What do Steps 10 and 11 ask, day to day?
In short:
- Step Ten asks you to keep taking personal inventory and to admit it promptly when you're wrong. The Big Book's directions take one paragraph: watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear, ask God to remove them, talk them over with someone straight away, make amends quickly, and then turn your mind to someone you can help (p. 84).
- Step Eleven asks for prayer and meditation. The book sets out a plain daily routine for it: review the day at night, plan the day each morning, and stop to ask for the right thought or action whenever you're agitated or unsure during the day (pp. 86–88).
- Both Steps point outward. The night review asks whether you were thinking of others. The morning prayer is never to be for yourself alone. The chapter ends by sending the reader on to Step Twelve (p. 88).
The Steps themselves
The Big Book lists them with the other ten on page 59. Step Ten: continued to take personal inventory and promptly admitted it when we were wrong. Step Eleven: sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will and the power to carry it out (p. 59).
The book explains both in the last five pages of Chapter 6, "Into Action" (pp. 84–88). They come right after amends, so they're presented as how to keep living once the past has been cleared up.
Step Ten: a running inventory
The book calls this continuing to "set right any new mistakes as we go along" (p. 84). "This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime" (p. 84). The whole method is in one passage (p. 84):
- Watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear.
- When they show up, ask God at once to remove them.
- Talk them over with someone immediately, and make amends quickly if you've harmed anyone.
- Then turn outward: "Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help" (p. 84).
"Love and tolerance of others is our code" (p. 84). The book says the result is that we stop fighting "anything or anyone—even alcohol" (p. 84), and that it lasts only as long as the spiritual work does: "What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition" (p. 85).
Step Eleven: a day with three parts
"Step Eleven suggests prayer and meditation" (p. 85). The book then makes "some definite and valuable suggestions" (p. 86):
At night (p. 86), review the day. The questions it gives: "Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid?" Do we owe an apology? Have we kept something to ourselves that should be discussed with someone? Were we kind and loving? "Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time? Or were we thinking of what we could do for others". It warns against sliding into worry or morbid reflection, "for that would diminish our usefulness to others" (p. 86). Then ask God's forgiveness and what should be put right.
In the morning (pp. 86–87), think about the twenty-four hours ahead. Ask God to direct your thinking, especially to keep it free of self-pity, dishonesty and self-seeking. The book adds that God "gave us brains to use" (p. 86). When you can't decide, ask for inspiration or an intuitive thought, relax, and don't struggle (p. 86). It warns that a newcomer shouldn't expect to be inspired all the time (p. 87). End with a prayer to be shown the next step through the day, and be "careful to make no request for ourselves only" (p. 87).
During the day (pp. 87–88), "when agitated or doubtful," pause and ask for the right thought or action, and keep reminding yourself you're no longer running the show (pp. 87–88).
The book doesn't prescribe a method of meditation beyond this. It says members who belong to a religion keep its morning devotions, others may learn a few set prayers, helpful books can be suggested by a priest, minister or rabbi, and "Be quick to see where religious people are right" (p. 87). It ends: "It works—it really does" (p. 88).
Where the two Steps lead
The book doesn't let these Steps become a private routine. Step Ten's paragraph ends with someone you can help (p. 84). The night review asks what you did for others (p. 86). The chapter's last lines are "There is action and more action" and a pointer to the next chapter, which "is entirely devoted to Step Twelve" (p. 88): going out to find and help another alcoholic (Chapter 7, pp. 89–103).
What the text doesn't say
It doesn't say the night review must be written down, how long meditation should last, or which prayers to use. Those details aren't in the text, so this page doesn't supply them.
Read it yourself
- Chapter 6, "Into Action" (pp. 72–88; Steps 10 and 11 on pp. 84–88), free from A.A.: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt6.pdf
- Chapter 5, "How It Works," where the Twelve Steps are listed (p. 59): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt5.pdf
- Chapter 7, "Working With Others," where Chapter 6 points next: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt7.pdf
- The full book is sold by A.A. World Services: https://onlineliterature.aa.org
- Related: What does Step 12 really say?
Sources
| Source | Pages | First published |
|---|---|---|
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 5, "How It Works" (the Steps) | 59 | 1939 |
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 6, "Into Action" | 84–88 | 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.