Step 11
We sought through prayer and meditation to improve
our conscious contact with God, praying only for
knowledge of His will for us and power to carry that out.
“…this step leads us to seek God’s will for us today. We grow in humility as we ask for knowledge of His will and acknowledge that the power to carry it out also comes from God.”
Project HEAL Christ-centered Recovery Lessons, p. 46.
Years ago, I received some business counseling in which the counselor shared that everyone is a success. Even those who are harming themselves or others, because they’re succeeding at what they’re trying to achieve. I initially thought he was crazy, but years later I understand what he meant. We’re all doing what we care about even if it means we’re hurting ourselves or other people.
The whole point of recovery is to heal from our pain. To heal from hurting ourselves which eventually leads to not hurting others too. When you pursue a spiritual life the self-awareness of our choices leading to our demise jumps to the surface. It’s one thing to recognize how our past behaviors have led us to a life of addiction and eventually to sobriety, and another thing to maintain our sobriety through challenging times. It’s during the challenging times in our life that we turn to God and seek His purpose and will for us. But the real goal is to maintain contact with God all the time. Not just when we need Him, but every moment of every day.
Here’s a quote from Bill W’s story:
“Belief in the power of God, plus enough willingness, honesty and humility to establish and maintain the new order of things, were the essential requirements.
Simple, but not easy; a price had to be paid. It meant destruction of self-centeredness. I must turn in all things to the Father of Light who presides over us all.”
Big Book of AA, pp. 13-14.
I’m not sure why some AA groups have pushed out the idea of God and replaced it with a Higher Power of your own understanding. The founders didn’t shy away from acknowledging that the power of God allows us to sustain our sobriety. We need to tap into a power beyond ourselves in order to stay clean and sober. The entire work of sobriety is about minimizing, if not eliminating, self-centeredness. Because it was our self-centeredness that kept us trapped in our addiction.
The way I interpret Step 11 is that we’re working on spiritual mastery. All spiritual masters work to purge their ego (self-centeredness) and help others discover the same for themselves. Addict or not, everyone needs to recover from their own ego. But as addicts, we’ve spent a lifetime “mastering” our self-centeredness. Step 11 reminds us we are now mastering our sobriety, and mastering our connection with God in a deeper way.
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