"Being in a monastery like this," Neuwen continues, "helps me to see how the anger is really mine. In other situations there are often enough "good reasons" for being angry, for thinking that others are insensitive, egocentric, or harsh, and in those circumstances my mind easily finds anchor points for its hostility. But here! People couldn't be nicer more gentle, more considerate. They really are very kind, compassionate people. That leaves little room for projection. In fact, none. It is not he or they, but it is simply me. I am the source of my own anger and no one else. I am here because I want to be here, and no one forces me to do anything I do not want to do. If I am angry and morose, I now have a perfect chance to look at its source, its deepest roots."

"I always knew it: "Wherever you go you always take yourself with you," but now," he concludes, "I have nothing and no one to blame for my being me except myself. Maybe allowing this realization to exist is one little step on the way to purity of heart."

[Neuwen, "The Genesee Diary: Report from a Trappist Monastery," p. 46-47.]

Doctor Bob
(1879 -1950)

In the "Co-Founders of A.A." pamphlet, Dr. Bob notes that the Book of James (in the New Testament) was one of the readings that he and Bill found "absolutely essential." In it, we read: "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways."(James 1:8).

This, it seems to me, is an implicit recognition that over and above our true being there exists the small "self" or ego; and, when in the throes of ego, anger (or any other of our character defects) can take us over, propelling us to do or say just about anything. In A.A. terms, when we are once again wrapped up in "the bondage of self," we are capable of doing or saying just about anything.

One answer to this near-universal human conundrum may found at James 4:8, which says: "Draw near to God, and God will draw near to you. Wash clean your hands ye sinners. Purify your hearts ye double-minded." The first part of this brief snippet seems to represent Steps One through Three. The second part (very Biblical in its terms, and which therefore turned me off for the longest time) represents Steps Four through Nine; while the third part - dealing with one's "purity of heart" as a solution ot "double-mindedness" - represents Steps 10 through 12.

It is thus, in the process of "purifying the heart" that we move from ego and self-consciousness, to our true being and God-consciousness. And it is in this higher state of consciousness that we shed the anger and instability of the ego. Of course, this is a life's work, as Neuwen's writing attests.

"The positive value of righteous indignation is theoretical - especially for alcoholics," Bill notes in a 1954 letter. "It leaves everyone of us open to the rationalization that we may be as angry as we like provided we can claim to be righteous about it." But, of course, for us even self-righteous anger (and, perhaps most particularly, self-righeous anger) is deadly. It has the power to make us drink, and for us (as Bill notes) "to drink is to die."

"When we harbored grudges and planned revenge for defeats," Bill writes (at page 47 in The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions), "we were really beating ourselves with the club of anger we had intended to use on others. We learned that if we were seriously disturbed, our very first need was to quiet the disturbance, regardless of who or what we thought caused it."

"If you go out looking for revenge," another Chinese proverb says, "you had better dig two graves." That is how dangerous anger can be - particularly to the alcoholic addict, who is on a short leash, at best of times.

Step Four: 'The Tao of Fear'

When we put pen to paper and begin to take a moral inventory of ourselves, we read in the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous that it should be "searching and fearless." Writing down the resentments we hold, their cause and how they effect us, we are then told to examine them closely, looking for our own mistakes and listing where we had been "selfish, dishonest, self seeking and frightened."

Looking deeply at our fears, we are told to "put them down on paper, even though we had no resentment in connection with them," as fear is "an evil and corroding thread" that runs through "the fabric of our existence." All these fears, great and small, we are to find, cut us off from what Bill W. called "the sunlight of the Spirit."

[Alcoholics Anonymous, pp. 64-68.]

"Small fear is fearful," writes Thomas Cleary in his translation of  "The Essential Tao," great fear is slow. In action they are like a bolt, an arrow, in their control over judgment. In stillness they are like a prayer, a pledge, in their attachment to victory." Thus, we read in the 'Big Book,' it is fear that "set(s) in motion trains of circumstances which brought us misfortune we felt we didn't deserve."

In the face of fear the human tendency is to fight, take flight or freeze. Consumed and identified as we are with the inner dialogue of the "self" or ego - a psychological phenomenon that is wholly dominated by fear, and the flip side of fear, desire - we usually choose the wrong option, freezing when we should take flight, fighting when we should freeze, etc.

"(Fears) kill like fall and winter," according to the Tao, "in the sense of daily dissolution. Their addictions to what they do is such as to be irreversible. Their satiation is like a seal, in that it disintegrates with age. The mind drawing near to death cannot bring about a restoration of positivity." The relentless and insatiable demands of the ego for perfect security and happiness, indeed, seem to place us beyond human aid.

"Joy, anger, sadness, happiness, worry, lament, vacillation, fearfulness, volatility, indulgence, licentiousness, petentiousness," says the Tao, "are like music issuing from hollows, or moisture producing mildew. Day and night they interchange before us, yet no one knows where they sprout. Stop, stop! From morning to evening we find them; do they arise from the same source?"

