KissMyTiara

I'm confused about this. I have been attending AA meetings for about 3 months. I hear people who said they did it in a week. Some in a month. Other's are still on Step 4 after a year. Of course if varies, but how do you really know? Who tells you? Do you decide yourself? Does your sponsor tell you? Obviously there isn't a written test. I've seen some in my group willing to be a sponsor with only 1 month sobriety because "they have worked the steps".

Any advice on this?

Isaiah

A week and a month?!! I know people who've gone quickly but that just sets off major AA alarm bells in my head. I cannot believe one month is possible. That someone would sponsor after one month of sobriety honestly scares me.

You know you've worked the steps when you and your sponsor decide you have. All the way, working the steps should be a collaborative effort between sponsor and sponsee.

I personally think at least 9 months to a year is required. I just finished my 12th about three months ago and I've been in the program three years. I took a long time, but I wanted to be deliberate and I'm happy with how it went.

And, naturally, you always work the steps. That's why I can't see flying through it. Once you're done you go back. I am currently working six and seven again.

yeahgr8

They are ordered 1 to 12 so when you reach step 12, and assuming you didnt choose to miss any out, you have worked the steps...obviously it is recommended to have a sponsor who had worked the steps and got their own spiritual awakening to be able to guide you through the process....

Another answer would be when you have had a spiritual awakening BUT you probably wont realise you have had one until a time after you have finished the steps...usually other people notice before you do...

Sure someone could sponsor after a month, if they have worked the steps and had a spiritual awakening (you cant pass on what you dont have)...however when i came into AA i absolutely was insane but not insane enough to ask someone who had just finished the steps theselves to sponsor me?! i looked at it the same as most life things, e.g. if i wanted to set up my own business would it be more prudent to follow the lead of someone who had been in business a month or someone who had been in business for some time and stood the test of time...yeah sure the guy who had been running his business for a month may be way more successful than the guy who has been running his business for 20 years but that isnt going to mean anything if we both end up going bust a year later...

Good luck:-)

Mark75

I'll never be done. There is no way that can happen... especially steps 10-12... but I have to work 1 through 3 pretty regular... and uh... step ten pretty much is a daily rework of 4 through 9.

That's not what your asking, but what I said is my experience... I quit trying to be done... I have done a number of 4 and 5 steps, but I don't feel done with that yet... That's OK though... It's only taken me 25 months and counting

KissMyTiara

Thanks everyone. It's really just so gray. Seems like people decide for themselves. Seems like the steps are specific in what to do...but never when you have completed them. Like given a yard to mow and you have the lawn mower and gas but where does the boundary end? Do you decide after one acre is all that you need and ready to move to the next yard? But you missed spots?

I am a CPA and like specifics and black and white. This is hard to me. The person to the left of me in the group is fast the one on the right is slow. How do I know either has done it? How do I know I have.

I understand Step 12 you know you have a "spiritual awakening". But I think you can have that way before Step 12. Thoughts on that?

WakeUp

I think the OP is talking about the initial working of the steps. There's taking your time, yes, but then there's so slow you lose focus on what you're supposed to be doing.

I think the first time through should be in a focused, disciplined manner. The process should take around the neighborhood of six months. Any sooner feels rushed, any slower feels like foot dragging.

Of course, the steps are circular. When you get to step 12, you're back at step 1.

Isaiah

I don't believe in a "spiritual awakening," not as some sort of experience with glowing lights and angelic choruses. From the stories I've heard over and over from long-time AAers is that the spiritual awakening comes in degrees and you never completely have it.

I believe AA is a spiritual program, but I don't think one just gains it's principles through a revelation. That deeply goes against my own religious beliefs.

And I think you can definitely feel a spiritual awakening before step 12. Otherwise, it sort of suggests that it's by step 11 and step 11 alone that one really "gets it." I don't think that's true. Step 11 was just practice and maintenance for me.

bigchief

Hi, i do sponsor many and the answer i can give is, i interview my candidate to see if he is ready to give himself to a simple program and will go to any lengths, if after the interview im satisfied with the outcome, then we begin the following week, during the time i take them through the big book (approx 12 weeks) they will have learnt and now been working the full 12 steps as laid out in the big book, i then proceed to take them through the Traditions as these are as vital as the 12 steps, during the time we do the steps through the big book i explain how it is laid out in the book and the reasons why its set out 1 through to 12 and how the sequence of change happens, its a simple process to which any knowlegable sponsor will be able to do.

So as for time there isnt any guidelines its how much you want it, just for the record i done mine in may/22/2000 in 12 months, hope that helps or if you need to ask anymore then please carry on....Keith

WakeUp

I think one has little spiritual awakenings throughout the steps. Like getting out of bed, you open your eyes, then you yawn, then go back to sleep for awhile, then you get up and you're awake and about.

