Step 12 at a Men's OA Tool Time Retreat in Oceanside, CA

Oh yeah, there's one last paragraph before we go to Step 12. It says we Alcoholics are undisciplined, so we let God discipline, discipline us in the simple way we have just outlined. But this is not all. There is action and more action. Faith that works is dead. The next chapter is entirely devoted to Step 12. So this is the chapter working with others.

First of all, Step 12 says having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to compulsive readers and to practice these principles in all our affairs. Now notice that it says it's the result. It's not a result of this program is is a spiritual awakening. It's the result of this program is a spiritual wicking. That means there's no other result that you get from working this program other than a spiritual awakening and then the spiritual

that allows you to be abstinent and gives you all the other gifts that you've gotten from working this program. So the result of working this program is a spiritual awakening. So my in my OAPP

meetings, one person said this step 12 has the promise, the primary purpose and the real purpose of the program. The promise of the program is a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. The primary purpose of this program is to carry the message to compulsive overeaters. And the real purpose of this program

is to practice these principles in all our affairs. So that's you know, this 12 step here. This is where the primary purpose Big Book study group got its name is from the primary purpose of the program, which is to carry this message to compulsive overeaters.

So all of chapter of seven working with others is devoted to the 12th step. Now if you look at the 1st 88 pages before you get to the 12th step, I, I found a website where they said that there are 123 mentions of Alcoholics working with other Alcoholics in those first 188 pages before you get to the 12 step chapter. So you know, it's, it's emphasized over and over again. I'm going to give you just two examples of of talking about working with others before you get to the 12th step. On page 14 and Bill's story, he says

while I lay in the hospital, the thought came that there were thousands of hopeless Alcoholics who might be glad to have what we have been so freely,

what had been so freely given me. Perhaps I could help some of them. They in turn might work with others. My friend Evie had emphasized the absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all our affairs. Particularly was it imperative to work with others as he had worked with me. Faith without works is dead, he said. So this is where Bill got that the the I think that this, this chain reaction thought this this idea of this chain reaction. I saw a movie of Bill W one time.

It was excerpts of of him talking to people and he talked about how this chain reaction that he had pictured in his mind of one alcoholic helping another, helping another, and then each of those helping another, another that gives you a chain reaction that that's what gives you a nuclear explosion and a nuclear bomb, that kind of a chain reaction. And that's what he was seen as the future for AA. That's what that's what his vision was for AA.

And I think that was kind of the key thing. And the key thing was, is that it's limited to one single purpose, which is the 12 step, which is to other Alcoholics to help other Alcoholics recovered. The the Oxford Group had that same 6th principle was to work with others to get other people to join the Oxford Group and get the benefit of the Oxford Group. But it was diluted because it was, it was covering every any purpose. You could join the Oxford Group to deal with any problem that you had, with any living problem that you had. It didn't have to be alcoholism. It didn't have to be any kind of

so it was diluted there, whereas Bill has it clearly cut as being a focused on alcoholic, the alcoholic problem and trying to get that same kind of a chain reaction going there. So I think that's what made it so, so successful.

Now Bill is sober for five months. Before he worked with Doctor Bob in Akron, OH. But in the forward to the second edition, it says prior to his journey to Akron, which is where he met Doctor Bob the broker, Bill had worked hard with many Alcoholics on the theory that only an alcoholic could help another alcoholic, but he had succeeded in only keeping himself sober. So for the five months there, he worked with many Alcoholics and it didn't help them, but it helped him

stayed sober because he worked with many Alcoholics.

And the problem that Bill was having was that he was starting out by talking about the solution, spirituality. He would get all enthused and go and talk to this alcoholic and say, hey, I've got the solution. It's a spirituality. God can help you. You know, I don't know exactly what he said, but that was the approach he was taking. And everybody got turned off by that. Nobody, nobody bought what he was trying to sell, you know, So, so that's that's why it didn't work.

Now, before I get, let's see, there was something else I was going to say before I got into the rest of this part here.

So here it is. Bill sought counsel from Doctor Silkworth, and Doctor Silkworth suggested that he do less preaching and speak more about alcoholism as an illness to talk about his own alcoholism so the prospect could identify with him later. We could talk about spirituality. So Doctor Selfworth made that suggestion to Bill and the first time the Bill tried that was in Akron.

