There’s good news and there’s bad news. The good news is that if you want a spiritual awakening through the 12 Steps, there’s nothing anybody can do to stop you from taking the actions that the steps indicate. The bad news is that you are unlikely to take the actions without the support of at least one other person.

Many sponsors and many sponsees slow the awakening down. Many recovering people say that the steps become a way of life, which can be an excuse to stop any awakening dead in its tracks.

There are many ways of slowing down or stopping the step work. Many people slow down when they are acting out in another area and aren’t willing to talk about it yet. Many people slow down because they are in emotional pain and imagine they need time to “process” it. What they need, generally speaking, is step work to resolve it.

The common places people stop step work altogether are at step three (by not making a decision to turn the will and life over - that is, unwillingness), at step four (by not being willing to see things in a new way - aka close-mindedness) and at step nine (by not being willing to consider setting straight their problems with other humans - a basic dishonesty considering the harm we have done others and self).

Commonly in step workshops the audience will decrease in size after Steps 3, 4, and 9, and this is considered by presenters a sign that things are working. The failure of willingness at step 9, open-mindedness and step 4, and honesty and courage at step 3 is palpable and fairly universal with step work. I believe by letting people know up front about the obstacles, they can take responsibility for their own recovery and determine to be different.

A sponsor can overcome all these problems, usually with ease. Having been through the process, we can often explain things in a new way and make sense of them. The trick is putting yourself in their way so they know when you need help. Some suggestions that have helped:

- Get into the habit of ringing your sponsor when things are okay.

- Get into the habit of ringing your sponsor when things are bag or in crisis.

- Get into the habit of ringing others, not just your sponsor, who have worked all twelve steps and are happy.

If you are known you can be helped. It’s that simple.

I said before that nobody can stop you from taking the actions of the steps. No-one can stop you from an awakening of the spirit. No-one can stop you from getting inspired. But you can stop yourself, easily: you only to avoid the actions of the twelve steps. You can avoid the actions of the steps this by feeling an emotional process, thinking about theories, or keeping up appearances of pride and prestige. Or you can take the damn actions and get free.

What is the action of the first step?

The actions of step one are two-fold. The first action of step one is: stop the addictive pattern. Stop drinking, drugging, sexing, gossiping, gambling. Whatever your addiction is, stop.

The second action of step one is the awakening action. The second act of step one is to walk in pain. Share it, talk about it, feel it. Live in it. Move through it. Let go into it.

Pain is not suffering. It will not kill you. And the pain of step one is the first sign of awakening. It is a sign you are alive. It is the body and emotion beginning to wake up. It must be experienced out in step one. Experiencing the inevitable pain of existence is the exact action of step one.

Step one can be so hard for many people to take a second time after they have relapsed. It is easy to suffer pain when you are told that you will experience inspiration and joy and wholeness and connection at the end of the process. But if you have taken the action of step one, suffering pain for weeks or sometimes even years, and not had a spiritual awakening, it is more difficult to believe you can get freedom the second time you take step one.

The opposite experience is also true: it will be discovered that by embracing a new experience of step one, you can find incredible growth, joy and freedom in all areas of life. For example, if I have worked the steps on drug addiction and got free of that, I can decide to work the steps on food and fitness. I can accept the pain of healthy food, the craving for junk food, and the pain of exercise and new habits, and by embracing that pain I can have a new experience of step one. Any time I want rapid and dynamic growth and change in my life, I must become aware of and willing to experience the pain of a new step one experience.

To summarize then:

- The actions of step one are two-fold: to stop using, and to start facing the pain of living clean.

- The actions of step one becomes easier to complete when we learn about the goal - the inspiration, joy, and awakening of step twelve.

- The actions of step one become easier when we accept the obstacles to the goal. The obstacles are:

1, the unwillingness to take step three,

2. the close-mindedness to take step four, and

3. the dishonesty and lack of courage to take step nine.

- The actions of the 12 steps are unlikely to be taken unless you have someone to support and encourage you.

- By accepting responsibility for the goal and by acknowledging these obstacles, you are empowered to fully surrender to the program of recovery.

