The 12 Steps, Big Book Guide

Where the Steps Come From

The Twelve Steps are not a list someone wrote for us to admire. They are the path the first members of Alcoholics Anonymous actually took to get sober, written down in Chapter 5 of the Big Book, How It Works. The chapter opens with a promise many of us have heard read aloud at meetings: 'Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path' (page 58). The steps themselves appear on pages 59 and 60, introduced simply as the steps the first members took, 'suggested as a program of recovery' (page 59). Suggested, not commanded. But the book is honest about what half-hearted effort gets us: 'Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point' (page 59).

What the Steps Actually Do

Read in order, the steps tell one story. We admit we are beaten (Step One), come to believe help exists (Step Two), and decide to accept it (Step Three). Then we get honest about our past (Steps Four and Five), let go of what blocks us (Six and Seven), repair the damage we caused (Eight and Nine), and build a daily life of inventory, prayer, and service (Ten, Eleven, and Twelve). Right after listing them, the book boils the whole program down to three ideas on page 60: we could not manage our own lives, probably no human power could relieve our alcoholism, and God could and would if He were sought.

Progress, Not Perfection

Many of us looked at that list and balked. The book saw us coming: many of us exclaimed, 'What an order! I can't go through with it.' (page 60). Its answer is the sentence that has steadied alcoholics for generations: 'We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection' (page 60). No one works these steps flawlessly. We simply stay 'willing to grow along spiritual lines' (page 60), and we start where every one of us started, with Step One. The guides below walk through each step the way the Big Book presents it, page by page, in plain language. Pick a step and begin.