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1. Step One0/114 · 0%
   114 unanswered questions

   • ✎What makes us addicts is the disease of addiction-not the drugs, not our behavior, but our disease. There is something within us that makes us unable to control our use of drugs. This same "something" also makes us prone to obsession and compulsion in other areas of our lives. How can we tell when our disease is active? When we become trapped in obsessive, compulsive, self-centered routines, endless loops that lead nowhere but to physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional decay. What does "the disease of addiction" mean to me? Has my disease been active recently? In what way?
   • 1a)What is it like when I'm obsessed with something?
   • 1b)Does my thinking follow a pattern? Describe.
   • 2a)When a thought occurs to me, do I immediately act on it without considering the consequences?
   • 2b)In what other ways do I behave compulsively?
   • 3)How does the self-centered part of my disease affect my life and the lives of those around me?
   • 4a)How has my disease affected me physically?
   • 4b)Mentally?
   • 4c)Spiritually?
   • 4d)Emotionally?
   • 5)What is the specific way in which my addiction has been manifesting itself most recently?
   • 6a)Have I been obsessed with a person, place, or thing?
   • 6b)If so, how has that gotten in the way of my relationships with others?
   • 7)How else have I been affected mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally by this obsession?
   • 8a)Have I given plausible but untrue reasons for my behavior?
   • 8b)What have they been?
   • 9a)Have I compulsively acted on an obsession, and then acted as if I had actually planned to act that way?
   • 9b)When were those times?
   • 9c)How have I blamed other people for my behavior?
   • 10a)How have I compared my addiction with others' addiction?
   • 10b)Is my addiction "bad enough" if I don't compare it to anyone else's?
   • 11a)Am I comparing a current manifestation of my addiction to the way my life was before I got clean?
   • 11b)Am I plagued by the idea that I should know better?
   • 12)Have I been thinking that I have enough information about addiction and recovery to get my behavior under control before it gets out of hand?
   • 13a)Am I avoiding action because I'm afraid I will be ashamed when I face the results of my addiction?
   • 13b)Am I avoiding action because I'm worried about what others will think?
   • 14)What crisis brought me to recovery?
   • 15)What situation led me to formally work Step One?
   • 16a)When did I first recognize my addiction as a problem?
   • 16b)Did I try to correct it?
   • 16c)If so, how?
   • 16d)If not, why not?
   • 17)Over what, exactly, am I powerless?
   • 18)I've done things while acting out on my addiction that I would never do when focusing on recovery. What were they?
   • 19)What things have I done to maintain my addiction that went completely against all my beliefs and values?
   • 20a)How does my personality change when I'm acting out on my addiction?
   • 20b)(For example: Do I become arrogant?
   • 20c)Self-centered?
   • 20d)Mean-tempered?
   • 20e)Passive to the point where I can't protect myself?
   • 20f)Manipulative?
   • 20g)Whiny?)
   • 21a)Do I manipulate other people to maintain my addiction?
   • 21b)How?
   • 22a)Have I tried to quit using and found that I couldn't?
   • 22b)Have I quit using on my own and found that my life was so painful without drugs that my abstinence didn't last very long?
   • 22c)What were these times like?
   • 23)How has my addiction caused me to hurt myself or others?
   • 24)What does unmanageability mean to me?
   • 25a)Have I ever been arrested or had legal trouble as a result of my addiction?
   • 25b)Have I ever done anything I could have been arrested for if only I was caught?
   • 25c)What have those things been?
   • 26a)What trouble have I had at work or school because of my addiction?
   • 26b)What trouble have I had with my family as a result of my addiction?
   • 27)What trouble have I had with my friends as a result of my addiction?
   • 28a)Do I insist on having my own way?
   • 28b)What effect has my insistence had on my relationships?
   • 29a)Do I consider the needs of others?
   • 29b)What effect has my lack of consideration had on my relationships?
   • 30a)Do I accept responsibility for my life and my actions?
   • 30b)Am I able to carry out my daily responsibilities without becoming overwhelmed?
   • 30c)How has this affected my life?
   • 31a)Do I fall apart the minute things don't go according to plan?
   • 31b)How has this affected my life?
   • 32a)Do I treat every challenge as a personal insult?
   • 32b)How has this affected my life?
   • 33a)Do I maintain a crisis mentality, responding to every situation with panic?
   • 33b)How has this affected my life?
   • 34)Do I ignore signs that something may be seriously wrong with my health or with my children, thinking things will work out somehow? Describe.
   • 35)When in real danger, have I ever been either indifferent to that danger or somehow unable to protect myself as a result of my addiction? Describe.
   • 36)Have I ever harmed someone as a result of my addiction? Describe.
   • 37)Do I have temper tantrums or react to my feelings in other ways that lower my self-respect or sense of dignity? Describe.
   • 38a)Did I take drugs or act out on my addiction to change or suppress my feelings?
   • 38b)What was I trying to change or suppress?
   • ✎Reservations are places in our program that we have reserved for relapse. They may be built around the idea that we can retain a small measure of control, something like, "Okay, I accept that I can't control my using, but I can still sell drugs, can't I?" Or we may think we can remain friends with the people we used with or bought drugs from. We may think that certain parts of the program don't apply to us. We may think there's something we just can't face clean-a serious illness, for instance, or the death of a loved one - and plan to use if it ever happens. We may think that after we've accomplished some goal, made a certain amount of money, or been clean for a certain number of years, then we'll be able to control our using. Reservations are usually tucked away in the back of our minds; we are not fully conscious of them. It is essential that we expose any reservations we may have and cancel them, right here, right now. Have I accepted the full measure of my disease?
   • 39a)Do I think I can still associate with the people connected with my addiction?
   • 39b)Can I still go to the places where I used?
   • 39c)Do I think it's wise to keep drugs or paraphernalia around, just to "remind myself" or test my recovery?
   • 39d)If so, why?
   • 40)Is there something I think I can't get through clean, some event that might happen that will be so painful that I'll have to use to survive the hurt?
   • 41)Do I think that with some amount of clean time, or with different life circumstances, I'd be able to control my using?
   • 42)What reservations am I still holding on to?
   • 43a)What am I afraid of about the concept of surrender, if anything?
   • 43b)What convinces me that I can't use successfully anymore?
   • 44)Do I accept that I'll never regain control, even after a long period of abstinence?
   • 45)Can I begin my recovery without a complete surrender?
   • 46)What would my life be like if I surrendered completely?
   • 47)Can I continue my recovery without complete surrender?
   • ✎If I've been thinking about using or acting out on my addiction in some other way, have I shared it with my sponsor or told anyone else?
   • 49)Have I stayed in touch with the reality of my disease, no matter how long I've had freedom from active addiction?
   • 50a)Have I noticed that, now that I don't have to cover up my addiction, I no longer need to lie like I did?
   • 50b)Do I appreciate the freedom that goes along with that?
   • 50c)In what ways have I begun to be honest in my recovery?
   • 51a)What have I heard in recovery that I have trouble believing?
   • 51b)Have I asked my sponsor or the person I heard say it, to explain it to me?
   • 52)In what ways am I practicing open-mindedness?
   • 53)Am I willing to follow my sponsor's direction?
   • 54)Am I willing to go to meetings regularly?
   • 55a)Am I willing to give recovery my best effort?
   • 55b)In what ways?
   • 56a)Do I believe that I'm a monster who has poisoned the whole world with my addiction?
   • 56b)Do I believe that my addiction is utterly inconsequential to the larger society around me?
   • 56c)Or something in between?
   • 57a)Do I have a sense of my relative importance within my circle of family and friends?
   • 57b)In society as whole?
   • 57c)What is that sense?
   • 58)How am I practicing the principle of humility in connection with this work on the First Step?
   • 59)Have I made peace with the fact that I'm an addict?
   • 60)Have I made peace with the things I'll have to do to stay clean?
   • 61)How is acceptance of my disease necessary for my continued recovery?
   • ✎As we get ready to go on to Step Two, we'll probably find ourselves wondering if we've worked Step One well enough. Are we sure it's time to move on? Have we spent as much time as others may have spent on this step? Have we truly gained an understanding of this step? Many of us have found it helpful to write about our understanding of each step as we prepare to move on.
   • 62)How do I know it's time to move on?
   • 63)What is my understanding of Step One?
   • 64)How has my prior knowledge and experience affected my work on this step?
2. Step Two0/74 · 0%
   74 unanswered questions

   • 1)What do I have hope about today?
   • 2a)Did I believe I could control my using?
   • 2b)What were some of my experiences with this, and how were my efforts unsuccessful?
   • 3a)What things did I do that I can hardly believe I did when I look back at them?
   • 3b)Did I put myself in dangerous situations to get drugs?
   • 3c)Did I behave in ways of which I'm now ashamed?
   • 3d)What were those situations like?
   • 4a)Did I make insane decisions as a result of my addiction?
   • 4b)Did I quit jobs, leave friendships and other relationships, or give up on achieving other goals for no reason other than that those things interfered with my using?
   • 5)Did I ever physically injure myself or someone else in my addiction?
   • 6a)How have I overreacted or underreacted to things?
   • 6b)How has my life been out of balance?
   • 7a)In what ways does my insanity tell me that things outside myself can make me whole or solve all my problems?
   • 7b)Using drugs?
   • 7c)Compulsive gambling, eating, or sex seeking?
   • 7d)Something else?
   • 8)Is part of my insanity the belief that the symptom of my addiction (using drugs or some other manifestation) is my only problem?
   • 9a)When we've acted on an obsession, even though we knew what the results would be, what were we feeling and thinking beforehand?
   • 9b)What made us go ahead?
   • 10a)Do I have any fears about coming to believe?
   • 10b)What are they?
   • 11a)Do I have any other barriers that make it difficult for me to believe?
   • 11b)What are they?
   • 12)What does the phrase, "We came to believe...," mean to me?
   • 13a)Have I ever believed in anything for which I didn't have tangible evidence?
