Can't Someone Else Do It?

From time to time I can't come up with any fascinating stories about me, Little Stevie Seaweed, to draw you in and leave you riveted to the narrative . . . so how about some good stuff from our literature? I believe that I'm a Problem Person and that the solution - one of the solutions, a solution that works for me, anyway - can be found in the texts of Alcoholics Anonymous. As a technical German scientist I tend to shy away from spooky, indistinct spiritual mumbo-jumbo but I do sense that there was a larger purpose to the stuff Bill W and Bob S came up with. These guys were social architects, combining medicine, religion, spirituality, and knowledge gleaned from a life inside the active alcoholic's School of Hard Knocks. None of our founders were smart enough to do this without a hand from beyond the pale touching their lives.

I often will jot down passages from the literature in a notebook that I carry around. I decided to reread some of these journals and combine the passages that struck my fancy at the time into some kind of organized document. One of the things that always makes me laugh is how often important concepts are repeated in the literature. It's as if the founders knew that we were too busy thinking about the minutiae of our miserable little lives to . . . you know . . . pay attention to what they were trying to say.

I'm struck by how often there are references to the work that we're going to have to do, the actions we have to take. I have always hoped for something or someone to sprinkle magic fairy dust on me so that my defects melt away without me having to do anything. Certainly anything hard. I want to be struck sober. I don't want to have to work to stay sober.

Homer Simpson once ran for garbage commissioner. His slogan? "Can't someone else do it?"

Work: Sustained human effort to overcome obstacles and achieve a result.

Action: Something done so as to accomplish a purpose.

Nothing short of continuous action upon these as a way of life can bring the much-desired result.

More sobriety brought about by the admission of alcoholism and by attendance at a few meetings is very good indeed, but it is bound to be a far cry from permanent sobriety and a contented, useful life.

All of the Twelve Steps require sustained and personal exertion to conform to their principles and so, we trust, to God's will.

Like all the remaining Steps, Step 3 calls for affirmative action, for it is only by action, that we can cut away the self-will which has always blocked the entry of God . . . into our lives.