The steps are AA. They are the AA way of life, to be lived on a daily basis. Tremendous freedom has come to me from living the steps. Possibly the main one, apart from staying sober, is not becoming dependent on meetings. A little time observing in meetings will reveal long timers who haven't worked the steps that are unable to go more than a few days without a meeting before their life begins to fall apart. If you want that, then do what they do.
The idea that we take the steps once and then sit on our hands completely misses the point. Even the big book suggests that the principles we learn need to be practiced for a life time, in all our affairs.
In the past year I have taken about thirty individuals through the steps. Most are still sober, some have undergone quite dramatic changes in their reaction to life.
The pay off for me? Here's one example. Seven years ago my wife died of an asbestos related cancer. She was seriously ill for two years before her death and suffered terribly, especially from the chemo treatment.
Yesterday my business partner called to inform me that, due to the carelessness of one of our customers, my son had unknowingly been exposed to asbestos dust that day. I reacted sanely and normally. I was upset, and experienced the emotions of fear and anger, then I made an appointment for my son at the doctors to be checked out, and registered an official complaint with the appropriate authorities. Then I called him to offer reassurance and support. At no time did it occur to me to take a drink.
And that's been a fact of my steps based sobriety. No matter what trials and low spots life has thrown at me, it has not occurred to me to drink. The tenth step promises about the problem being removed have proved absolutely true.
However, on first contact with AA, I didn't want a bar of the steps. I tried to get sober on my own because I thought I could, and I didn't tackle the steps because I thought I didn't need to. I wasn't until I came to fully understand what is meant by the term powerless that I realised I did not have a choice about the steps. That didn't come from a bunch of AAs talking me into doing it, it came from repeated disasters and defeats with alcohol. I was, as they say, beaten into a state of reasonableness. And this turned out to be the very best place from which to successfully launch a spiritually based recovery.
I concur with what the other step takers have been saying. I wonder if they have noticed that some of the most spectacular recoveries seem to come from some of the most hopeless cases.