Belief in Jesus Christ and AA’s 12 Steps

Written by Brandon L.

As the last 7 years have unfolded the process by which my heart and my life have been completely transformed has been made more clear to me one day at a time (John 3:3, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Romans 12:1-2).  As I was enabled with a willingness to seek the Truth, the process of recovery was revealed to me through the spiritual principles laid out in the 12 Steps and through scripture … the real Truth by which my recovery and salvation were granted.

Jesus laid out to His disciples a plan, a direction that would ultimately enable them with the power and strength necessary to carry His message forward once He was no longer walking the earth.  That strength lay in the Power of His Holy Spirit.  His plan was a design for living life and a plan for rightly relating ourselves to Our Creator, to our fellows, and to the world around us.

Jesus asked those who wished to follow him to sell all their worldly belongings and give to the poor (Matthew 19:21, Luke 18:22).  From 2003 – 2009 slowly and surely my life was completely deconstructed, given away to the poor in a very real sense.  All that I had worked for, built, and accumulated in my first 40 years of life was dismantled and disassembled in 6 short years by way of the self-destructive nature and the disease of alcoholism in me.  By 2009 nothing more than a change of clothes and a beating heart remained in my life.  The only relationship remaining by 2009 was my father.  In other words, I had literally sold all my worldly belongings.

“Pain is the touchstone of all spiritual progress.”  We had to reach a point in our life where our way of living quit working absolutely.  The willingness to seek a new solution was granted to us only when we reached the point of powerlessness (John 15:5, 2 Corinthians 12:6-10).  By April of 2010, as I walked into my first AA meeting in many years, I had lost all power to manage my own life.  I was powerless. Through my surrender, I was granted the willingness to work the 12 steps thoroughly and exhaustingly with the help of my sponsor.  My sponsor and I spoke on the telephone each day and met once per week for 1-2 hours for formal step work.  The initial process of working through the 12 steps took us 4-1/2 months together.

Powerlessness / Surrender:  Steps 1-3
Step 1:  “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.”
Step 2:  “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”
Step 3:  “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.”

The first three steps enabled us to recognize and accept that we were powerless over our disease, that we did not have the power within ourselves to overcome the disease, but that God’s grace was sufficient if we only sought His Grace through the willingness to follow the remaining 9 steps.  Paul writes about his weakness transformed into strength in 2 Corinthians 12:6-10.  For Paul’s thorn in his flesh that kept him weak is my disease of alcoholism.  My alcoholism is a disease for which there is no cure.  It is only by the daily reprieve of God’s loving grace that the obsession has been completely lifted one day at a time for 7 years, on April 24th, 2017.  The daily reprieve is granted again each day as we surrender our will and our life unto God.

Confession:  Steps 4-7
Step 4:  “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”
Step 5:  “Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”
Step 6:  “Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.”
Step 7:  “Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.”

Jesus’ teachings to His Disciples and His followers regarding confession is written about in several books of the New Testament as a principle when practiced may bring about a cleansing of the heart, a soul refreshed and life reborn (James 5:16, 1 John 1:5-9, Acts 3:19, James 4:1-10, 1 Timothy 6:12-14).  These are the steps that enabled us to clearly see and recognize how our sinful and selfish thoughts, feelings, actions, and behavior had been at the center of strife and discord in the relationships of our life for many years.  The destructive patterns of our behavior were now cast into The Light.  Out of the darkness and into The Light were not just words, but now a reality.  Once the real problem was identified then the solution could and would begin to be practiced intently.  Let the Truth be told, we are all selfish creatures.

Restitution / Amends:  Steps 8,9
Step 8:  “Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.”
Step 9:  “Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.”