By working Step One we are beginning to wake up. We wake up physically by stopping using drugs, people and addictive processes. We wake up emotionally by feeling pain and sharing it. We wake up to our unmanageability by talking about our mental suffering.

Now, none of these awakenings sound very inviting, does it?

Can anyone be blamed that they do not continue on to Step Two, when being awake means having to experience life without numbing substances and habits, with emotional pain, and with mental suffering?

I do not blame them; I simply offer the way free.

The way free is spiritual in nature. To say the 12 Steps have a spiritual aspect is like saying the ocean has a wet bit. Spiritual means inspiring, whole, functional, dynamic and creative. Spiritual means being awake! 

So the solution to the mental, emotional, and physical rude awakenings of Step One must be spiritual in nature. You must figure out a way to become inspired, in-spirit, if you are to keep a dynamic living experience of Step One. If you cannot open to inspiration, you cannot keep nor pass on Step One to another.

Inspiration cannot be faked, but it can be taught. Nothing will change your brain more than becoming inspired and grateful. It is said that a grateful addict never busts but very rarely reported how to get and stay grateful and inspired. This exercise reveals the source of inspiration and gratitude.

This source is reliable and stable. It never changes. It never goes away. It is always present, all around you. This source of inspiration is not outside you, either; it is to be found in you, and it is just waiting for you to say the word and be willing to take the actions that result, in order to experience inspired living.

The beautiful man who began Narcotics Anonymous Jimmy Kinnon said the words and took the actions of inspiration each day. Many elders and wise people say and do them every day. Many of our sponsors and sages say and do them.

Because the Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text (NABT) so far has lacked a chapter on twelfth step work, these words have been largely lost to the Narcotics Anonymous community of practice. But they are essential, they are crucial, they are irreplaceable to being able to live free of addiction!

I will give the simple version first. Here it is:

God, please send me someone to help today.

The exercise is: say the words and pay attention, then, when the opportunity comes, act.

For example. Today I went out with a map of the city, with the intention that I would like to explore some new part of my home city if I had the time. I didn’t have the time, but I did find a girl who was lost and needed a map today. She was too anxious at being lost to read it herself, so I read the map and gave her directions.

Now, the day that unfolded after that was just great. Coincidence? 

Helping changes your brain. Helping gives pleasure. Helping benefits the helper, the helped, and any witness to the act of helping. Helping connects you to your own inner source of Power.

Let’s look at some other versions of this exercise. I mentioned Jimmy Kinnon before. Here is his version:

God, please send me someone who really wants this program, even just for a few hours.

 Another wise elder said: God, please let your love flow through me and into the lives of others.

I like to say, God help me carry your holy message in all my thoughts, acts and relationships today.

But my favorite remains from James R because it is so straight and simple:

God, please send me someone to help today.

If you try this, I promise you that you will find relief from your mental, emotional and physical distress. When nothing else will work to change the brain from its self-destructive tendencies, helping will always release creative power.

This exercise has only one downside: helping others can be addictive. The Source of the joy and pleasure is within your spirit, not in the people you help. 

Because we are born to care for one another, because we are social animals, because the isolation of addiction is so bitter, this prayer is the most direct, powerful and sophisticated way to change the human brain.

Unmanageability is a tool. Through the work there are various points to which we return. Our condition of unmanageability is one of those points.

It doesn’t matter what you call unmanageability. Buddha called it dukkha. If you say it out loud - “CA CA” - you will hear what he’s talking about crap. Jesus called it “missing the mark”. We translate the word as “sin” but it means more ignorance than anything else. Krishna and Socrates both simply call it ignorance. It doesn’t matter what you call it; what matters is how you respond creatively to it in your living actions.

Things don’t happen TO you; they happen FOR you.

The payoff of being a victim is you get to feel resentment; the payoff of being grateful is you get to grow.

And we grow through unmanageability, by unmanageability, in unmanageability.

That is a promise.

Sponsorship, sponsoring, being a sponsee or sponsoree - these are value-laden terms. The definition of the words alone is debatable. The nature of the relationship is also much discussed.

The aim of these talks is to seek the heart in words - the meaning. The method we will now use to seek the heart of recovery will come in great use now, later on, and always.