Boleo

Actually there is something like a written test available. When you can answer YES to most of these questions;

1st Step Promises (Page 42)
My alcoholic condition was relieved, as in fact it proved to be.
Quite as important was the discovery that spiritual principles would solve all my problems

2nd Step Promises (Page 50)
they found that a new power,
peace,
happiness, and
sense of direction flowed into them.

4th Step Promises (Page 70)
We have begun to learn tolerance,
patience and
good will toward all men, even our enemies, for
we look on them as sick people.
We have listed the people we have hurt by our conduct, and are willing to straighten out the past if we can.

5th Step Promises (Page 75)
We are delighted.
We can look the world in the eye.
We can be alone at perfect peace and ease.
Our fears fall from us.
We begin to feel the nearness of our Creator. We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now
we begin to have a spiritual experience.
The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly.
We feel we are on the Broad Highway, walking hand in hand with the Spirit of the Universe.

9th Step Promises (Page83),
We will be amazed before we are halfway through.
We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone,
we will see how our experience can benefit others.
That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
Self-seeking will slip away.
Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

10th Step Promises (Page 84)
We have ceased fighting anything or anyone —even alcohol.
For by this time sanity will have returned.
We will seldom be interested in liquor.
If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame.
We react sanely and normally, and
We will find that this has happened automatically.
We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it.
We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation.
We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality—safe and protected.
We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed.
It does not exist for us.
We are neither cocky nor are we afraid.
That is our experience.
That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.


11th Step Promises (Page 86)
We can employ our mental faculties with assurance
God gave us brains to use.
Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane
Our thinking is cleared of wrong motives.
We relax and take it easy.
We don’t struggle.
We are often surprised how the right answers come


12th Step Promises (Page 89)
Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics.
It works when other activities fail.
Life will take on new meaning.
To watch people recover, to see them help others, to watch loneliness vanish, to see a fellowship grow up about you, to have a host of friends-this is an experience you must not miss.
We know you will not want to miss it.
Frequent contact with newcomers and with each other is the bright spot of our lives.

nogard

Hi KMT, the thing is to do the steps with a sponsor (who is someone you trust) and put aside everything else while you go through this process for the first time.

Good luck working the steps.

Kevin

CarolD

Boleo....

The point is to live the Steps
you can't begin that too soon.

There is no graduation in AA recovery


Do them fast the first time....then circle around
for more understanding and inspiration
That's my suggestion KMT
Glad you plan to move forward....

nogard

Thats amazing Carol well done.

try the best I can on a daily basis.

yes the promises are` awesome

caribbean

What's interesting is that the Big Book does not say "get a sponsor and work the steps with them". In fact, if you read it, there are a lot of places where it says "now" and "at once."

It's good to have help in getting a solid foundation. But only YOU can know when you are ready to move from one step to the next. Your sponsor may have the best of intentions for you, and maybe his/her advice is good and maybe not. It might be too fast or too slow for your personal recovery. Talk about it with him or her.

I know someone who helps others go through all 12 steps in a day, and it works for many of them. It's not right for everybody. But it is POSSIBLE. The founding members definitely didn't drag their feet over the course of a year or more; their lives depended on working the program -- not on going to meetings, not on working with a sponsor. Those things didn't exist then, yet they recovered.

LawMama

Everyone is different. There are old timers with many years of sobriety who never worked the steps. There are people who work the steps on their own and those who have a sponsor. I tend to worry a lot about other people's time tables and such, but I really try not to because it isn't relevant to my program or my sobriety.

I haven't read anything about having to have a sponsor in the BB, but I have found that it helps me. There are traditional ways of working the steps that have been passed down from sponsor to sponsee and I like that I am doing the steps in ways that have been tried and tested by those who have come before me.

I only have about 3 months sobriety so I'm definately not an expert but I am glad I got a sponsor and started working the steps in my first month of sobriety. I have had more of a feeling of closeness with God ("spriritual awakening"?) throughout my first four steps, and I think that will become more salient as I go through this process.

Personally I think the only way to go is to pray about it to your higher power and I think our higher power will put it into place the way he/she/it/whatever means for it to happen if we are willing.

keithj

There shouldn't be any mystery about it. A spiritual awakening is the result of the Steps (all 12). Am I reborn? Are my roots grasping new soil? Are the 10th Step promises (and the others) true in my life?

When one undergoes a profound alteration in their reaction to life, it's unmistakable. The results manifest in one's life, not in theory or on paper.

24hrsAday

What he said..