Using the Steps

 How I personally use the Steps to stay in God's will is by keeping short accounts! My initially first few 4th Steps revealed a lot of defects that blocked me from receiving instruction because I was more compelled to follow what the mind was directing me to do which was riddled by defects. I was looking up the work defects in the dictionary this morning 

Defect:

1: an imperfection or abnormality that impairs quality, function, or utility : SHORTCOMING, FLAW

So my defects impair my quality, function of utility so serve God's will. I thought I needed my defects to make money and navigate my way through this world-who would I be without my defects??  Charlie says (from Joe and Charlie) something like "How the hell am I supposed to make a living?!?" Suggesting he had to lie to and use his grosser defects in order to operate out here and earn a living. My experience has been that being entirely ready to have him remove my defects and then praying for him to do so, he then finds a way to provide for me that I no longer need to use my maladjusted mechanisms to survive. It wasn't a huge upheaval, like he didn't remove them all at once-he was kind with me and pruned just enough that I could handle it when I could handle it. I just had to be entirely ready and willing.

Daily use of Steps:

1. WE ADMITTED WE WERE POWERLESS OVER ALCOHOL—THAT OUR LIVES HAD BECOME UNMANAGEABLE.

I am also powerless over others, the weather, what you think of me, what going on in the world, ect. If I think I have power over those things my life becomes unmanageable. 

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity

I see that I am insane, not whole, a glitch that would tell me that it was ok to drink even though my history proved otherwise. 

This applies also to the perceived notion that I have some sort of power over people, and all the other things that drove me to seek relief from the very thing that I was allergic to that would ultimately kill me. I need to seek daily a power greater than myself-God whose power outweighs the other stuff. I just never sought to seek him.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Decision:

1: a choice that you make about something after thinking about it : the result of deciding

Everyday I make a decision to turn my will over upon awakening because I have enough sanity to know that His way works better then mine. In doing this I have learned what a real decision looks and feels like...not the fight or flight, knee jerk automatic "Yes! I'll do it" then resent you for asking, kinda of decision making I practiced prior.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves

Searching

1: to look into or over carefully or thoroughly in an effort to find or discover something: such as
a: to examine in seeking something
2: to make painstaking investigation or examination

Fearless

: free from fear : BRAVE

Moral

: concerning or relating to what is right and wrong in human behavior

Inventory

: an itemized list of current assets: such as
b: a list of traits, preferences, attitudes, interests, or abilities used to evaluate personal characteristics or skills

What can I offer the world today God? Is my own Spiritual House clean?  

5. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs

Honesty with myself, God and another person if needed. I use this Step daily to keep me from justifying or rationalizing the lies my mind tries to feed me. The delusions and illusions that I used to run on, and with, no longer sustain me. I must always be transparent with my God, myself and someone in the fellowship to gain clarity. My mind is cunning and baffling and wants me sick and wants me to make others sick. This step keeps me healthy

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

What is impairing my quality to serve God's will today? Am I entirely ready to have whatever it is be removed?

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings

I ask on my knees for Him to remove my flaws:

My creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength as I go out from here to do your bidding

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

Where am I with any outstanding amends from my formal Step work with sponsor? Did I harm anyone today with my words or behavior?

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

I do this...and if I am not doing this, I pray for the courage to use discernment and guidance from God or a spiritually fit person to give me a suggestion on how to carry this out to not create any more harm or injury to that person. 

10. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it

So daily I do a condensed version of the above in my 10th Step writings

11. 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.

Conscious contact means that I am conscious-not just going through the motions in repetitive robotic memorized prayer. For me it's a conversation. Consciously aware of what I seek...which is truth, wisdom, courage and knowledge through Him, so I must be conscious in order to receive that and to get direction.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

I try to carry the message in whatever form I have been led to each day. I try to practice the spiritual principles in all my affairs. The spiritual principles of each Step:

1. Acceptance 
2. Hope
3. Faith
4. Courage
5. Honesty
6. Patience
7. Humility
8. Willingness
9. Brotherly-love
10. Integrity
11. Self-Discipline
12. Service