What is the "spiritual awakening" in Step 12?
In short:
- Step Twelve says the awakening comes "as the result of these steps" (p. 60). It follows the work of the first eleven Steps; it isn't a precondition for starting them.
- The Big Book's Appendix II, "Spiritual Experience," says the book uses "spiritual experience" and "spiritual awakening" for the same thing: "the personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism" (p. 567).
- Most such changes are slow, what William James called the "educational variety" (p. 567). Friends often notice before the person does (p. 567).
- Members usually find an inner resource they hadn't suspected, which they come to identify with their own idea of a Power greater than themselves (pp. 567–568).
What Appendix II says
The appendix was added after the first printing of 1939, because that printing had given readers the wrong idea (p. 567). Its main points, in order:
- The terms "spiritual experience" and "spiritual awakening" are used throughout the book, and a careful reading shows the personality change behind recovery "has manifested itself among us in many different forms" (p. 567).
- The first printing left many readers thinking these changes had to be "sudden and spectacular upheavals" (p. 567). "Happily for everyone, this conclusion is erroneous" (p. 567).
- Sudden transformations, "though frequent, are by no means the rule" (p. 567). Most are of the "educational variety because they develop slowly over a period of time" (p. 567).
- The person finally realizes he has "undergone a profound alteration in his reaction to life" that he couldn't have brought about alone (p. 567).
- Members find they have "tapped an unsuspected … inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves" (pp. 567–568). "Our more religious members call it God-consciousness" (p. 568).
- Anyone who honestly faces his problems in the light of A.A. experience can recover, "provided he does not close his mind to all spiritual concepts" (p. 568). "Willingness, honesty and open mindedness are the essentials of recovery" (p. 568).
How the rest of the book shows it
- Both kinds are in the book. Chapter 4 tells of an atheist minister's son whose change came in one night, then adds: "To this man, the revelation was sudden. Some of us grow into it more slowly" (Ch. 4, p. 57).
- It comes with the work. After Step Five: "We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience" (p. 75). The lawyer in Chapter 11, after deciding to do whatever was needed, "had begun to have a spiritual experience" (p. 158).
- It's a change in a person, not only a feeling. The doctor quoted in Chapter 2 describes such experiences as "huge emotional displacements and rearrangements" in which old ideas and motives are replaced by new ones (p. 27).
What it isn't
It isn't a requirement to have a dramatic moment, and the book's own appendix was written to correct that idea (p. 567). Nor does Step Twelve make the awakening the point of the Step. It names the awakening as what the Steps produced, and then asks for action: carry the message and practice these principles (p. 60). See: What does Step 12 really say?
Read it yourself
- Appendix II, "Spiritual Experience" (pp. 567–568), free from A.A.: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_appendiceii.pdf
- Chapter 5, "How It Works," with the Steps (pp. 58–71): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt5.pdf
- Chapter 4, We Agnostics (pp. 44–57): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt4.pdf
- Related: What does Step 12 really say? · Does Step 12 require believing in God a certain way?
Sources
| Source | Pages | First published |
|---|---|---|
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Appendix II, "Spiritual Experience" | 567–568 | written after the first printing (p. 567); the Preface says the appendices came into the book with the second edition, 1955 (p. xi) |
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 5, "How It Works" (Step Twelve) | 60 | 1939 |
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapters 2, 4, 6 and 11 | 27, 57, 75, 158 | 1939 |
Page numbers are from the fourth edition (2001). The Preface says the program chapters have been "left largely untouched" since 1939 (p. xi), but our sources have no first edition to compare page numbers against.
Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book is © A.A. World Services, Inc.
These pages answer questions about A.A. from A.A.'s own published literature, read in full, with every quote checked word for word against the page it cites. Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. What we read, and when each source was written.