Step 2 Men's Group
Spirituality is essential to our sobriety.
By: L. E. M. | Royal Oak, Michigan “Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one rascal less in the world.” These words were said by Thomas Carlyle, English essayist, historian, biographer and philosopher. As I look back, I had been honest, but I had been honest only to …
WHEN I FIRST CAME into Alcoholics Anonymous, I was confused to hear speakers refer to alcoholism as a disease. My whole background offered only one summary for uncontrolled drinking. And that was the moral conclusion that drunkenness was a sin of gluttony. A thousand things could explain why I got drunk, but nothing could excuse …
August 1947 “Continued to take moral inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.” Notice that the word “continued” is a past participle. We take it to mean that this Step is an unvarying and unceasing thing. It is a part of the program that must be repeated day by day. It is also …
September 1948 The question of persons, who after two, three, even five or more years of continued sobriety in A.A., “having trouble,” came up in a discussion meeting recently. How to avoid the “trouble” is an important question. It seems to boil down to something like Jack Dempsey’s reply to a questioner, after Gene Tunney …
August 1945 Jim sank into a comfortable chair at the Club House. He had come all the way over, across town, to eat lunch here because he knew, instinctively, that today he needed to be surrounded by A.A. and the gang, but, now that he was here, he wondered why he had come. He was …
January 2023 I was 20 years old when I walked back into an AA meeting after a two-year absence. Before I went to that meeting, I had to call a person I had known during the few months I first attended AA meetings in 1972 but didn’t stay sober. Back then, when I cried for …
By: Richard D. | Shreveport, Louisiana August, 2012 Uncovering all the harm he caused in his drinking days restored his compassion for others STEP EIGHT: Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. Looking back, it is probably safe to say that I harmed many …
By: Ronald H. | Santa Ysabel, California August, 1999 We all take things for granted sometimes, loved ones in particular. My mother passed away one morning in April 1990. Since then, the feeling of loss is always with me whether I think about it or not. Being a single parent with five kids, Mom had …
Step Eight – Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and become willing to make amends to them all. By: B. B. | Longview, Washington August 1993 Almost three years ago I moved from a relatively large urban area to a smaller town. At the time, I had just celebrated my second AA …
By: H. V. | Kodiak, Alaska July 1984 THE SEVENTH is the shortest Step. It should be so simple to practice it and be granted true relief, leading to serenity. However, I have found this Step to be extremely painful and frightening. If I want a shortcoming removed, what price am I willing to pay …
By: Dan J. | Maryknoll, New York July 1991 Fresh from a Fifth Step session with my sponsor, I turned to the Sixth Step. Gradually, very gradually, I became ready to have God remove my character defects–and God knows there were a lot of them! That evening, I got home from a meeting and was …
Step Discussion > Step 7: Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings. December 1966 By: T. P. Jr. | Hankins, New York PEOPLE often think that the Eleventh Step is the only one which suggests prayer; but this isn’t so. The Seventh Step is a prayer Step. Although prayer is not mentioned as such in …
January 1966 “I AM the same person I was when I came into AA.” This statement, made recently at a meeting by a member with over three years’ sobriety, yielded a vigorous and quite unexpected reaction. “Whadya mean, you’re the same person?” most of the comments went. “You couldn’t possibly be the same person if …
July 1977 – A.H. from Naples, FL THE BIG BOOK says, “At some of these we balked,” and I did. Not at the first few Steps. Powerless over alcohol? Life unmanageable? Jolly correct. When you’ve lost an $800-per job with promise of unlimited advancement, plus one wife and one son, plus the last red cent …
I think that many oldsters who have put our AA “booze cure” to severe but successful tests still find they often lack emotional sobriety. Perhaps they will be the spearhead for the next major development in AA–the development of much more real maturity and balance (which is to say, humility) in our relations with ourselves, …
In March 1941, a feature article written by Jack Alexander entitled "Alcoholics Anonymous" appeared in the "Saturday Evening Post." This is how it came about.
Fragments of AA History – Origin of the Twelve Steps I well remember the evening on which the Twelve Steps were written. I was lying in bed quite dejected and suffering from one of my imaginary ulcer attacks. Four chapters of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, had been roughed out and read in meetings in Akron …
On New Year's Eve, an e-mail arrived from my older sister, addressed to the whole family, announcing that she would no longer communicate with me about our mother's recent diagnosis of cancer.
BY: GEORGE B. | ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA Tradition Twelve When I first found Alcoholics Anonymous, part of its appeal lay in the second word of its name. Anonymity about my own alcoholism was something that I certainly wanted. Even though my friends and co-workers had seen me drunk often enough, I didn’t want them to know …
One may say that anonymity is the spiritual base, the sure key to all the rest of our Traditions. It has come to stand for prudence and, most importantly, for self-effacement.
When I finished my Step work, I knew something was different, but I wasn’t sure if it was a spiritual awakening.
BY: TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS – August 1998 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 …
BY: ART V. | JOHNS ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA – August 2002 Time for one more. . . Every morning as I pour water into my coffee maker, I’m filled with gratitude because I’m reminded of what it was like fourteen years ago. Every morning, I filled a glass with brandy just to get my day …
As I slowly made my own way through the Steps, I was aware that I had to understand them fully if I was to take them.