Now this is describing how Bill and Doctor Bob met. Bill tried that out in Akron, OH. He contacted, this is not in the big book. This is, this is actually from an, a website, I believe he contacted Henrietta Sieberling, who then called Doctor Bob's house to arrange for Bill to meet Doctor Bob. She was the the person that got the two of them together and they actually met at her house. But it took two calls to Doctor Bob before Doctor Bob agreed to meet. But before he did that, he extracted, and this is from Doctor Bob's story on page 179. Doctor Bob's Nightmare

extracted a promise from his wife and I'll continue in his words. The promise I extracted was that we would not stay over 15. We entered her house at exactly 5:00 and was 11/15 when we left. I had a couple of shorter talks with this man afterwards and stopped drinking abruptly. So what was going to be a 15 minute meeting turned into a six and a half six hour and 15 minute meeting. And the reason, and Bob explains later on page 180, why he says Bill gave me information about the subject of alcoholism, which was undoubtedly helpful.

Of far more important

was the fact that he was the first living human being with whom I had ever talked who knew what he was talking about in regard to alcoholism from his actual experience. In other words, he talked my language. He knew all the answers and certainly not because he had picked them up in his reading.

So that's the reason why we are particularly suited to work the 12th step. We who have suffered from compulsive overeating can go and talk to another compulsive overeater and and get them to understand that we know what they were talking about because we had the same experience that they had. And, you know, having a doctor tell a compulsive reader all you got to lose weight or you're going to die of diabetes, that isn't going to work, that, you know, we've all had that happen. Well, we may have all had that happen to us. I certainly had that happen to me that other people like doctors,

people like that are telling me that I've got to lose weight or thin people that I meet on the street telling me, oh, you know, you should do this. They don't understand. They don't understand what they're talking about. And but when I, when I got into OA, here was a group of people that had the same experience that I had. I could identify with them. I could see that they have recovered. And that's what allowed me to work this program and recover it, recovering it.

And then after Bob talked about that, he did talk about Doctor Silksworth diagnosis of the hopelessness of, of alcohol, of the malady of hopelessness of alcoholism.

And, you know, that's something that that Doctor Bob could identify with since he was a doctor.

OK. Another example of why the 12th step is so important is from page 15 in Bill Story.

So he says I was not too well at the time and was plagued by way this is I. Well, I'm not sure exactly where this was, but whatever time it was, he was not too well at the time and it was plagued by waves of self pity and resentment. This sometimes nearly drove me back to drink, but I soon found that when all other measures failed, work with another alcoholic would save the day. Many times I have gone to my old hospital in despair on talking to a man. There I would be amazingly lifted up and set on my feet.

It is a design for living that works in rough going. So if you're suffering in some way of despair or depression or fear or whatever, if you work with another alcoholic or work with another compulsive overeater,

that can help. That can help. That's what Doctor, that's what Bill is saying right there.

And in fact, on page 89, it continues where it says this is in the in the 12th step now it says practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other Alcoholics. It works when other activities fails. This is our 12th suggestion. Carry this message to other Alcoholics. You can help where no one else can. You can secure their confidence when others fails. Remember they are very ill. And then there's this advice. Don't start out as an evangelist of a reformer. You know, don't start out with a spiritual part when you're

into a newcomer, talk about your experience and, and, and, and you know, start from that point where you can get them to identify with you first that you know what you're talking about. And then later you can talk about the, the, the, what, what actually works is the spirituality. So now if if this 12th step is giving you immunity from drinking, that means that this 12th step is giving you the spiritual awakening because again, it's only the spiritual awakening that gives you immunity from drinking and immunity from compulsive overeating.

We don't get that immunity from compulsive over reading by anything other than the spiritual awakening. So this is how you get that spiritual awakening is by working with others. That's why it's so important to go out and find sponsees, get new sponsees. That's what the OPP program emphasizes is working with new sponsees. In fact, they say that the only reason to go to meetings is to find somebody to work with. That's the reason you should go to meetings to find somebody that you can work with

perhaps.

Yeah, what you just said there was the next paragraph I was reading on page 90 there says when you discover a prospect for Alcoholics Anonymous, find that all you can about him. If he does not want to stop drinking, don't waste time trying to persuade him. You may spoil later opportunity. So, you know, talk to the newcomer and talk to the person, your friend, maybe it's your relative that's compulsive, that's overweight. Talk to them. Tell, tell what happened for you. If they're not interested, don't push it.

They got they got to have the interest. They got to have that desired to stop eating compulsively. That's the remember, that's the the third tradition

is the only, the only membership requirement is that you have a desire to stop being compulsively. So they don't have the desire to stop eating compulsively. They don't, they aren't, they don't satisfy the membership requirement for our program.

So now there's a lot of stuff in the 12th step here in that chapter that deals with finding Alcoholics in hospitals and how to deal with them there and all that. Even AA doesn't do that anymore because there's all these treatment programs now. You know, people get referred to treatment programs like by courts. Courts send them to a treatment program or, or their spouses or whatever, you know, they get, or they get committed to a treatment program. So a lot of that doesn't really apply.

