Practicing living right with Step Twelve

Addictive Eaters Anonymous Step Twelve: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addictive eaters, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

A member of Addictive Eaters Anonymous spoke to other AEA members about their experience of living the Twelve Steps. This blog is Part Three of the edited transcript of one member's interview on Step Twelve. All the readings referred to come from Step Twelve in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous book.

I picked out this bit about that third part of Step Twelve, about practicing these principles in all our affairs. “Our basic troubles are the same as everyone else’s, but when an honest effort is made “to practice these principles in all our affairs,” well-grounded A.A.’s seem to have the ability, by God’s grace, to take these troubles in stride and turn them into demonstrations of faith” (Pg.114). I thought that was pretty cool.

That is pretty cool. Yeah, something happens when we're just trying to carry the message, trying to pass it on. Earlier, I read something in the 12 and 12 about how it doesn't matter what sort of shape we're in at the time; the mere act of trying to pass on what we've been given seems to generate a reaction. One of the great things I have found is that the more I try to help someone else, the less I think about me. I can't remember any time that I have been on the phone, talking to someone where I've been worried about what the boss is thinking or whether I will have enough money to pay the next bill. It's more like ‘okay, how can my experience potentially help this person? And if mine can't, who can I direct them to?’. Then if I’m doing that, I struggle to remember those little kinds of worries. They don’t seem very important. It’s great for taking my mind off me, which is the problem today, not food.

Thinking about your life as you live it, it says here, “Our desires for emotional security and wealth, for personal prestige and power, for romance, and for family satisfactions—all these have to be tempered and redirected” (Pg.114). Do you think that is talking about emotional sobriety?

Definitely. It is a subject I'm always loath to bring up as it’s very much in the eyes of others. Who am I to judge? I know, if I take the right action, then usually the right state follows. Even if the action I take is not necessarily directly helpful to somebody, it is the act of trying that takes me out of myself. We talk in the program about people keeping getting better. I see that in older members. I see that in people who have been sober for decades, who are better now than when I first encountered them quite a while ago. And they continue to get better. As an addict, I still want more. Now I want more of that. And they do that by working the steps. It is not something they have done 40 years ago and just parked to one side. That example of other people inspires me.

I love that you always talk about older members getting well because it is not just new people getting well, but we're all continuing to get well, which is so fantastic.

How we read something today might not be how we react in a year's time or five years' time. I remember someone saying once at a meeting very early on that God didn't send them anything in that moment that they could not handle with God. I have seen a lot of that lately in recovery with people handling quite difficult situations in the moment, with grace and poise. That is attractive to people like me, who do not necessarily always handle those situations.

We are role models for this amazing way of living. What do you think of this final paragraph at the end? “Still more wonderful is the feeling that we do not have to be specially distinguished among our fellows in order to be useful and profoundly happy. Not many of us can be leaders of prominence, nor do we wish to be. Service, gladly rendered, obligations squarely met, troubles well accepted or solved with God’s help, the knowledge that at home or in the world outside we are partners in a common effort, the well-understood fact that in God’s sight all human beings are important, the proof that love freely given surely brings a full return, the certainty that we are no longer isolated and alone in self-constructed prisons, the surety that we need no longer be square pegs in round holes but can fit and belong in God’s scheme of things—these are the permanent and legitimate satisfactions of right living for which no amount of pomp and circumstance, no heap of material possessions, could possibly be substitutes. True ambition is not what we thought it was. True ambition is the deep desire to live usefully and walk humbly under the grace of God” (Pg.125).

Absolutely brilliant. What can you say to that? I agree with that. I once wouldn’t have. I was very ambitious, particularly striving materially and seeking recognition. One of my favourite cartoons in the AA Grapevine magazine is of a man being consoled by his wife who is saying “There, there, you are a very important person to your immediate family and very small circle of friends”. It is always good to be reminded of that. One of the great things about being in recovery in AEA is that we have a sense of purpose. That sense of purpose is based around staying sober, not picking up the first one, getting to meetings, working the steps, and trying to help another to achieve sobriety. As I was saying before, trying to help somebody else and seeing them get well, their lives transformed beats any feeling I know in the material or ambitious sense. Trying to do the right thing by God and passing on what has been given to me in as pristine condition as I possibly can is ambition enough for any person.

Wonderful, thank you. I think it is helpful to hear about how to live the steps, the practical living of the steps, which you captured extremely well.