   • 13b)What was that experience like?
   • 14a)What experiences have I heard other recovering addicts share about the process of coming to believe?
   • 14b)Have I tried any of them in my life?
   • 14c)In what do I believe?
   • 15)How has my belief grown since I've been in recovery?
   • ✎Each one us comes to recovery with a whole history of life experiences. That history will determine to a large degree the kind of understanding we develop of a Power greater than ourselves. In this step, we don't have to have a lot of specific ideas about the nature or identity of that Higher Power. That sort of understanding will come later. The kind of understanding of a Higher Power that's most important to find in the Second Step is an understanding that can help us. We're not concerned here with theological elegance or doctrinal adherence - we just want something that works. How powerful does a Power greater than ourselves have to be? The answer to that question is simple. Our addiction as a negative power was, without a doubt, greater than we were. Our addiction led us down a path of insanity and caused us to act differently than we wanted to behave. We need something to combat that, something at least as powerful as our addiction.
   • 16)Do I have problems accepting that there is a power or powers greater than myself?
   • 17)What are some things that are more powerful than I am?
   • 18a)Can a Power greater than myself help me stay clean?
   • 18b)How?
   • 19a)Can a Power greater than I am help me recover?
   • 19b)How?
   • 20)What evidence do I have that a Higher Power is working in my life?
   • 21)What are the characteristics my Higher Power does not have?
   • 22)What are the characteristics my Higher Power has?
   • 23)What are some things I consider examples of sanity?
   • 24a)What changes in my thinking and behavior are necessary for my restoration to sanity?
   • 24b)In what areas of my life do I need sanity now?
   • 25)How is restoration a process?
   • 26)How will working the rest of the steps help me in my restoration to sanity?
   • 27)How has sanity already been restored to me in my recovery?
   • 28a)What expectations do I have about being restored to sanity?
   • 28b)Are they realistic, or unrealistic?
   • 29a)Are my realistic expectations about how my recovery is progressing being met or not?
   • 29b)Do I understand that recovery happens over time, not overnight?
   • 30)Finding ourselves able to act sanely, even once, in a situation with which we were never able to deal successfully before is evidence of sanity.
   • 31a)Have I had any experiences like that in my recovery?
   • 31b)What were they?
   • 32)Why is having a closed mind harmful to my recovery?
   • 33)How am I demonstrating open-mindedness in my life today?
   • 34a)In what ways has my life changed since I've been in recovery?
   • 34b)Do I believe more change is possible?
   • 35)What am I willing to do to be restored to sanity?
   • 36a)Is there something I am now willing to do that I was previously unwilling to do?
   • 36b)What is it?
   • 37a)What action have I been taking that demonstrates my faith?
   • 37b)How has my faith grown?
   • 38)Have I been able to make plans, having faith that my addiction isn't going to get in the way?
   • 39)What fears do I have that are getting in the way of my trust?
   • 40)What do I need to do to let go of these fears?
   • 41)What action am I taking that demonstrates my trust in the process of recovery and a Power greater than myself?
   • 42a)Have I sought help from a Power greater than myself today?
   • 42b)How?
   • 43a)Have I sought help from my sponsor, gone to meetings, and reached out to other recovering addicts?
   • 43b)What were the results?
   • 44)What action can I take that will help me along in the process of coming to believe?
   • 45)What am I doing to work on overcoming any unrealistic expectations I may have about being restored to sanity?
   • 46)What is my understanding of Step Two?
   • 47)How has my prior knowledge and experience affected my work on this step?
3. Step Three0/65 · 0%
   65 unanswered questions

   • 1)Why is making a decision central to working this step?
   • 2a)Can I make this decision just for today?
   • 2b)Do I have any fears or reservations about it?
   • 2c)What are they?
   • 3)What action have I taken to follow through on my decision?
   • 4a)What areas of my life are difficult for me to turn over?
   • 4b)Why is it important that I turn them over anyway?
   • ✎So what exactly is self-will? Sometimes it's total withdrawal and isolation. We end up living a very lonely and self-absorbed existence. Sometimes self-will causes us to act to the exclusion of any considerations other than what we want. We ignore the needs and feelings of others. We barrel through, stampeding over anyone who questions our right to do whatever we want. We become tornadoes, whipping through the lives of family, friends, and even strangers, totally unconscious of the path of destruction we have left behind. If circumstances
   • 5a)How have I acted on self-will?
   • 5b)What were my motives?
   • 6a)How has acting on self-will affected my life?
   • 6b)How has my self-will affected others?
   • 7a)Will pursuing my goals harm anyone?
   • 7b)How?
   • 8)In the pursuit of what I want, is it likely that I will end up doing something that adversely affects myself or others? Explain.
   • 9a)Will I have to compromise any of my principles to achieve this goal?
   • 9b)(For example: Will I have to be dishonest?
   • 9c)Cruel?
   • 9d)Disloyal?)
   • 10)Describe the times when my will hasn't been enough. (For example, I couldn't stay clean on my own will.)
   • 11)What is the difference between my will and God's will?
   • 12a)Have there been times in my recovery when I've found myself subtly taking back my will and my life?
   • 12b)What alerted me?
   • 12c)What have I done to recommit myself to the Third Step?
   • 13a)Does the word "God," or even the concept itself, make me uncomfortable?
   • 13b)What is the source of my discomfort?
   • 14a)Have I ever believed that God caused horrible things to happen to me or was punishing me?
   • 14b)What were those things?
   • 15a)What is my understanding of a Power greater than myself today?
   • 15b)How is my Higher Power working in my life?
   • ✎How do I communicate with my Higher Power?
   • 16a)How does my Higher Power communicate with me?
   • 16b)What feelings do I have about my Higher Power?
   • 17)Am I struggling with changing beliefs about the nature of my Higher Power? Describe.
   • 18a)Is my current concept of a Higher Power still working?
   • 18b)How might it need to change?
   • 19)What does "to the care of" mean to me?
   • 20)What does it mean for me to turn my will and my life over to the care of the God of my understanding?
   • 21)How might my life be changed if I make the decision to turn it over to my Higher Power's care?
   • 22)How do I allow my Higher Power to work in my life?
   • 23)How does my Higher Power care for my will and my life?
   • 24)Have there been times when I have been unable to let go and trust God to care for the outcome of a particular situation? Describe.
   • 25)Have there been times when I have been able to let go and trust God for the outcome? Describe.
   • 26a)How do I take action to turn it over?
   • 26b)Are there any words I say regularly?
   • 26c)What are they?
   • 27)What am I doing to reinforce my decision to allow my Higher Power to care for my will and my life?
   • 28)How does the Third Step allow me to build on the surrender I've developed in Steps One and Two?
   • 29)In what ways have I demonstrated willingness in my recovery so far?
   • 30a)Am I fighting anything in my recovery?
   • 30b)What do I think would happen if I became willing to let recovery prevail in that area of my life?
   • 31)How have hope, faith, and trust become positive forces in my life?
   • 32)What further action can I take to apply the principles of hope, faith, and trust in my recovery?
   • 33)What evidence do I have that I can trust confidently in my recovery?
   • 34a)What have I done recently that demonstrates my commitment to recovery and to working a program?
   • 34b)(For example: Have I taken a service position in NA?
   • 34c)Have I agreed to sponsor another recovering addict?
   • 34d)Have I continued to go to meetings no matter what I was feeling about them?
   • 34e)Have I continued to work with my sponsor even after he or she told me an unpleasant truth or gave me some direction I didn't want to follow?
   • 34f)Did I follow that direction?)
   • 35)Do I have any reservations about my decision to turn my will and my life over to God's care?
   • 36)Do I feel that I am now ready to turn it over?
   • 37)How does my surrender in the First Step help me in the Third Step?
   • 38a)What action do I plan to take to follow through on my decision?
   • 38b)How does working the remainder of the steps fit into this?
4. Step Four0/145 · 0%
   145 unanswered questions

   • ✎First, we should ask ourselves what we want out of recovery. Most of us answer this question by saying that we just want to be comfortable, or happy, or serene. We just want to like ourselves. But how can we like ourselves when we didn't even know who we are?
   • 1a)Do I have any reservations about working this step?
   • 1b)What are they?
   • 2)What are some of the benefits that could come from making a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself?
   • 3a)Why shouldn't I procrastinate about working this step?
   • 3b)What are the benefits of not procrastinating?
   • ✎This is the phrase that has most puzzled many of us. We probably understand what "searching" means, but what about "fearless"? How can we get over all our fear? That might take years, we think; but we need to work on this inventory right away.
   • ✎Hasn't all this effort in recovery resulted in more than surface healing? Of course it has. We just need some time to remember that. Our sponsor will be happy to remind us. After we've had time to accept what our inventories are revealing, we feel a sense of hope rising to replace the feelings of dismay. After all, an inventory always initiates a process of change and freedom. Why shouldn't it this time, too?
   • 4a)Am I afraid of working this step?
   • 4b)What is my fear?
   • 5a)What does it mean to me to be searching and fearless?
   • 5b)(Am I working with my sponsor and talking to other addicts?
   • 5c)What other action am I taking to reassure myself that I can handle whatever is revealed in this inventory?
   • 6a)Am I disturbed by the word "moral"?
   • 6b)Why?
   • 7)Am I disturbed by thinking about society's expectations and afraid that I can't, won't, and will never be able to conform to them?
   • 8)What values and principles are important to me?
   • 10a)How is my decision to work Step Four a demonstration of courage?
   • 10b)Trust?
   • 10c)Faith?
   • 10d)Honesty?
   • 10e)Willingness?
   • 11)What people do I resent? Explain the situations that led to the resentment.
   • 12)What institutions (school, government, religious, correctional, civic) do I resent? Explain the situations that led to the resentment.
   • 13)What was my motivation, or what did I believe, that led me to act as I did in these situations?
   • 14)How has my dishonesty contributed to my resentments?