Jesus went to the mountainside to teach His disciples.  Within His teachings were many powerful principles, one of which is making restitution to those we have harmed (Matthew 5:22-26).  He asked His disciples to make right the relationships where they had wronged another … “make right those relationships before you return to Me” through restitution and amends.  What a powerful principle this was for us when practiced.  Upon completing my first few direct amends The Lord awakened me.  He brought His loving presence into my heart in a most overwhelming experience. In the blink of an eye, my heart was made complete and whole for this first time in my life.  As if I had been sleeping my entire first 41 years on earth, I was awakened in a split second. What had always been missing I now had found.  I was made complete and whole and no longer living alone.  The awakening was a beginning that made a new faith in God possible.  Contact had been made, but if a lifetime of sober, faithful, discipleship-based living was going to be made possible one day at a time daily practice of these previous 9 steps / spiritual principles and the following 3 steps / spiritual principles were going to have to be made a daily practice.

Spiritual Growth:  Steps 10,11
Step 10:  “Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.”
Step 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.”

Now that we had made a beginning in understanding our sinful, selfish human nature we were next being asked to join life each day and to practice by being open to all new, healthy and meaningful relationships.  Our door to the world and our fellows must remain open each day in order to grow spiritually.  As I would live each day in interaction with others at work and in the family I would come to see more clearly each day that there was much about my character that needed more work.  The subtler forms of my selfish and self-centered behavior became more apparent as I lived each day (2 Corinthians 13:5).  Where I had wronged another, used inappropriate words or behavior, I would be asked to admit my wrongs and to make amends immediately.  It was clear that this new road we were traveling on required us to keep our “house in order” daily for our newfound loving relationship with God to remain rightful.  We would have to live in harmony and in a rightful relationship with the world around us and with our fellows for our relationship with God to remain loving and rightful.  Obedience to the steps and spiritual principles would be key.

Our newfound loving relationship with God must grow.  Spiritual Progress is a must.  We are either moving forward spiritually or we are moving backward.  Progress, not perfection, we are asked to make daily, however little or however great.  These are the principles that continued to guide me in AA meetings and through my sponsor in the months following.  Prayer and meditation are essential for a healthy growing relationship with God (Matthew 6: 5-8).  For me, both were absolutely foreign practices, yet I had to make a beginning somewhere.  So, I began reading prayers in the morning after awakening and in the evening before bedtime.  Amazingly, continuous daily practice of both prayer and meditation brought enlightenment, strength, peace, contentment, and a greater more powerful presence of God within me and in my life, just as Jesus had directed His disciples.  A growing conscious presence of God was building strong within me.  A most incredibly empowering presence that is today and His presence has continued to evolve and deepen one day at a time as I have continued to practice daily.

Discipleship / Continued Spiritual Growth:  Step 12
Step 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.”

This is the step that asks us to pass on to others who are struggling what was so freely passed on to us.   As a continued daily practice we are asked to share our experience, strength, and hope with others who may be willing to listen and follow the direction.  Carrying the message has endless possibilities.  To reach others who are suffering is the request being made in this lifelong devotion to service.  Jesus directed his followers/disciples on how to disciple (Matthew 23:1-12, Matthew 28:16-20, Matthew 4:19-20, Luke 9:23, Luke 6:40, Luke 14:33, 2 Timothy 2:2).   

God has placed many men in my life over the last 6-1/2 years to work with through the 12 steps.  This one-on-one experience working with another has brought more fulfillment, happiness, and joy than anything else I have ever done in my life.  As I work one on one with another I learn more about myself, my character, the sinful human condition, and more on how to rightly relate to my fellows … a friend among friends, a worker among workers, a brother among brother, one among many, one of God’s children. Growing in Humility is the goal and what a fascinating experience it has been so far.

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Matthew 16:24-25 – the principles behind all 12 steps – the road to discipleship.

1.  Renounce yourself to Me – powerlessness / surrender – Steps 1,2,3
2.  Take up the cross – the cleanup work / purification process – Steps 4,5,6,7,8,9
3.  Walk with Me – growing in faith and living discipleship – Steps 10,11,12