Once a person recovering from alcohol or other drug addiction has established the way of life suggested by the tenth step for maintaining the benefits of recovery (see A.A.’s Step 10: A Way of Life), there is still more progress possible. The 11th step offers advice from the earliest members of Alcoholics Anonymous on how they deepened sobriety by nurturing their spiritual lives.
As with previous postings in this series on the 12 Steps, I need to stress that I am not speaking on behalf of A.A. There are many ways to understand the meaning and implications of each step[i]. What follows is only one perspective on step eleven filtered through my experience as an addiction psychiatrist. My goal is to offer thoughts on the psychological depth contained in A.A.’s 12-step approach to recovery from addiction (see A Meaningful Definition of Addiction Recovery).
Step 11 reads as follows:
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.
People who have not seriously searched for personal meaning in the ten steps preceding step 11 may stumble over this direct appeal to spirituality, expressed as an increasingly conscious connection to God. But alcoholics/addicts who have achieved sobriety through practicing the 12 steps have already grappled with whatever childhood and family baggage may have clung to the word “God,” which they comfortably interpret according to their own individual understanding. For some, God is an ethereal deity, while for others, “He” is an inner wisdom, their conscience, the A.A. community, nature, or simply an undefined Higher Power that lies beyond the self.
The heart of step 11 lies in suggesting a practice of prayer and meditation as part of a sober life. Put simply, prayer is “talking to” or addressing one’s thoughts toward whatever form of higher power has somehow aided their recovery. Meditation, on the other hand, is listening to that higher power. Prayer is an act of humility—a recognition that you are not God and perpetually in need of help to remain sober. Prayer is important because once humility is lost, alcoholics/addicts are prone to revert to the same narcissistic assumption of omnipotence that formed the backbone of their efforts to control addictive disease without having to resort to abstinence.
Meditation quiets the mind and pays active attention to whatever enters one’s consciousness. Many forms of meditation exist. Some focus attention on the breath, others on an object or sound. In either case, the editor in your mind is turned down, if not entirely off. There is an open space in your mind—a space that our monkey mind usually fills with random or obsessive thinking. This openness was first encountered in the sixth step to leave room for new behaviors to appear (see A.A.’s Steps 6 & 7: Making Room for Change, Then Inviting It). Meditation enhances this openness to allow whisperings from one’s conscience, wisdom from the unconscious, or communication from a higher power to seep into our awareness. Like stars in a darkened sky, subliminal thoughts, feelings, and understandings can be perceived more easily during meditation.
The primary goal of step 11 is to achieve a greater connection to your higher power by entering into a dialogue: talking and listening. Striving for a personal relationship with a God/higher power of your own understanding expands your sense of identification with mysteries at the core of all being. This expansion of your identity, in which your being is felt as a legitimate manifestation of the universe, is the essence of spiritual experience. Recovery contains many paradoxes, such as regaining control of one’s life by admitting powerlessness over alcohol and other drugs. The mystery at the core of our spiritual life is where such paradoxes are comfortably held.
The final portion of step 11 is critical. Prayer and meditation are not practiced to beseech God to satisfy our wishes. It is not akin to sitting on Santa’s knee with our Christmas list. Alcoholics/addicts are engaged in one paramount pursuit: freedom from chemical slavery. The goal of prayer and meditation is to gain knowledge of what is necessary to remain sober, with the assumption that sobriety and good health would be a caring God’s will for us. When working to learn God’s will for us and asking for “the power to carry that out,” you are no longer sitting in the director’s chair. Instead, you are willing to surrender to whatever realities are required of you to remain sober. Obedience to these realities is the only pathway to receive A.A.’s promise of a “happy, joyous, and free” life.
The next posting in this series will explore how Step 12 calls on people in recovery to serve as a beacon to those who still suffer from addiction and to extend the principles of recovery throughout all aspects of their lives—a final push toward integrity and authenticity.
www.psychologytoday.com
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/healing-from-addiction/202310/aas-step-11-plumbing-the-depths-of-spiritual-recovery