   • 15)How has my inability or unwillingness to experience certain feelings led me to develop resentments?
   • 16)How has my behavior contributed to my resentments?
   • 17a)Am I afraid of looking at my part in the situations that caused my resentments?
   • 17b)Why?
   • 18)How have my resentments affected my relationships with myself, with others, and with a Higher Power?
   • 19)What recurring themes do I notice in my resentments?
   • 20)How do I identify my individual feelings?
   • 21)What feelings do I have the most trouble allowing myself to feel?
   • 22)Why have I tried to shut off my feelings?
   • 23)What means have I used to deny how I really felt?
   • 24a)Who or what triggered a feeling?
   • 24b)What was the feeling?
   • 24c)What were the situations?
   • 24d)What was my part in each situation?
   • 25)What was my motivation, or what did I believe, that led me to act as I did in these situations?
   • 26)What do I do with my feelings once I've identified them?
   • 27)Who or what do I feel guilty or ashamed about? Explain the situations that led to these feelings.
   • 28)Which of these situations have caused me to feel shame, though I had no part in creating them?
   • 29)In the situations I did have a part in, what was my motivation, or what did I believe, that led me to act as I did?
   • 30)How has my behavior contributed to my guilt and shame?
   • 31a)Who or what do I fear?
   • 31b)Why?
   • 32)What have I done to cover my fear?
   • 33)How have I responded negatively or destructively to my fear?
   • 34a)What do I most fear looking at and exposing about myself?
   • 34b)What do I think will happen if I do?
   • 35)How have I cheated myself because of my fear?
   • 36)What conflicts in my personality make it difficult for me to maintain friendships and/or romantic relationships?
   • 37)How has my fear of being hurt affected my friendships and romantic relationships?
   • 38)How have I sacrificed platonic friendships in favor of romantic relationships?
   • 39)In what ways did I compulsively seek relationships?
   • 40a)In my relationships with family, do I sometimes feel as though we're locked into repeating the same patterns over and over without any hope of change?
   • 40b)What are those patterns?
   • 40c)What is my part in perpetuating them?
   • 41)How have I avoided intimacy with my friends, partners or spouses, and family?
   • 42)Have I had problems making commitments? Describe.
   • 43)Have I ever destroyed a relationship because I believed I was going to get hurt anyway so I should get out before that could happen? Describe.
   • 44a)To what degree do I consider the feelings of others in my relationships?
   • 44b)Equal to my own?
   • 44c)More important than my own?
   • 44d)Of minor importance?
   • 44e)Not at all?
   • 45)Have I felt like a victim in any of my relationships? (Note: This question is focused on uncovering how we set ourselves up to be victims or how too-high expectations contributed to our being disappointed in people, not on listing instances where we were actually abused.) Describe.
   • 46a)What have my relationships with my neighbors been like?
   • 46b)Do I notice any patterns appearing that carried through no matter where I lived?
   • 47a)How do I feel about the people with and for whom I've worked?
   • 47b)How have my thinking, beliefs, and behavior caused problems for me at work?
   • 48a)How do I feel about the people I went to school with (both in childhood and currently)?
   • 48b)Did I feel less than or better than the other students?
   • 48c)Did I believe I had to compete for attention from the instructor?
   • 48d)Did I respect authority figures or rebel against them?
   • 49a)Have I ever joined any clubs or membership organizations?
   • 49b)(Hint: NA is a membership organization.) How did I feel about the other people in the club or organization?
   • 49c)Have I made friends in these organizations? Have
   • ✎I joined clubs with high expectations, only to quit in a short time? What were my expectations, and why weren't they fulfilled? What was my part in these situations?
   • 50a)Have I ever been in a mental hospital or prison or otherwise been held against my will?
   • 50b)What effect has that had on my personality?
   • 50c)What were my interactions with the authorities like?
   • 50d)Did I follow the rules?
   • 50e)Did I ever break the rules and then resent the authorities when I got caught?
   • 51)Did early experiences with trust and intimacy hurt me and cause me to withdraw? Describe.
   • 52a)Have I ever let a relationship go even when the potential existed to resolve conflicts and work through problems?
   • 52b)Why?
   • 53)Did I become a different person depending on who I was around? Describe.
   • 54)Have I discovered things about my personality (perhaps in previous inventories) that I didn't like, and then found myself overcompensating for that behavior? (For instance, we may have uncovered a pattern of immature dependence on others and then overcompensated for this by becoming overly self- sufficient.) Describe.
   • 55)What defects are most often at play in my relationships (dishonesty, selfishness, control, manipulation, etc.)?
   • 56)How can I change my behavior so that I can begin having healthy relationships?
   • 57a)Have I had any kind of a relationship with a Higher Power?
   • 57b)How has this changed in my lifetime?
   • 57c)What kind of a relationship do I have with my Higher Power now?
   • 58)How was my sexual behavior based in selfishness?
   • 59a)Have I confused sex with love?
   • 59b)What were the results of acting on that confusion?
   • 60)How have I used sex to try to avoid loneliness or fill a spiritual void?
   • 61)In what ways did I compulsively seek or avoid sex?
   • 62a)Have any of my sexual practices left me feeling ashamed and guilty?
   • 62b)What were they?
   • 62c)Why did I feel that way?
   • 63)Have any of my sexual practices hurt myself or others?
   • 64a)Am I comfortable with my sexuality?
   • 64b)If not, why not?
   • 65a)Am I comfortable with others' sexuality?
   • 65b)If not, why not?
   • 66)Is sex a prerequisite in all or most of my relationships?
   • 67)What does a healthy relationship mean to me?
   • 68a)Have I ever been abused?
   • 68b)By whom?
   • 68c)What feelings did I or do I now have about it?
   • 69a)Has being abused affected my relationships with others?
   • 69b)How?
   • 70a)If I have felt victimized for much of life because of being abused in childhood, what steps can I take to be restored to spiritual wholeness?
   • 70b)Can my Higher Power help?
   • 70c)How?
   • 71a)Have I ever abused anyone?
   • 71b)Who and how?
   • 72)What was I feeling and thinking right before I caused the harm?
   • 73)Did I blame my victim or make excuses for my behavior? Describe.
   • 74a)Do I trust my Higher Power to work in my life and provide me with what I need so I don't have to harm anyone again?
   • 74b)Am I willing to live with the painful feelings until they are changed through working the steps?
   • 75a)What qualities do I have that I like?
   • 75b)That others like?
   • 75c)That work well for me?
   • 75d)How have I shown concern for myself and others?
   • 76a)Which spiritual principles am I practicing in my life?
   • 76b)How has doing so changed my life?
   • 77)How has my faith and trust in a Higher Power grown?
   • 78a)What is my relationship with my sponsor based on?
   • 78b)How do I see that positive experience translating into other relationships?
   • 79a)What goals have I accomplished?
   • 79b)Do I have other goals I am taking action to reach?
   • 79c)What are they, and what action am I taking?
   • 80a)What are my values?
   • 80b)Which ones am I committed to living by, and how?
   • 81)How am I showing my gratitude for my recovery?
   • ✎Before we finish this Fourth Step, we should stop and reflect: Is there anything we've missed, either intentionally or not? Is there something we think is so bad that we just can't possibly include it in our inventory? If so, we should be reassured by the fact that a multitude of NA members have worked this step, and there has never yet been a situation in anyone's Fourth Step that was so unique that we had to create a new term to describe it.
   • 82a)Are there any secrets that I haven't written about yet?
   • 82b)What are they?
   • ✎Another question we should ask ourselves now is, is there anything in this inventory that is either an exaggeration of what actually happened or something that's not true at all? Almost all of us came to NA and had trouble separating fact from fiction in our own lives. Most of us had accumulated "war stories" that were so embroidered, they may have contained only a fraction of truth. We made them up because we wanted to impress people. We didn't think we had anything to feel good about that was true, so we made up lies in an attempt to build ourselves up. But we don't have to do that anymore. We're building true self-worth in the process of working Step Four, not false self-worth based on some phony image. Now is the time to tell the truth about ourselves.
   • 83)Is there anything in this inventory that isn't true, or are there any stories I've told over and over again that aren't true?
5. Step Five0/35 · 0%
   35 unanswered questions

   • ✎Our Basic Text tells us that "Step Five is not simply a reading of Step Four." Yet we know that reading our Fourth Step to another human being is certainly part of Step Five. So what's the rest, the part that's more than simply a reading? It's the admission we make-to God, to ourselves, and to another human being-that brings about the spiritual growth connected with this step. We've had some experience with making admissions already. We've admitted we have a disease; we've admitted we need help; we've admitted there's a Power that could help us. Drawing on our experience with these admissions will help us in Step Five. Many of us finished our Fourth Step with a sense of relief, thinking that the really hard part was over, only to realize that we still had the Fifth Step to do. That's when the fear set in. Some of us were afraid that our sponsor would reject or judge us. Others hesitated because we didn't want to bother our sponsor with so much. We weren't sure we trusted our sponsor to keep our secrets. We may have been concerned about what the inventory might reveal. There might be something hidden from us that our sponsor would spot immediately - and it probably wouldn't be anything good. Some of us were afraid of having to re-feel old feelings, and wondered if there was really any benefit to stirring up the past. Some of us felt that as long as we hadn't actually spoken our inventories out loud, the contents wouldn't be quite real. If we consider all our feelings about the Fifth Step, we may find that we are also motivated to continue this process by a desire for more recovery. We think about the people we know who have worked this step. We're struck by their genuineness and by their ability to connect with others. They aren't always talking about themselves. They're asking about others, and they're truly interested in knowing the answer. And if we ask them how they learned so much about relationships with others, they'll probably tell us that they began learning when they worked Step Five. Many of us, having worked the Fourth and Fifth Steps before, knew that this process always resulted in change-in other words, we'd have to stop behaving the same old way! We may not have been entirely sure we wanted that. On the other hand, many of us knew we had to change, but were afraid we couldn't. Two things we need to begin working Step Five are courage and a sense of trust in the process of recovery. If we have both these things, we'll be able to work through more specific fears and go through with the admissions we need to make in this step.