Read all that stuff here.

There's for example there was discussion about waiting until after the binge and then talking to the family 1st and then talking to the guy. But let me talk about how they tell to approach the newcomer here. This is on page 91.

See your man alone. If possible, at first, engage in general conversation. After a while, turn talked to some phase of drinking. Tell him enough about your drinking habits, symptoms, and experiences to encourage him to speak of himself. If he wishes to talk, let him do so. You will thus get a better idea of how you ought to proceed. If he is not commutative,

give them a sketch of your own drinking career up to the time you quit, but say nothing for the moment of how this was accomplished. If he is in a serious mood, dwell on the troubles that liquor has caused you, being careful not to moralize or lecture. If his mood is light, tell him humorous stories of your escapades. Get in to tell some of his, and I'm going to skip some more and I'll go down to page 92. When he sees that you know all about the drinking game commenced to describe yourself as an alcoholic, tell him how baffled you were, how you finally learned that you were sick.

Give me give me an account of the struggles you made to stop. Show him the mental twist which leads to the first drink of the spree. So describe to him that same mental twist that we talked a lot about back there on step one.

We suggest you do this as we have done it in this chapter on alcoholism. If he is alcoholic, he will understand you at once. He will match your mental inconsistencies with some of his own.

If you are satisfied satisfied he is a real alcoholic, begin to dwell on the hopeless feature of the melody. Show him from your own experience how the queer mental conditions surrounding that first drink prevents normal functioning of the willpower. Don't at this stage refer to this book unless he has already seen it and wishes to discuss it. And be careful not to brand Hibs an alcoholic that didn't draw his own conclusion. You know, I heard that that that any any addiction can only be self diagnosed. It doesn't do any good if a doctor diagnosis or if my wife diagnosis or if anybody else

diagnosis be as an as an addict, I have to diagnose myself. That's the only way they can be really diagnosed. If he sticks to the idea that he can still control his drinking, tell him he possibly can if he's not too alcoholic, but insist that if he is severely afflicted, there may be little chance he can recover by himself. You know, I can't remember, but somewhere in the book it recommends to the alcoholic who's not sure if he's an alcoholic, tell him to go and tries to control drinking and see if he can control his his liquor. You know, if he finds that he can't and he ends up, you know,

drunk, drunk for weeks,

then that might convince them to come into the program.

Continue to speak of alcoholism as an illness, a fatal malady. Talk about the condition of mind and body which accompany it, the obsession of the mind and the allergy of the body. Keep his attention focused mainly on your personal experience. Explain that many are doomed who never realize their predicament. Doctors are rightly loath to tell Alcoholics, patients, the whole story unless it will serve some good purpose. And this is especially referring to the fact that back in 1939, if you were an advanced alcoholic, it was incurable and it was going to be a fatal illness. It was going to kill you. Now

can kill you a lot faster than food, but obviously food can kill you too. It'll be a much slower diabetic death rather than the wet brain,

but you may talk to him about the hopelessness of alcoholism because you offer a solution. You will soon have your friend admitting that he has many, if not all of the traits of the alcoholic. If his own doctor is willing to tell him he is an alcoholic, so much the better. Even though your protege may not have entirely admitted his condition he had, he has become very curious to know how you get well. Got well,

let him ask you that question. So you know, the hope is that he'll actually ask you how you got well.

Tell him exactly what happened to you. Stress the spiritual feature freely. I mean, you can't hide it, It's right there on the steps. If the man be agnostic or atheist, make it emphatic that he does not have to agree with your conception of God. He can choose any conception he likes, provided it makes sense to him. The main thing is that he willing to believe in a power greater than himself and that he lived by spiritual principles. Then there's a whole bunch of pages there advice about using everyday language when you talk about spirituality and how to handle

out protegees that have a spiritual religious practice of their own

and all of that. And I'll skip down to page 94 outlining the program of action, explaining how you made a self appraisal, how you straightened out your past and why you're an hour endeavoring to be helpful to him. So that's basically the 12 steps. It's important for him to realize that your attempt to pass this on to him plays a vital role in your own recovery. Actually, he may be helping you more than you are helping him. Make it plain he is under no obligation to you that you hope only that you that he will try to help other Alcoholics when he

his own difficulties.

