Why I care about AA Principles

I was struck at a weekend workshop recently when the leader, with 53 years of continuous sobriety in AA, said something to the effect that “…at this point in his life, AA’s 12 Traditions rather than the 12 Steps have more to do with how he lives his life and what his behavior is or should be…” For me, this was just the next event in a long path toward awareness that helped me to get to some new insights about my own AA program and “what’s next” in my recovery.  Briefly, I can summarize what my own path looks like to me now as:

• I don’t continue to get well by simply reworking the steps.  Only doing yet another 4th step will not make me more well (in my 25 years I’ve done about 10-12 thorough moral inventories - it’s likely I will do more…). Seeking a more enlightened 2nd, 4th or 11th step,  seeking a more rigorous 10th step practice or trolling for new 12th step opportunities are not bad things, but there is perhaps another perspective that I might need to have in my continued recovery.  It was futile to try to get better only by “naval-gazing”.  As one of my spiritual guides was fond of saying, “…you can’t use a sick mind to fix a sick mind…”  Indeed, our Big Book says in at least a couple of places, (paraphrasing) “…when all else fails, work with another alcoholic can save our lives…”
• The 12 Steps, 12 Traditions and 12 Concepts,  along with our 3 Legacies, 5 Warranties + our collected AA experience/history might be understood as a whole program of recovery.  In my opinion, this is not a smorgasbord of pick and choose piece parts for my comfort and convenience.  While “take what you want and leave the rest” may be a truism in other paths, this AA program needs to be taken as a complete whole, in my opnion — at least for me.
• The “answer” for me is probably not outside AA or a “new type” of AA.  As I’ve watched others with similar times of sobriety as mine go through similar periods of discomfort, malaise or apathy, I’ve watched as several have either dropped away from the program or gotten on another path.  I’ve observed that some of those have either gotten drunk, died (suicide and other illnesses) or gotten more miserable rather than better.  Fear won’t keep me sober or happy but their peril has been a wake-up call to me that I need to pay attention to my own recovery process in AA as others seem to find AA sufficient for their primary spiritual care.
• The pain of living with an alcoholic mind and consequences of my past or current choices are not “bad”.  Without pain or consequences, I find it more difficult to learn.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t learn from positive things - ideally, that will be a better motivator over time - at least I hope so!!!  But, it also doesn’t mean that having pain or feeling failure doesn’t mean that I’m awful or a “failure”.  It just means that I have an opportunity to learn something - and that is a good thing…

So, that is the perspective with which I entered into an inquiry of the “AA principles”.  I have found there is a richness to the principles that I’d not noticed before.  It seems, for now, learning and applying the principles in our lives is the main point of the exercise of our three legacies expressed through and in support of the steps, traditions and concepts.  The point of the exercise for me  is the deepening of my understanding of our underlying principles to:

1. Discover new (to me) principles whereby I can understand my life’s purpose and effectively participate in accomplishing that purpose.  Of course a most important part of our process to start on that path is to discover and let go of my “old ideas” which is accomplished by a rigorous working of the 12 Steps.
2. Commit to those principles by
   1. being mindful of what these principles are and seeking new ways of understanding and applying them
   2. as a part of my continual review where I examine my life (e.g. through our 11th step), evaluate my actions and thoughts in light of these principles
   3. prayerfully looking toward ways to make progress toward ideals consistent with those principles
3. Help others to improve their lives through the discovery and application of principles upon which they would choose to live

As with so many of my “discoveries” on this spiritual journey of recovery, I’ve been surprised at how many others are on this same path either with me or ahead of me.  It has seemed for several months now that we keep “coincidentally” (as in coincidences are God’s way of remaining anonymous?) running into folks who are looking into the richness of the AA principles in their programs and in their lives.  As I’ve re-read some of our AA literature (e.g. AA Comes of Age, Pass it On), I’ve been shocked once again at the amount of relevant experience and perspectives they’ve “stuffed into” the book since I last read it.  It’s humbling to realize that the exact experience I’ve been having was happening in AA as a whole in the 1940’s and 50’s.

So, is it true that “my life depends on the discovery of and application of these AA principles”?  Perhaps. What  definitely is true is that this seems to be what’s in front of me and it seems there’s nothing better for me to work on right now so it is definitely what’s next as a part of my path.  No doubt, in some months or years from now, I will see this part of my life as clearly part of some probably completely unexpected turn or side path on my journey.  That’s been true for the past 25 years and so I certainly wouldn’t expect anything different from now on…