   • 1)What reservations do I have about working the Fifth Step?
   • 2a)Do I have any fears at this point?
   • 2b)What are they?
   • 3)What am I doing to work through my fears about doing a Fifth Step?
   • 4)How has working the first four steps prepared me to work the Fifth Step?
   • 5)How will I include the God of my understanding in my Fifth Step?
   • 6)How is my Third Step decision reaffirmed by working the Fifth Step?
   • 7)Can I acknowledge and accept the exact nature of my wrongs?
   • 8)How will making this admission change the direction of my life?
   • 9)What qualities does my listener have that are attractive to me?
   • 10)How will his or her possession of these qualities help me make my admissions more effectively?
   • 11)Am I willing to trust the person who is to hear my Fifth Step?
   • 12)What do I expect from that person?
   • 13)How will working the Fifth Step help me begin to develop new ways of having relationships?
   • ✎Another way to ensure that our Fifth Step is "not simply a reading of Step Four" is to focus on what we are supposed to be admitting: the exact nature of our wrongs. There is a diversity of experience in our fellowship about what, precisely, is "the exact nature of our wrongs. Most of us agree that, in working Step Five, we should be focusing our attention on what's behind the patterns of our addiction and the reasons we acted out in the ways we did. Identifying the exact nature of our wrongs is often something that happens while we're sharing our inventory. Sometimes the repetition of the same type of situation will reveal the exact nature of that situation. Why do we, for example, keep choosing to involve ourselves with people who don't have our best interests at heart? Why do we keep approaching every relationship we have as though our very lives depended on having the upper hand? Why do we feel threatened by new experiences, and so keep avoiding them? Finding the common thread in our own patterns will lead us right to the exact nature of our wrongs.
   • 14)How does the exact nature of my wrongs differ from my actions?
   • 15)Why do I need to admit the exact nature of my wrongs, and not just the wrongs themselves?
   • ✎Practicing the spiritual principle of trust is essential if we are to get through the Fifth Step. As mentioned above, we will probably have some experience with our sponsor that allows us to trust him or her enough to go ahead with this step; but what about the more profound issues that arise when we wonder if working this step will really do any good? We have to trust a process as well as another person. The connection between the Fifth Step and our spiritual development isn't always clear to us. This doesn't mean that the connection is any less real, but it may make it harder for us to trust the process.
   • 16a)Do I believe that working the Fifth Step will somehow make my life better?
   • 16b)How?
   • 17)What are some of the ways in which I can find the courage I need to work this step?
   • 18)How does practicing the principle of courage in working this step affect my whole recovery?
   • 19a)Have I set a time and place for my Fifth Step?
   • 19b)When and where?
   • 20a)How have I avoided self-honesty in the past?
   • 20b)What am I doing to practice it now?
   • 21)How is a more realistic view of myself connected to humility?
   • 22)How does practicing the principle of self-honesty help me accept myself?
   • 23)How does sharing my inventory with my sponsor further my commitment to the NA program?
   • 1)How has working Step Five increased my humility and self-acceptance?
   • 2)How has my relationship with a Higher Power changed as a result of working the Fifth Step?
   • 3)How has my relationship with my sponsor changed as a result of working the Fifth Step?
   • 4)How has my view of myself changed as a result of working this step?
   • 5)To what extent have I developed love and compassion for myself and others?
6. Step Six0/42 · 0%
   42 unanswered questions

   • ✎We begin working Step Six full of the hope we have developed in the first five steps. If we have been thorough, we have also developed some humility. In Step Six, "humility" means that we're able to see ourselves more clearly. We've seen the exact nature of our wrongs. We've seen how we've harmed ourselves and others by acting on our defects of character. We've seen the patterns of our behavior, and we've come to understand how we are likely to act on the same defects over and over. Now we have to become entirely ready to have our defects of character removed. Becoming entirely ready won't happen in an instant. It's a long process, often taking place over the course of a whole lifetime. Immediately following an inventory, we may feel very ready indeed to have our defects removed. If we've been around awhile and are generally pretty well aware of what our defects are, and we still act on one of them, we'll naturally find that our willingness level rises. Awareness alone will never be enough to ensure our readiness, but it's the necessary first step on the path to readiness. The inventory process itself has raised our awareness about our character defects; working the Sixth Step will do so even more. To be entirely ready is to reach a spiritual state where we are not just aware of our defects; not just tired of them; not just confident that the God of our understanding will remove what should go-but all these things. In order to become entirely ready we'll need to address our fears about the Sixth Step. We'll also need to take a look at how our defects will be removed. The Sixth Step says that only a Higher Power can remove them, but what does that mean in practical terms? What is our responsibility in the Sixth Step? These questions, when reviewed with a sponsor, will help give us direction in working this step.
   • ✎Entirely ready for what?
   • 1a)Are there parts of me I like, but which might be "defects"?
   • 1b)Am I afraid I'll turn into someone I don't like if those parts of my character are removed?
   • 2)What do I think will be removed?
   • 3a)Do I still believe in the process of recovery?
   • 3b)Do I believe I can change?
   • 3c)How have I changed so far?
   • 3d)What defects do I no longer have to act on?
   • 4a)Do I have any defects that I think cannot be removed?
   • 4b)What are they?
   • 4c)Why do I think they cannot be removed?
   • 5a)How am I trying to remove or control my own character defects?
   • 5b)What have my attempts resulted in?
   • 6)What is the difference between being entirely ready to have God remove my defects of character and suppressing them myself?
   • 7)How am I increasing my trust in the God of my understanding by working this step?
   • 8)How does my surrender deepen in this step?
   • 9)What action can I take that shows that I am entirely ready?
   • ✎Even after all the work we've done in the Fourth and Fifth Steps, we're still not entirely clear at this point about the nature of our defects of character. We're probably wondering where, precisely, our character defects end and our character begins within the complex structure of our personality. Why do we do the things we do? Is it someone's fault? When did we first feel this way? Why? How? Where? If we're not careful, we can become so self-obsessed that we lose sight of why we're working a Sixth Step. We need to focus our efforts. Our goal is to raise our awareness of our character defects so that we can become entirely ready to have them removed, not to analyze their origin or indulge in a bout of self-absorption. Our character defects are indicators of our basic nature. We are likely to find that we have the same basic nature as anyone else. We have needs, and we try to get them met. For instance, we need love. How we go about getting love is where our defects come into play If we lie, cheat, or harm others and degrade ourselves to get love, we are acting on defects. As defined in It Works: How and Why, our defects are basic human traits that have been distorted by our self-centeredness. With our sponsor's help, we need to list each defect we have, describe the ways in which we act on it, look at how it affects our lives, and, very importantly, find out what we're feeling when we practice it. Imagining what our life
   • 10)List each defect, and give a brief definition of it.
   • 11)In what ways do I act on this defect?
   • 12)When I act on this defect, what effect does it have on myself and others?
   • 13a)What feelings do I associate with this defect?
   • 13b)Am I trying to suppress certain feelings by acting on certain defects?
   • 14a)What would my life be like without this behavior?
   • 14b)Which spiritual principle can I apply instead?
   • 15)How am I demonstrating my commitment to recovery today?
   • 16)By working the first five steps, I have persevered in my recovery. Why is this quality so vital to the Sixth Step?
   • ✎Applying the spiritual principle of willingness means, very simply, that we are willing to act differently. It does not necessarily mean that we will act differently or even that we're capable of doing so. We can perhaps best illustrate this attitude by an example. Suppose we've been dishonest- with our families, with our employers, with our friends - in many ways, ranging from the minor to the severe. While it may seem better to become willing in "layers," focusing our willingness on the worst or most destructive forms of dishonesty first, this step says that we were entirely ready to have all our defects removed. That means being willing never to be dishonest again, even in a minor way. This may seem like more than we can expect of ourselves, but we only have to do it for today. It's hard to have this kind of willingness, especially when the apparent consequences for mild dishonesty aren't so severe. We may be aware that we're not being entirely honest, but we think we're not hurting anyone and we're getting away with it, so why be concerned about it? But it's this kind of thinking that has perhaps the most severe spiritual consequences. It may turn out that no one is obviously harmed by our dishonesty, and that no one ever finds out, but the dishonesty reverberates in our spirits from then on. Even if we're not consciously aware of it, even if we sleep just fine at night, the result of acting on a defect when we have the ability not to is an impairment of our spiritual growth. If we continue being unwilling, we'll eventually paralyze our spiritual growth.
   • 17a)Am I willing to have all my defects of character removed at this time?
   • 17b)If not, why not?
   • 18)What have I done to show my willingness today?
   • 19a)To what degree is my fear of what I will become still present?
   • 19b)Has it diminished since I began working this step?
   • 20)How am I increasing my trust in the God of my understanding by working this step?
   • 21a)Do I accept myself today?
   • 21b)What do I like about myself?
   • 21c)What has changed since I've been working the steps?
   • 22a)What do I see myself doing with the qualities I wish to attain?
   • 22b)What will I do with my career?
   • 22c)What will I do in my spare time?
   • 22d)What kind of parent, child, partner, or friend will I be? Be specific.
7. Step Seven0/35 · 0%
   35 unanswered questions

   • ✎Though each of the Twelve Steps is a separate process unto itself, they all blend together to some degree as their parts interact with one another - aspects of Step One fusing into Step Two, components of Step Four meshing into the following steps. Perhaps the finest line between two steps is the one between Steps Six and Seven. At first glance, Step Seven may seem almost an afterthought to Step Six. We spent a great deal of time and effort raising our awareness of our character defects in Step Six and getting to the point where we were entirely ready to have them removed; now all we need to do is ask, right? Not exactly. There's much more to this step than just filing a request with our Higher Power and waiting for a response. There's spiritual preparation. There's the need to develop an understanding about what "humbly" means in this context. There's the need to find a way of asking that fits into our individual spiritual paths. And there's the need to practice spiritual principles in the place of character defects.