Then there are six more pages than the big book about advice about how to continue helping the protege after, you know, they gotten into the program and where to draw the line on things like giving them money or letting them stay at your house and things like that, which we don't usually have much of an issue with an OA, but it's useful advice. And then it continues on page one O 1. There's some advice here that applies the food too. For on page 101 it says SAR rule is not to avoid a place where there is drinking if we have a legitimate reason for being there. So, you know, an alcoholic

can go into a bar if he's got a legitimate reason for being there. If he's going into the bar to reminisce about drinking, that's probably not a good reason for being there. The same way we can go to a party if there's good reason for being there, doesn't mean we have to partake of all the food that's at the party there. We can, we can talk to people, we can fulfill whatever purpose we have for going to the party where there's all that food. They'll be fine. And then on page 102, it says your job now is to be at the place where you can be of maximum helpfulness to others. So never hesitate to go anywhere if it can be helpful.

So if there's a way of helping somebody at that party, go ahead and go to the party and do it.

Then finally it ends chapter. It ends the chapter was saying on page 103. After all, our problems were of our own making. Bottles were only a symbol. Besides, we better, we, we have stopped fighting anybody or anything. We have to, we have to start fighting anybody or anything. Now overnight or actually yesterday afternoon, Gene came up with a list of the principles of the program. And that reminded me that I didn't talk about the principles of the program

because remember the 12th step there says we practice these principles in all our affairs.

So what are the principles of the program? Well, I was, I actually had done this work previously, but I was trying to find a spreadsheet where I put all these principles in the spreadsheet yesterday and I couldn't find it. So I did the work again. And if you go to the OA website, I've got the URL and in fact, I'll include all this in the document that I sent to you. So you don't have to write any of this down. There's the URL where you can go to the OA website and find the list of principles that always says correspond to each of the 12 steps. There's a principle for each of the 12 steps.

I couldn't find something like that on the A A website,

but I did find a whole bunch of AA intergroup websites that had the same set of principles, listed 12 principles, and there were many other sites that also listed exactly the same 12 principles. So I have a the list of principles I call AA common. Those are the ones that I've seen on all those AA intergroup websites and other places.

Then on on silkworth.net, which is a it's a wonderful little

helper for if you're interested in a history. They came up, they had two other lists. So apparently two other groups somehow came up with lists of principles for the for the 12 steps. So I've got four lists of principles for the 12 steps. Now only two steps have the same item in both, in all four of those lists. Anybody want to guess which two steps have the same

principle in all four of those lists?

Well, step 12, which is service. Yay, everybody got that one right. And step 7, which is humility because it starts with humbly, humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings. So this is the only two that agree everywhere across the line. Now the, the OA and the AA list agree on everything except for three and one. One that's close is AA has spirituality for step 11. OA has spiritual awakening for step 11. So those are pretty close. But on stops on steps 8:00 and 9:00 they're quite different.

OA has self-discipline for Step 8AA has brotherly love for step 8 and on step 9, OA has love for others and A A has justice.

Justice. So you're going to get all this in a minute here, but when I send when I send this out to you, you'll get all this. But I'm just going to read across from for every step. And I'm going to list 4 principles. And the first one is the OA. The second one is the A, and then the other two are from those other two websites. So for step one, honesty, honesty, surrender, honesty. For Step 2, hope, hope, hope, faith. For Step 3, faith, faith, commitment, surrender. For Step 4, courage, courage, honesty,

soul searching. For Step 5, integrity, integrity, truth, integrity. For step 6, willingness, willingness, willingness, acceptance. For step 7, they're all humility. For step 8, they're all different, self-discipline, brotherly love, reflection, and willingness. For step 9, they're all different. Love for others, Justice, amendment and forgiveness

for Step 10. Perseverance, perseverance, vigilance, maintenance.

For step 11, they're all different, Spiritual awakening, spiritual awareness, spirituality, attunement, making contact. And then for step 12, they're all service. So these are the principles that we practice in all of our affairs. So that's what the very last part of the step is about, is practicing these principles in all our affairs. And that's the true purpose of this program. The, the primary purpose is to help other Alcoholics and the two purposes to practice these principles and all our affairs. And that comes from working the 12 steps.

So that finishes my 12 steps. Now I just want to finish with a couple of odds and ends and let me turn this off.

First of all, what's the purpose of writing the big book? It says in the forward to the 1st edition to show other Alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book. And on page 20 it says, if you are an alcoholic who wants to get over it, you may already be asking what do I have to do? It is the purpose of this book is to answer such questions specifically. It's going to tell you what you have to do. And then and page 45 it says, but where and how were we to find this power of step two? Well, that's exactly what this book is about is

we find that power grid in yourself that can restore you to sanity.

So that's that's the end of my my notes and that's the end of my presentation. Thank you.