The Early Steps

So, to continue our review of the original A.A. manuscripts, here is the part of How It Works that contains The Steps.  Some amusing tweaks to be discovered . . . And again note how the present "we" often replaced the bossier "you."  Drunks do something that everyone else is doing as long as they aren't told to do it.

Now we think you can take it!  Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as your Program of Recovery:

At some point the determination was made that the opening line sounded a little . . . bossy?  So bossy that it wasn't tweaked - it was ejected.  Excised.  Removed surgically with no regrets.

1. Admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care and direction of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely willing that God remove all these defects of character.

Ready: Prepared for immediate action or use.

Willing:  Ready to do something that is not a matter of course.

The parsing here is fine but I see the point of changing "willing" to "ready."  I, personally, was ready to get to work but most unwilling to . . . you know . . . do any work.  I can only imagine the chaos in the discussion to make that change.

7. Humbly, on our knees, asked Him to remove our shortcomings – holding nothing back.

On our knees?  On our knees?  Holy shit, what were they thinking, those kooky, white, upper-middle-class, religious Midwesterners?  We're lucky enough to get a drunk to ask his Higher Power for help but then to ask him or her to prostrate his ego to do it?  The "holding nothing back" part is more hopeful, less outrageous, but still laughable.  Most of us feel like holding something back: lust, gluttony, greed, etc., are all popular claw-backs.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make complete amends to them all.

Complete:  With all parts included; with nothing missing; full.

Again, an admirable goal to shoot for but so out of reach for a new alcoholic.  I know, personally, that there were a few people that I made amends to that I hoped were still going to die a slow and horrible death.  So I wasn't exactly meeting the intention for the amends process.  I wanted to but I wasn't capable of.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our (conscious) contact with God, (as we understood him), praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

I have no idea why conscious was added - were we only improving our contact unconsciously.  I don't know what that means.  

I do know that our famous agnostic founders lobbied strenuously for the "as we understood him" part of this Step.  A famous addition of legendary proportions.

12. Having had a spiritual experience as the result of this course of action, we tried to carry this message to others, especially alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

I'd say the founders got a little full of themselves here.  Many of us still believe today that a whole shit-ton of people could be helped if they tried to apply the spiritual principles of a 12 Step program to their lives while acknowledging the fact that we should try to stick to what we know best.

You may exclaim, “What an order! I can’t go through with it.”  Do not be discouraged.  No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles.  We are not saints.  The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines.  The principles we have set down are guides to progress.  We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.

Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after, have been designed to sell you three pertinent ideas:

Can't you just see stockbroker Bill W lobbying for this line?  Can't you just see how annoying it would be for most wet drunks?  I still remember being handed a $7 Big Book at my first meeting and thinking: "Ah-ha!  Here's the catch - make some money selling self-help shit."  It was very off-putting to me; so off-putting that I equivocated on a purchase, pleading poverty, in a total lie, before sullenly buying the thing (which is sitting open on my desk, 33 years later).

(a) That you are alcoholic and cannot manage your own life.
(b) That probably no human power can relieve your alcoholism.
(c) That God can and will (could and would if He were sought.)

If you are not convinced on these vital issues, you ought to re-read the book to this point or else throw it away!

Okay this is fucking great.  I think they should have left this in there.  Maybe "you ought to re-read the book or get the fuck out of here!"