   • 1a)Which of my attitudes have changed since I've been in recovery?
   • 1b)Where has the overblown been deflated, and where has the healthy part of me been uncovered?
   • 2)How does humility affect my recovery?
   • 3)How does being aware of my own humility help when working this step?
   • 4a)How has my understanding of a Higher Power grown in the previous steps?
   • 4b)How has my relationship with that Power developed?
   • 5)How has my work on the previous steps made me ready to work the Seventh Step?
   • ✎So how do we ask the God of our understanding to remove our shortcomings? The answer is likely to depend a great deal on what kind of understanding we have of God. There are many, many different ways to understand God, so many that we couldn't possibly provide examples in this guide of how each person's individual spiritual path would influence his or her Seventh Step work. Suffice it to say that our step work should reflect our own spiritual paths. As individuals, we might pick a particular personal routine or ritual as our way of asking our Higher Power to remove our shortcomings. For the purposes of this guide, we will call that prayer." The word "prayer is widely accepted in our fellowship as a description of the way we communicate with our Higher Power. The tone of asking is captured in the word "humbly." Coming from the place in ourselves that is most honest, the place that's closest to our spiritual center, we ask to have our shortcomings removed.
   • 6)How will I ask the God of my understanding to remove my shortcomings?
   • 7a)Can other recovering addicts help me figure out how I'm going to ask?
   • 7b)Have I asked them to share their experience, strength, and hope with me?
   • 7c)Have I asked my sponsor for guidance?
   • 8)How does the spiritual principle of surrender apply to getting out of the way so a Higher Power can work in our lives?
   • 9)What might be the benefits of allowing a Higher Power to work in my life?
   • 10)How do I feel, knowing that a Higher Power is caring for me and working in my life?
   • 11)Have I accepted my powerlessness over my shortcomings as well as my addiction? Expand on this.
   • 12)How has my surrender deepened?
   • ✎The spiritual principles of trust and faith are central to the Seventh Step. We must be sure enough of our Higher Power to trust that Power with our shortcomings. We have to believe our Higher Power is going to do something with them, or how can we ask with any faith that they be removed? We must avoid any tendency to keep score of how we think God's doing in removing our defects. It's not too hard to see where this kind of thinking can lead if we find we still have certain character defects after some arbitrary amount of time has passed. Instead, we focus on the action we must take in this step: humbly asking, practicing spiritual principles, and getting out of God's way. The results of the Seventh Step may not materialize immediately, but they will in time.
   • 13a)Do I believe that my Higher Power will remove my shortcomings or grant me freedom from the compulsion to act on them?
   • 13b)Do I believe that I'll be a better person as a result of working this step?
   • 14)How does my faith in the God of my understanding become stronger as a result of working this step?
   • 15a)Where have I had opportunities for growth lately?
   • 15b)What did I make of them?
   • 16a)Do I believe that only my Higher Power can remove my shortcomings?
   • 16b)Or have I been trying to do it myself?
   • 17a)Have I become impatient that my shortcomings haven't been removed right away, as soon as I asked?
   • 17b)Or am I confident that they will be removed in God's time?
   • 18a)Has my sense of perspective been out of proportion lately?
   • 18b)Have I begun thinking of myself as more significant or more powerful than I really am?
   • ✎At this point, we may wonder how we're supposed to be feeling. We've asked the God of our understanding to remove our shortcomings; we've faithfully practiced the principles of our program to the best of our ability; but we may still find ourselves acting out before we've had a chance to think, and always struggling with our defects. Sure, we're no longer using, and many of the outside circumstances of our lives have probably gotten better - our relationships are more stable, perhaps - but have we changed? Have we become better people? In time, we'll find that God has worked in our lives. We may even be startled by the level of maturity or spirituality we've demonstrated in handling a situation that in years past would have had us acting very unspiritually. One day, we'll realize that some of the ways we used to act have become as alien as spiritual principles were when we first started practicing them. After such a revelation, we may begin thinking about the person we were when we first came to NA and how little we resemble that person now.
   • 19a)Have there been times when I've been able to refrain from acting on a character defect and practice a spiritual principle instead?
   • 19b)Do I recognize this as God working in my life?
   • 20)Which shortcomings have been removed from my life or diminished in their power over me?
   • 21)Why does the Seventh Step foster a sense of serenity?
8. Step Eight0/35 · 0%
   35 unanswered questions

   • ✎To this point, the steps have focused mostly on repairing ourselves and our relationship with a God of our understanding. Beginning with the Eighth Step, we bring other people into the healing process - people we harmed in our addiction, people we harmed in our recovery, people we meant to harm, people we hurt by accident, people who are no longer in our lives, and people we expect to be close to for the rest of our lives. The Eighth Step is about identifying the damage we caused. It doesn't matter whether we caused it because we were overtaken by rage, carelessness, or because we were afraid. It doesn't matter whether our actions were based in selfishness, arrogance, dishonesty, or any other defect. It doesn't even matter that we didn't intend to cause someone harm. All the damage we caused is material for the Eighth Step. It may turn out that some of the harm we did can't be repaired. It may turn out that we, ourselves, can't directly make the repair. It may even turn out that we're not responsible for something we've placed on our Eighth Step list. Our sponsor will help us sort that out before we go on to the Ninth Step. For now, our task is only to identify who we harmed, what the harm was, and become willing to make amends. It's natural to wonder about the Ninth Step and how we will make our amends while we're working the Eighth Step. What we think about our amends is bound to influence our work in this step. We may need to get some common misconceptions out of our way before we can make our list. It's wonderful that we've already begun repairing our relationships with some of the people m our lives. Our families are probably delighted that we're no longer using drugs. Some of the more overt damage we inflicted on others ceased as soon as we stopped using drugs. If we managed to keep our jobs or stay in school, we're probably already performing better in those places. We're no longer harming our co- workers or employers, teachers or fellow students in certain ways. But is that enough? We have probably heard people in meetings emphasizing that "amends" means to change, not just to say "I'm sorry" -that what really counts is the way we're treating people now. But this doesn't mean that formal apologies have gone out of fashion in NA. Direct, face-to-face verbal amends are extremely powerful, both as a means of spiritual growth for us and as a long-awaited comfort for the people to whom we make them. What our members are emphasizing is that we can't just offer people lame apologies and then go right back to doing what caused them harm in the first place. Some of us may be feeling a bit weary at this point, especially if our sponsor had us do extensive writing on the first seven steps. We inventoried our behavior in Step Four, and we catalogued our character defects in Step Six; now we have to examine the same situations from yet another angle! It may seem as if we've examined our lives and our addiction in every possible way by the time we're done with these steps. Is all this really necessary? Aren't we just punishing ourselves by going over and over the same thing? No, we're not. The Eighth Step is the beginning of a process that lets us feel equal to others. Instead of feeling shame and guilt, instead of feeling forever "less than," we become able to look people in the eye. We won't have to avoid anyone. We won't have to be afraid we'll be caught and punished for some neglected responsibility. We'll be free.
   • 1a)Am I hesitating in any way about working the Eighth Step?
   • 1b)Why?
   • 2a)Do I realize the need to slow down and consult my sponsor before making amends?
   • 2b)Have I created more harm in any situation by rushing out to make amends before I was ready?
   • 2c)What was the situation?
   • 3)List the resentments that are in the way of my willingness to make amends.
   • 4a)Can I let these resentments go now?
   • 4b)If not, can I muster the willingness to add these names to my list anyway, and worry about becoming willing later?
   • 5a)Are there any people to whom I owe amends that may be a threat to my safety or about whom I'm truly concerned in some other way?
   • 5b)What are my fears?
   • ✎Before we actually begin making our list, there's one final concept with which we must familiarize ourselves: the meaning of "harm" in this step. We need to strive to understand all the ways in which it is possible to cause harm so that our list can be thorough. Certain types of harm are obvious. For instance, if we stole money or property from a person or a business, that's quite obviously a form of harm. In addition, most of us have no trouble recognizing physical or emotional abuse as a type of harm. Then there are situations where we have no problem recognizing what we did as harmful, but may have difficulty identifying who, in particular, we harmed. For instance, we cheated on a test at school. Did this harm the instructor, we ask ourselves? Our fellow students?
   • ✎Ourselves? The students who came after us and had to pay the price of our instructor's mistrust because of our dishonesty? The answer to this example is that all of these people were harmed, even if only indirectly. They belong on our Eighth Step list. Finally, we get to the deeper types of harm. These types of harm may be the most damaging, for they strike at the most vulnerable places in the human heart. For instance, we had a friend. The friendship was perhaps an old one, spanning many years. Emotions, trust, even personal identity - all these were engaged in the friendship we shared. This relationship really mattered to our friend, and to us as well. Then, without explanation, because of some real or imagined slight, we withdrew from the friendship and never tried to renew it. Losing a friend is painful enough without the added burden of not knowing why, but many of us inflicted just this type of harm on someone. We damaged that person's sense of trust, and it may have taken many years to heal. A variation on this is that we may have allowed someone to take the blame for a relationship ending, making the person feel unlovable, when in reality we had just grown tired of the relationship and were too lazy to maintain it. There are many different ways we can inflict deep emotional harm: neglect, withdrawal, exploitation, manipulation, and humiliation, to name but a few. The "victims" and "nice people" among us may find that we made others feel inferior when we passed ourselves off as better than everyone else, projecting an
   • ✎The first thing to know is that this is not a list that we can keep in our heads. We need to put each name and what we did to harm the person down on paper. Once it's on paper, it's hard to forget anyone or go back into denial about an amends we'd rather avoid. If for some reason we can't use paper, we can use a tape recorder or any other method our sponsor has agreed will help us get the most out of this step. When we're ready to begin our list, we sit down, recall all we've learned about harm, and start writing. Some names are going to spring to mind immediately. Others may come to mind as we think about the types of harm we have caused. We absolutely need to go back through our Fourth Step and search out any information we can extract from that. We should include every name and situation we think of even if we're relatively, but not entirely, sure that our sponsor is going to tell us we don't owe any amends in that particular situation. It's almost always better to delete names than to try to recall names we should have added, but didn't, when we're going over the list with our sponsor. In addition, there may be times when we remember an incident in which we caused harm, but not the names of the people involved. We can at least list the incident. Putting ourselves on the list may seem awkward to some of us. We may have been informed in our early recovery that making amends to ourselves was a self-centered idea, that we needed to stop thinking about ourselves all the time and start thinking about the people we had harmed. Then, the whole notion of making amends to ourselves may have been confusing. Some of us probably thought that making amends should involve "rewarding" ourselves for staying clean or some other accomplishment. We may have tried to do this by buying ourselves things we couldn't afford, or by indulging other compulsions. In reality, the way we make amends to ourselves is by stopping irresponsible or destructive behavior. We need to identify the ways we’ve created our own problems - that is, harmed ourselves - through our inability to accept personal responsibility. Then, when we add ourselves to the list, we can list the harm we caused to our finances, our self-image, our health, etc. There is also a delicate situation that many of us have faced: What if we've harmed our sponsor, he or she doesn't know about the harm, and will likely find out when we go over the list? In this situation, we should consult another member whose recovery we respect, perhaps our sponsor's sponsor.
