After our first few SA meetings, we have to admit that we kept hearing over and over – “Work the Steps.” And we hear share after share that urges us and illustrates the benefits of working the Steps.
So, if these Steps are so stinkin’ special and work so well, why can’t we just print them on postcards and hand them out at strip clubs and massage parlors?
Ah. And there’s the rub (Shakespeare). The Steps are definitely recommended for everyone that enters our fellowship. But there are a few reasons why it is best to be done in the company of the fellowship and through the guidance of a sponsor. Why?
We arrive in the fellowship in quite a state of mess and brokenness.
- We are actually incapable of working the Steps on our own. We must borrow the initiative, motivation, and discipline from our brothers, until our own is repaired. Your sponsor can explain and recommend the next assignment. Don’t worry. They remember quite well the feeling of confusion and uncertainty.
- If we are honest, we don’t really want to work any Steps. We would rather take a pill, get fixed, and leave. We must borrow the humility and acceptance from our brothers, until our own is repaired. The brothers in the fellowship can support and encourage us as they remember well what it was like at first.
- We are broken in our ability to connect and relate. Many of us have obviously proved this in the mess we made of our marriages and families. One of the first skills we need to work on and repair is the ability to reach out, connect, and relate. And that is something you can’t do on your own. The brothers in the fellowship are in various stages of learning these skills and are willing to help you start learning yours.
Through the PROCESS of working the Steps, we have an opportunity to learn the thinking, feeling, and relating skills that we didn’t realize we were missing. The Steps challenge us to review our lives to this point and honestly evaluate the effect and impact of relationships, circumstances, and choices along the way. Some of those might be really hard to process, but can bring healing. Some of those might be embarrassing and shameful, but we can find freedom as we share them appropriately with our brothers.
In the end, we had it wrong. We don’t work the Steps. The Steps work us. Each of them teach us something. And each time we review them again, we see something new from the new perspective of where we have grown and matured.
So, that’s why we recommend working the Steps. It is the process that has worked for men and women like us for a very long time. And different and changed lives are hard to argue with.