Derringer - for me, this way of expressing a life using the steps to guide me isn't quite right. It makes me think someone is doing them all over and over again, and I have found success at focusing daily on specific ones, and turning to others as different things arise in my life (or mind!).
How I work the program of AA (with a sponsor)
First, I read the first 164 pages with my first sponsor. We discussed, she pointed out salient points and back info, if you will - like the actual name of "Our Mutual Friend."
In employing the steps, I describe my life how my second sponsor (with whom I did step 4-12) as "guidelines for living my best life."
I have not done a COMPLETE set of the steps again - have thought I might during my upcoming 4th year but now beginning to work with my 3rd sponsor for this phase of my life, we will see.
Daily working the steps "over and over" would better be described as how I use them to live my best recovered life. I describe it as living in 1, 10, 11 and 12.
This means:
1 Acceptance (now, that means way more than I can't drink) - it means accepting that others' feel as they do; that I can't control anything from how slow the lady ahead of me is driving or the person at the drive thru getting my order right, all the way up to I my view of the world isn't the "perfect" one for everyone else. Acceptance applies to, well, everything in life.
10 & 11 - I read pp 84-88 (and 417-418 which tie back into Acceptance as well as getting out of my ego) - I do the daily inventory which means I reflect on my actions and resolutions of a day, like did I apologize promptly about something I needed to; was I selfish, resentful, dishonest or afraid. Here, and as part of 11, I apply the St Francis prayer as a guide for the new day ahead of me.
12 Service to others. It could be literally in a meeting, like moving over a chair so a couple could sit together; it can mean going to my step-daughter's b-ball game to support my husband, even though I have a difficult time hearing his ex-wife talking about a serious situation with my other step child (see, acceptance comes in again)...it means leading an AA meeting or running the recovery group I lead for the restaurant industry.
Wash, rinse, repeat every day...and I've got a solid, joyful, well-directed (bc it's not me directing it) life in recovery.