   • 6)List the people I've harmed and the specific ways I harmed each one.
   • ✎Now that we have our list, or have added new names to the list we've been keeping since our first time through the Eighth Step, it's time to get willing to make amends. In order to become willing, we have to know at least a little about what "making amends" involves. Earlier in this guide, we talked about the need to do more than just change our behavior, but some of us may be afraid that we just aren't capable of changing. We're sincere. We want to refrain from ever repeating the same behavior again, but we think about the times when we've made promises before. Aren't we subject to doing the same thing again? This is when we have to really believe in our recovery. No matter how long we've been clean and the wrongs for which we're making amends, we have to have faith that the God of our understanding will give us the strength and the ability to change.
   • 7)Why is saying "I'm sorry" alone not sufficient to repair the damage I've caused?
   • 8)Why is only changing my behavior not sufficient to repair the damage I've caused?
   • 9a)Do I have financial amends that I don't want to make?
   • 9b)What would my life be like if I had already made these amends?
   • 10a)Do I owe amends to people who have also harmed me?
   • 10b)What have I done to become willing to make these amends?
   • 11a)How is determining the exact nature of my wrongs valuable in the Eighth Step?
   • 11b)Why is it so essential that I'm clear about my responsibility?
   • 12a)What are some examples of my experience with honesty from the previous steps?
   • 12b)How will I translate that experience into this step?
   • 13a)What are some examples of my experience with courage from the previous steps?
   • 13b)How will I translate that experience into this step?
   • 14a)Are there any names I haven't yet added to my list?
   • 14b)Am I willing to add them now?
   • 14c)Have I completed my list?
   • 15a)What are some of the things I've done to increase my willingness?
   • 15b)How do I feel about having to pray for willingness?
   • 16)Am I beginning to feel connected with others? Describe.
   • 17)Am I beginning to feel compassion and empathy for others? Describe.
9. Step Nine0/51 · 0%
   51 unanswered questions

   • 1a)How has my work on the previous eight steps prepared me to work the Ninth Step?
   • 1b)How does honesty help in working this step?
   • 2)How does humility help in working this step?
   • 3)What does "making amends" mean?
   • 4)Why does making amends mean that I have to do more than say "I'm sorry"?
   • 5)How is making amends a commitment to a continuous process of change?
   • 6a)What fears do I have about making amends?
   • 6b)Am I worried that someone will take revenge or reject me?
   • 7)How does the Ninth Step require a new level of surrender to the program?
   • 8a)What about financial amends?
   • 8b)Do I have faith that the God of my understanding will ensure I have what I need even though I am sacrificing to make amends?
   • 9)What other fears or expectations do I have about my amends?
   • 10a)Why doesn't it matter how my amends are received?
   • 10b)What does this have to do with the spiritual purpose of the Ninth Step?
   • 11)How can I use other addicts, my sponsor, and my Higher Power as sources of strength in this process?
   • ✎worst way. Before we provide some examples, it is very important to note that these are only examples. This guide is not meant to take the place of a sponsor in going over each amends with a sponsee and working together to decide what's best. Some situations are more complicated than they appear at first glance. We may think the solution is obvious, but we should always take the time for further reflection. For instance, there may be a situation where the person or people we've harmed are not aware of what we did, and learning what we did might possibly harm them more. We may have some friends, relatives, or an employer who were unaware of our addiction. To tell them might harm them. Our sponsor will help us look at our motives for wanting to tell people about our addiction. Do they need to know? What good purpose will be served by sharing such information?
   • ✎What damage could such information do? But what if this same situation was complicated by our theft of some money from our friends? And what if someone else was accused of taking the money? Wouldn't we then need to tell about our addiction, along with admitting the theft and paying the money back? Possibly, but perhaps not.
   • 12)Which names on my Eighth Step list are complicated by circumstances like the ones above?
   • 13)What were the specific circumstances?
   • ✎A problem that presents difficulty for many of us is that we owe amends that will likely result in us losing our jobs, going to jail, or some other serious consequence. For instance, if we turn ourselves in for a crime we committed, we may indeed go to jail. So what effect would that have on our lives? Would we lose our job? Would that compromise anyone security besides our own-say, our family's? On the other hand, if we are a fugitive from justice, what effect might a sudden arrest have on our lives and our families? It is probably best in such a situation to seek legal counsel and explore our options. No matter what, we need to somehow accept the consequences of our behavior, but we should bear in mind that our families might very well be represented in the part of this step that says, "except when to do so would injure them or others." We'll have to evaluate these situations very carefully. With our sponsor 5 guidance, we'll explore how to make amends.
   • 14a)Do I owe any amends that might have serious consequences if I made them?
   • 14b)What are they?
   • 15a)Do I owe amends to anyone who is dead?
   • 15b)What was special about that person that I might be able to use in planning my amends?
   • ✎What about people we can't find? Should we go ahead and make indirect amends to them, too? Perhaps, although many of our members have had the experience of running across someone we thought we'd never be able to find, usually in a location in which we'd never expect to find them. We can certainly draw the conclusion that a Higher Power is at work when such coincidences happen, but even if not, we certainly shouldn't ignore the opportunity to make direct amends.
   • ✎If we can't find someone on our amends list, we may want to wait. We should continue making every effort to find the person, we should make an effort not to cause the same type of harm to someone else, and we should remain willing. A spirit of willingness can often serve the purpose of the amends when we cannot make the actual amends. After considering the complications involved in making indirect amends, it may seem as though making direct amends is easy, or at least more straightforward. We did something that hurt someone. We need to apologize and repair the harm. That's it, right?
   • 16)What behavior do I need to amend?
   • ✎What about those direct amends, the ones we make when we sit someone down, acknowledge and accept responsibility for the harm we caused, and accept whatever response we get? These are the amends that may strike fear into our hearts. We imagine ourselves sitting before one of the people on our amends list, humbly and sincerely admitting our wrong, then just as humbly and sincerely offering to repair the wrong, only to have the person respond, "It can never be repaired. What you did was too awful," or, "Forget it. I'll never forgive you."
   • 17)Am I spiritually prepared for making any difficult amends and dealing with the results?
   • 18)What have I done to prepare myself?
   • 19)Do I owe amends to people who have also harmed me?
   • 20a)Have I forgiven them all?
   • 20b)Which ones have I not forgiven yet?
   • 20c)Have I tried all of the above ways of generating a spirit of forgiveness?
   • 20d)What does my sponsor say about it?
   • ✎We feel a heightened sense of self-respect and the initial euphoria that comes along with the disappearance of a large chunk of remorse. We feel like good people, like we're on equal footing with the rest of humanity. This feeling is extremely powerful, and if it's our first time feeling it, it might seem like more than we can handle. We shouldn't worry. The feelings won't be so intense for long, though there will be some permanent change in our feelings about ourselves. After the first glow of making amends fades, we'll face the truly challenging part of making amends: the follow-through. For instance, a year after we approach a lending institution to which we owe money and promise to pay back a certain amount every month, we may not find it "spiritually inspiring" to hand over a portion of every hard-earned paycheck, especially if we're going to be making the same payment for several more years. Asking ourselves one simple question should help us continue with our amends: How free do we want to be? To continue with all aspects of our recovery, making amends included, makes our freedom grow day by day.
   • 21a)Are there amends with which I'm having trouble following through?
   • 21b)What am I doing to recommit myself to making these amends?
   • 22a)What are my immediate plans for making amends to myself?
   • 22b)Do I have any long-range goals that might also fit as amends to myself?
   • 22c)What are they?
   • 22d)What can I do to follow through?
   • 23)Have I accepted responsibility for the harm I caused and for repairing that harm?
   • 24a)What experiences have I had that led me to see the harm I caused more clearly?
   • 24b)How has that contributed to an increase in my humility?
   • 25)How am I giving of myself or being of service to others?
   • 26a)What are the benefits to me of practicing the principle of forgiveness?
   • 26b)What are some situations in which I've been able to practice this principle?
   • 27)For what have I forgiven myself?
   • 28a)How did it feel to make this amends?
   • 28b)What did I learn from it?
10. Step Ten0/24 · 0%
    24 unanswered questions

    • 1)Why is a Tenth Step necessary?
    • 2)What is the purpose of continuing to take personal inventory?
    • 3)How can my sponsor help me?