And, once again, we find that the source of all these fear-based states of mind is the "ego" - our selfish, self-centered smaller "self." ("The chief activator of our defects has been self-centered fear," we read in The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, "primarily fear that we wold lose something we already possessed or would fail to get something we demanded.")
"If not for other, there is no self," according to the Tao. "If not for self, nothing is apprehended. This is not remote, but we don't know what constitutes the cause. There seems to be a real director, but we cannot find any trace of it. Its effectiveness is already proven, but we don't see its form. . . . Evidently there is a real ruler existing therein: the matter of whether or not we gain a sense of it does not increase or decrease its reality."

"(D)eep down in every man woman, and child," we read in the 'Big Book,' "is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there. . . . We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that it may be found."

[Alcoholics Anonymous, page 55.]

"We can only clear the ground a bit, the 'Big Book' continues. "If our testimony helps sweep away prejudice, enables you to think honestly, encourages you to search diligently within yourself, then, if you wish, you can join us on the Broad Highway. With this attitude you cannot fail. The consciousness of your belief is sure to come to you."

(Excerpts from Thomas Cleary, "The Essential Tao," pp. 70-71.)

Courage: The Ability to Continue in Spite of Fear

"And 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. Nothing absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes."

("Acceptance Was the Answer," Alcoholics Anonymous, page 417)

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Of the three attributes that we ask for in the Serenity Prayer - serenity, courage and wisdom - it seems to be courage in the face of our life circumstances, with their messiness, emotional challenges and their sheer, fundamental unmanageability, that is often the most difficult for the alcoholic addict to obtain.

Why this is so, seems to be (a) that courage is almost wholly an internal matter, (b) that sometimes exercising courage goes against our most basic instincts, and (c) courage often calls for us to do or say (or not do or say) something that flies in the face of the life lessons we have learned.

The Japanese have a saying which seems to have universal application: "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down." Oftentimes it is much easier to go along with the crowd, or do what "other people" would do in the same circumstances, but for the alcoholic anonymous trying to live his or her life on a different spiritual plane, such actions may prove fatal.

How many alcoholics have started their last binge because they did not want to stand out as the only person not having a drink at a wedding or a cocktail party? Being "convinced" we are alcoholic addicts requires that we give up the "ideas. emotions and attitudes that were the guiding forces" of our lives, and to adopt wholly new "conceptions and motives" for living our lives.

[Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 27.]

One of the more powerful stories in the back of the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous is that of a Vietnam vet and pilot facing a prison term for flying a commercial airliner while under the influence. In the story "Grounded," he writes:

"From somewhere back in high school I remembered a poem that says something like, 'Cowards die a thousand deaths, a brave man only once,' and I wanted to do what had to be done. I was terrified of walking into prison but told my children that I could not come out the back door until I walked through the front. I remembered that courage was not the absence of fear; it was the ability to continue in spite of it."

[Emphasis added.]

 "Courage" - from "cour," the Old French word for 'heart' - means that we have to shift our thinking and identification from our ordinary level of self-consciousness (or "ego" consciousness) to a deeper and higher level of our consciousness and being, and then to base our actions (or refrain from taking action) upon what that higher, God-consciousness dictates.

This, of course, may be the most difficult mental task, especially under unusual and unexpected, emotionally-charged situations. It is a test of both the decision we have made in Step Three to "turn our will and our lives over" to the care of a God we do not and cannot fully understand, and of our entire willingness in Step Six to have our character defects removed. For most of us, we continue to "fall back" upon our old ideas and actions in many of such instances.

In such cases, it is perhaps helpful to re-examine what our Serenity Prayer means, and what it is we are asking for, or seeking, in the most challenging situations we face in our lives.

To me, God, or the deeper level of God-consciousness we are all capable of attaining, is the "serenity" we ask for. The "wisdom" I seek is a recognition that there are at least two distinct levels of human consciousness: the "ego" or "Self," and the higher "Self" or "soul" of a man or woman. And the "courage" I need is to let go of the thoughts and thinking patterns of ego-consciousness in order that the thoughts of God-consciousness may emerge from where they have been obscured.

(Remember that " deep down within every man, woman and child is the fundamental idea of God," although "(i)t maybe obscured by calamity, pomp and worship of other things, but in some forth or other it is there.")

[Alcoholics Anonymous, page 55.]

To face prison, our pilot had to let go of his fears and face the circumstances that caused his fears. That is the very essence of courage. But it does not come easily. "All our instincts" may cry out against what we know we need to do or say in a frightening situation; yet, even in such circumstances it remains a truism that conforming our will to God's will (doing or saying, or not doing or not saying, what is indicated by our higher consciousness) is the better way, and will ultimately result in a better set of circumstances for us, and for everyone else.

"God is either everything or else He is nothing," we read at page 53 of the 'Big Book.' "God either is, or He isn't. What (is) our choice to be?"

Taking the view that God is, in fact, everything, there is then nothing we cannot face, despite all our instinctive drives to avoid our life circumstances. And that is the 'heart' of the 'courage' we are granted through the practical application of the Serenity Prayer. It is what brings us back to the serenity of God.

Yet we are challenged - throughout our recovery - to practice attaining to this higher God-consciousness by disciplining our smaller "selves" through the interwoven practices of "self-examination meditation and prayer." Without such discipline and practice, we may not be able to summon the "courage" to face, and face down, the things we will surely have to.

[Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 98.]