This method was used by the first addicts who recovered. It had no name. It was so simple and effective it didn’t seem to need one. But it works so well that it ought to have a name, so let’s call it The Trusty Dictionary Method.

Here’s how it works. Purchase a Trusty Dictionary. I recommend Websters, the Oxford English Dictionary - secondhand ones are great. Open it up on your desk.  Keep it open all the time to one side of the desk; this book will bring you great peace and freedom. It deserves to remain open.

First look up “sponsor”. Look at where the word comes from and what it originally means. Look for the root of the word at the end of the entry.

Your Trusty Dictionary will tell you, as it tells me, that “sponsor” comes from the the Latin for promise. What other words come from the same ? Look up “respond”. Look up “responsibility”. Look up “respondent”.  Read the meanings given for each. Compare: How are they the same words? How are they different.

This is the power of the Trusty Dictionary Method. You no longer have to rely on unproven authorities (like myself) to find meaning. You can find it yourself, by looking for yourself. And the bonus is, you get the self-esteem of doing it yourself!

If you have done the exercise, you have “responded” to my suggestion. I have not “told” you to do anything. I have suggested what was suggested to me, and you have tried it and found out if it works or not for yourself.

This is the subtle key, in my opinion, for sponsorship. We suggest. We try new things. We find what works.

It is not me telling you what you need to do to recover. It is me suggesting what worked for me and others in our recoveries. See the difference?

One final note on sponsorship. There are many suggestions made. Some work, and some do not. But the idea is to give them a red hot go. Treat them like scientific experiments if you are skeptical.

What have you got to lose? 

Instructions:

The spirit is born out of acceptance.

Compassion comes from letting go of pain.

First, then, locate the source of the pain.

Live in that world for a long time.

Step One: we admitted we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable.

Were we ready to admit that we could not, under any means, change a thing about our condition? The answer to this question lies in how much pain you are willing to face and accept.

What is the difference between a bad night and a rock bottom experience? The difference is desire for change.

Desire indicates potential. Why do people change? People change when they are willing to pay the price of change. What is the price of change? The price of change is desire.

Want to change forever? Easy: become willing to desire that change deeper, longer, and more than you desired the original condition. For example:

You have sickness. You become willing to change that condition. You face realities ruthlessly and ask for help relentless. You learn and take charge of what you can. You do you very best. But what is happening underneath all that is that you want to be healthy more than you want anything else, and you’re willing to do anything to win it. That kind of desire eventually succeeds. That kind of desire is called surrender in spiritual circles, but it really means a desire, a hunger, a thirst of the spirit for awakening. In surrender is the seed of awakening, it’s said, because only full awakening to aliveness will satisfy the desire of the surrendered person.

Let’s return to our instructions:

The spirit is born out of acceptance.

Compassion comes from letting go of pain.

First, then, locate the source of the pain.

Live in that world for a long time.

The first two lines are for contemplating, for the mind to chew over for a while. The second two lines are two actions. Find the source of your pain and live there. Why? Because that’s where the spirit’s born. The precise nature of these actions are, 1 feel that pain without anything in the way, and 2 act in service to others by finding someone else to share it with.

Anyone, anywhere, can get free of addiction.

Anyone, anywhere, can lose the desire to react compulsively and habitually.

Anyone, anywhere, any find a new way to live.

What is this new way to live?

It is different for everyone. But we can characterize it generally.

- It is a way of life characterized by individual creative freedom. So our style is therefore tolerant and loving of other individuals.

- It is a way of life characterized by profound human connection and cooperation - in other words, our hallmark is joy.

- It is a way of life that is characterized as inspired and fully alive. We are awake to life.

- It is a way of life that is responsible and integrous. Our whole person is alive and lived through.

The Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text (NABT) updated this message from Alcoholics Anonymous in the 1980s.

Together we carry this message of creative freedom by reading and sharing of ourselves. Thank you for reading and sharing!

What is 8YSTEM? It is a dynamic way of approaching, integrating and sharing the living experience of Being Awake.

So what is NABT? NABT stands for the Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text.

What you now read here is a dynamic system of awakening which I call 8YSTEM which uses the NABT:

This book will feature largely in this blog. 

Pdf - Narcotics Anonymous - Basic Text - Edition 6

Doc - Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text