    • ✎We use Step Ten to create and maintain a continuous awareness of what we're feeling, thinking, and, even more importantly, what we're doing. Before we begin a regular pattern of personal inventory, it's imperative that we understand what we are assessing. It won't do much good to make a list of our feelings without tying them to the actions that they generate or fail to generate. We may often be feeling very badly though behaving very well, or vice versa. For instance, an NA member walks into her home group. "How are you?" someone asks. "Terrible," she replies. Of course, this member is referring to the way she feels. She can't possibly be referring to what she's doing, because she is behaving very well indeed: She's going to a meeting, honestly expressing how she feels, and reaching out to another member who will be supportive. On the other hand, we may be busy indulging our impulses and acting on character defects. On the surface, we may feel very good. It usually takes a while before we notice the emptiness that goes along with living this way. We're avoiding the work that will help us stay clean. We're indulging our impulses, and taking the easy way out. And we know where this will take us! The Tenth Step will keep us aware of ourselves so we don't end up going to either extreme. We don't have to beat ourselves up because we feel badly. We can instead focus on the positive action we're taking. It may even turn out that by shifting our focus this way, we'll wind up feeling better, too. Staying aware of what we're doing helps us see patterns of destruction long before they become entrenched, so we don't wind up feeling good at the cost of what's good for us. We as addicts also tend to make judgments about what we are feeling. Anything that feels bad we immediately want to stop. We often don't take into account that the way we're feeling makes perfect sense when we consider the circumstances. For instance, many of us have problems being angry. We don't like the way it feels. We judge it, concluding we have no right to feel that way, and then we do our very best to suppress our angry feelings. Yet, we may be experiencing a situation that would make anyone angry. Perhaps we're in a relationship with someone who constantly fails to treat us with respect. Perhaps we've been passed over for several well-deserved promotions at work. Our response to these situations is anger. We've been treated poorly - of course we're angry. Now comes the moment when our recovery can propel us forward into
    • 4)Are there times in my life when I am confused about the difference between my feelings and my actions? Expand on this.
    • ✎Right and wrong The Tenth Step tells us that we have to promptly admit when we're wrong. The step seems to assume that we know when we're wrong, but the fact is that most of us don't-at least not right away. It takes the consistent practice of taking a personal inventory for us to become proficient at figuring out when we're wrong. Let's face it. When we were new in recovery, we had been at odds with the rest of the world for some time. As the Basic Text says, our "living skills were reduced to the animal level." We didn't know how to communicate with others well. We began to learn in recovery, but in the process1 we made a lot of mistakes. Many of us went through a period of time when we became very rigid about the values we had developed in recovery. We applied that rigidity not only to ourselves, but to everyone around us. We thought it was principled and correct to confront those whose behavior was "unacceptable." In truth, it was our behavior that was unacceptable. We were self-righteous and overbearing. We were wrong. Or some of us, after years of serving as a doormat for everyone to walk across, decided our recovery required that we become assertive. But we went too far. We demanded that everyone treat us perfectly all the time. No one could have a bad day and fail to return our phone call. No one was allowed to be emotionally unavailable to us for any length of time. We angrily demanded perfect service at the places we did business. We weren't being assertive. We were being immature and belligerent. We were wrong. We can even end up being wrong if someone hurts us. How? Say our sponsor says something very hurtful to us. Instead of taking it up with our sponsor, we talk to ten or twelve of our closest friends at the next three meetings we go to. Before the week is through, half our local NA community is talking about the rotten thing so-and-so said to one of his sponsees -and that's if the story stayed as it was originally! So the situation started out with us having done no wrong, but ended up with us being responsible for damaging our sponsor's reputation in the program-the place where he needs, as much as we do, to be allowed to make mistakes and recover at his own pace.
    • 5a)Have there been some times in my recovery when I've been wrong and not been aware of it until later?
    • 5b)What were they?
    • 6a)How do my wrongs affect my own life?
    • 6b)Others' lives?
    • ✎Now when we admit we were wrong, if we tell our child that her behavior made us act the way we did, we've just delivered a message that justified our first wrong, thus making ourselves doubly wrong. Unlike the process contained in Steps Four through Nine, when we go through events from the past, Step Ten is designed to keep us current. We don't want to let unresolved wrongs pile up. We need to try our very best to stay abreast of what we're doing. Most of our work will be done by making constant adjustments to our outlook. If we find ourselves becoming negative and complaining all the time, we might want to spend some time thinking about the things for which we are grateful. We need to pay attention to the way we react when we've done something wrong. Is it our first impulse to make an excuse? Are we claiming to be victims of someone's negative influence - or of our disease? All excuses aside, we are responsible for what we do. It may very well be that our character defects got the better of us, but that doesn't excuse our behavior. We need to accept responsibility, and continue to be willing to have our shortcomings removed.
    • 7)"When we were wrong promptly admitted it" -what does this mean to me?
    • 8a)Have there been times in my recovery when I've made situations worse by talking to someone before I should have or blaming my behavior on someone else?
    • 8b)What were they?
    • 9)How does promptly admitting my wrongs help me change my behavior?
    • ✎Step Ten points out the need to continue taking personal inventory and seems to assert that we do this solely to find out when we're wrong. But how can we identify the times we're wrong unless we also have times we're right as a basis for comparison. Identifying the times we do things right and forming personal values are as much a part of personal inventory as identifying our liabilities. Most of us have a very difficult time with the concept of being right. We think of the times we vigorously defended an opinion because we just knew we were right, but in light of our recovery, we've come to understand that trampling over others in a discussion makes us wrong. Or we think of our personal values. We know they're right for us, but if we began insisting that others live them, we would no longer be right, but self- righteous. So how do we get comfortable with being right? First and foremost, by working the Sixth and Seventh Steps so that our character defects don't turn our positive acts into negative acts. Then, we have to realize that it will probably take some time, and some trial and error, before we are completely comfortable in our new lives in recovery.
    • 10)Have there been situations in my recovery in which I felt uncomfortable about acknowledging something I had done well? Describe.
    • ✎How often should we take a personal inventory?
    • 11)Why is it important to continue to take personal inventory until it becomes second nature?
    • 12)Have I reaffirmed my faith in a loving, caring God today?
    • 13a)Have I sought out the guidance of my Higher Power today?
    • 13b)How?
    • 14)What have I done to be of service to God and the people around me?
    • 15)Has God given me anything to be grateful for today?
11. Step Eleven0/43 · 0%
    43 unanswered questions

    • 1a)What experiences have I had with the previous steps or elsewhere in life that gave me some inkling of what my Higher Power is like?
    • 1b)What did I come to understand about my Higher Power from those experiences?
    • 2a)What qualities does my Higher Power have?
    • 2b)Can I use those qualities for myself-can I experience their transformative power in my life?
    • 3)How has my understanding of a Higher Power changed since coming to NA?
    • 4)Do I have a specific spiritual path?
    • 5a)What are the differences between religion and spirituality?
    • 5b)What have I done to explore my own spirituality?
    • 6a)Have I encountered any prejudice in Narcotics Anonymous while exploring my spirituality?
    • 6b)How did that make me feel?
    • 6c)What have I done to adhere to my beliefs?
    • 7)No matter what spiritual path I am following, am I still keeping up my involvement with NA?
    • 8)How does my involvement in NA complement my spiritual journey?
    • 9)How does my spiritual path contribute to my recovery?
    • ✎Members of NA often describe prayer as talking to God, and meditation as listening to God. This description has been part of the collective wisdom of NA for a long time because it captures the distinct meanings of prayer and meditation so well. We are building a relationship with our Higher Power, and we need to have a dialogue with that Power, not merely a monologue aimed in its direction. Prayer is talking to our Higher Power, though not always in the form of actual speech. We worked on developing a form of prayer that felt right to us in the Second Step. We may find by now that we've further refined our approach to prayer to fit with our spiritual path. One of the forms of prayer in which virtually every NA member engages is the closing or opening prayer said at most NA meetings. Ultimately, the manner in which we pray is up to us as individuals. How often should we pray? Many of us set aside a specific time in our day - the beginning is fairly common-to pray. These prayers usually involve asking our Higher Power for another day clean or, as we will explore more fully later in this chapter, knowledge of God's will for us. When we communicate with our Higher Power at the end of our day, it is usually to express gratitude. Many of us try to incorporate prayer throughout our day. It is very good practice to pray regularly. It helps us form a habit of communicating with our Higher Power that may save our recovery some day.
    • 10)How do I pray?
    • 11)How do I feel about praying?
    • 12a)When do I usually pray?
    • 12b)When I am hurting?
    • 12c)When I want something?
    • 12d)Regularly?
    • 13a)How is it helpful to use spontaneous prayer throughout the day?
    • 13b)How does prayer help me put things in perspective?
    • 14)How do I meditate?
    • 15)When do I meditate?
    • 16)How do I feel about meditating?
    • 17)If I have been meditating consistently for some time, in what ways have I seen changes in myself or my life as a result of meditating?
    • 18a)In what circumstances do I notice the presence of my Higher Power?
    • 18b)What do I feel?
    • 19)What am I doing to improve my conscious contact with the God of my understanding?
    • ✎The knowledge that has been building in us as we've prayed and meditated is the essence of God's will for us. The whole purpose of praying and meditating is to seek knowledge of a Higher Power's will for us and, of course, the power to carry it out. But the first thing to do is to identify God's purpose for our lives. It takes a large amount of open-mindedness to begin to understand God's will for us. Many of us find that it is easier to identify what is not God's will for us than what is. This is absolutely fine; in fact, this is a great starting point that can lead us to more specific knowledge of God's will for us. First of all, and obviously, it is not God's will for us to relapse. We can extend this simple fact to conclude that acting in ways that might lead us to relapse are also not God's will for us. We don't need to become overly analytical about this and start questioning whether our daily routines could possibly lead to us relapsing; it's really much easier than that. We use all of the knowledge about ourselves and our patterns that we gained from the work we did in Steps Four through Nine, and we try our very best to avoid destructive patterns. We'll discover that we no longer have the luxury of consciously acting out. We can't deal with a situation by thinking, "Oh, I'll just be manipulative this one time, and then I'll write about it later, work with my sponsor, and make amends." If we do such a thing, we're not only on very dangerous ground, we're making a conscious and deliberate decision to go against God's will. There will be many, many times when we act on defects unconsciously. It is our consciousness and willingness to be deliberately destructive in this situation that is the real cause for concern. In the Third Step, we explored the fine line that divides humble and honest pursuit of our goals from subtle manipulation and forced results. Now, with the experience we have gained in the intervening steps, we are much better equipped to spot that line and stay on the right side of it. As we go after the things we want, we need to continuously gauge our distance from that line. For instance, we may decide we want to be in a romantic relationship. There's nothing wrong with that, provided we are spiritually motivated and keep track of the line between God's will and self-will. If we lie to make ourselves seem more attractive, or become chameleons, we're acting on self-will. If we honestly express who we are, we're more likely to be pursuing God's will. If we're trying to change our potential partner in a relationship into something he or she is not, we're acting on self-will. If, on the other hand, we've already determined what we want in a partner and the person we're seeing seems to be matching that vision without our intervention, we're probably living in God's will. That's how we tell whether a relationship is God's will for us or not. Or say we want a college education. Are we willing to cheat on a test to get it? Doing such a thing would turn an otherwise worthy goal into an act of
    • 20a)What are some situations I can identify from my own life where I acted on self-will?
    • 20b)What were the results?
    • 21a)What are some situations I can identify from my own life where I tried to align my will with God's will?
    • 21b)What were the results?
    • 22a)What are some examples of how I live with purpose and dignity?
    • 22b)What is my vision of God's will for me?
    • ✎The power to carry that out In addition to praying for knowledge of God's will for us, we're also asking for the power to carry out that will. In this context, power doesn't refer only to forceful qualities. There are many different qualities we may need to carry out our Higher Power's will: humility, a sense of compassion, honesty, integrity, or an ability to persevere and the patience to wait for results over a long period. A strong sense of justice and an ability to be assertive might be what's called for in a certain situation. Sometimes eagerness is required, and other times only a sense of caution will do. Courage and fortitude are qualities that we will often be called upon to display. Sometimes, the best quality to promote God's will is a sense of humor. Most likely we will need all of these qualities at various times in our Step Eleven • Have I ever prayed for a specific thing and then wished I didn't have it after all? Expand on this. There's nothing that requires as much courage as trying to live according to our Higher Power's will when there's frequent pressure not to. Not everyone in our lives will be delighted that we've chosen to live our lives in a spiritual way. We may have family members who are used to us living according to their will and want us to continue. Our growth threatens them. Or say we're with some friends who are gossiping. Our efforts to live the program have resulted in us becoming uncomfortable with participating in gossip, yet we don't want to be self-righteous and start moralizing with our friends. Merely refraining from participating in something like this requires courage. We may lose some friends as we grow spiritually. Almost all of us face some situation in life where we are either being asked to participate in something that is morally reprehensible or just keep quiet about it and allow it to happen. It may be that the truly courageous course of action is to protest loudly, and doing so may have severe consequences for us. What we do at such a time is a defining moment, and may very well affect the choices we make for the rest of our lives.
    • 23a)Have I ever been faced with a situation that required me to stand up for my beliefs at some personal cost?
    • 23b)How did I respond?
    • 23c)What were the results?
    • 24a)Have I, so far, been given what I need?
    • 24b)What have I received?
12. Step Twelve0/37 · 0%
    37 unanswered questions

    • 1)What is my overall experience as a result of working the steps?
    • 2)What has my spiritual awakening been like?
    • 3)What lasting changes have resulted from my spiritual awakening?
    • 4)Which spiritual principles have been connected to which steps, for me, and how have those contributed to my spiritual awakening?
    • 5)What does the phrase "spiritual awakening" mean to me?
    • 6)What are the different ways in which I've experienced the message?
    • 7)What kind of service work am I doing to carry the message?
    • 8a)What are some different ways of carrying the message?
    • 8b)Which ones do I personally participate in?
    • 9)What is my personal style of sponsorship?
    • 10)What is the difference between attraction and promotion?
    • 11)What does it do for me to carry the message?
    • 12)How are the Fifth Tradition and the Twelfth Step tied together?
    • 13a)What keeps me coming back and trusting the NA program?
    • 13b)What is selfless service?
    • 13c)How do I practice it?
    • ✎To addicts Why does the Twelfth Step specify that we carry the message to addicts? Why did NA work for us when nothing else had? Almost every one of us had someone - a teacher, a counselor, a family member, a police officer - tell us that using drugs was killing us and destroying all we cared about, that if we just stayed away from our using friends and otherwise limited our access to drugs, we'd be able to change our lives. Most of us probably even agreed on some level, unless we were in complete denial. So why couldn't we find relief until we found Narcotics Anonymous? What did those other NA members have that made us believe recovery was possible? In a word: credibility. We knew that they, who were just like us, had stopped using and found a new way to live. They didn't care what we had or didn't have. It even said in the readings we heard at the beginning of the meeting that it didn't matter what or how much we used. Most of us were grateful to find out that we qualified. We knew we'd suffered enough, but we wanted to be accepted. And we were. The addicts who were there for us when we first started coming to meetings made us feel welcome. They offered their phone numbers and encouraged us to call any time. But what we really found important was the identification. Members who had used just like we did shared their experience with getting clean. Members who knew from personal experience exactly how isolated and alone we felt seemed to know instinctively that a simple, loving hug was what we needed. It seemed as if the whole group knew exactly what we needed without us having to ask. We often say to one another that we're fortunate to have this program; it gives us a way to cope with life on life's terms. After we stay clean for a time, we realize that the principles of Narcotics Anonymous are actually completely universal and could probably change the world if everyone practiced them. We may begin to wonder why we don't open up NA to all those who have any kind of problem. As we learned from our predecessors, having a single purpose is probably one of the most effective ways of ensuring that the opportunity will remain for an addict to find the identification he or she needs. If NA tried to be all things to all people, an addict might walk in, wanting only to know how to stop using drugs, and not be able to find anyone who knew.
    • 14)Why was an NA member able to reach me in a way that no one else ever had? Describe the experience.
    • 15)What is the therapeutic value of one addict helping another?
    • 16)Why is identification so important?
    • ✎aspect of our lives. Practicing these principles in all our affairs When we talk about practicing the principles of recovery in all our affairs, the key word is "practice." We just need to keep trying to apply spiritual principles to our lives, not be able to do it perfectly in every situation. The spiritual benefits we derive from working this step depend on our effort, not our success. For instance, we try to practice the principle of compassion in every situation in our lives. It's probably relatively easy to practice the principle of compassion with a still-using addict who has just walked into her first NA meeting, no matter how belligerent or needy that newcomer is. But what about someone who has just returned from a relapse, or a multiple relapser? What if he walks in blaming NA for his relapse? What if she casually walks back into the rooms projecting an attitude that seems to take recovery for granted? What if it's someone we sponsored? We may find that practicing the principle of compassion doesn't come as easily as it used to. We don't feel compassionate toward the person, but we can still practice the principle of compassion. All we have to do is continue to carry the message without conditions. Our sponsor can help us learn how to be compassionate without giving the impression that we think relapsing is okay. We can pray and meditate, asking our Higher Power to help us be compassionate. This step calls upon us to practice principles in all our affairs. Many of us would like to separate our careers, our romantic relationships, or another area of our lives from this requirement because we're not sure we can get what we want if we have to practice spiritual principles. For instance, it may very well lead to apparent success and financial reward if we compromise our principles at work. We may be asked to meet a production deadline that results in profits for the company but produces an inferior product that could compromise the safety of the people who purchase it. So what do we do? We practice the spiritual principles of our recovery. There are probably many different choices about the specific action to take in response to our principles; the important thing is that we respond to our principles.
    • ✎What about NA service? Strangely enough, some of us reserve NA service as the one place where we forget our principles. We cease giving people the benefit of the doubt in a service setting. We openly accuse others of hatching plots, and we say cruel things because we're not practicing the principle of kindness. We set up impossible processes for those we elect to do a job because we're not practicing the principle of trust. We become self-righteous, belligerent, and sarcastic. It's ironic that we seem to want to attack those whom we trust with our very lives in recovery meetings. We need to remember to practice spiritual principles in any meeting, whether service or recovery. Service gives us many opportunities to practice spiritual principles. Knowing which spiritual principle to practice in any given situation is difficult, but it is usually the opposite of the character defect we would normally be acting out on. For instance, if we feel compelled to exert absolute control over a situation, we can practice the principle of trust. If we would usually be self-righteous in a certain situation, we can practice the principle of humility. If our first impulse is to withdraw and isolate, we can reach out instead. The work we did in the Seventh Step on finding the opposites of our character defects and the work we did at the beginning of this step on identifying the spiritual principles in the previous steps will give us some additional ideas about the principles we need to practice. Though most of us will wind up with very similar lists of spiritual principles, the attention we devote to certain ones will reflect our individual needs.
    • 17)How can I practice principles in the different areas of my life?
    • 18)When do I find it difficult to practice principles?
    • 19)Which spiritual principles do I have a particularly hard time practicing?
    • 20a)How am I practicing the principle of unconditional love with the addicts I am trying to help?
    • 20b)Why do we carry the message?
    • 21a)What is my attitude about sponsorship?
    • 21b)Do I encourage my sponsees to make their own decisions and grow as a result?
    • 21c)Do I give advice, or do I share my experience?
    • 22a)What is my attitude about service?
    • 22b)Could NA survive without me?
    • 23)How am I practicing the principle of selflessness in my efforts to be of service? Practicing the principle of steadfastness means we need to keep on trying to do our best.
    • 24a)Am I committed to my recovery?
    • 24b)What am I doing to maintain it?
    • 25)Do I practice spiritual principles regardless of how I feel?
    • 26)How will I express my gratitude?