“Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.”
“Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for the knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.”
“Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other addicts and to practice these principles in all of our affairs.”
Steps 10, 11, and 12 are all certainly action steps. In the previous steps it seems that we’ve examined our past and current behavior and recognized our faults. We’ve become entirely ready to have God remove our character defects. We’ve asked God to humbly remove our defect of characters. We’ve made a list of all people we’ve harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Next we’ve made our amends to those people. I feel as though all the steps leading up to the 10th, 11th, and 12th were preparing me to be able to carry these out with all honesty and earnestness. Steps 1-9 were a “cleaning of my house”. 10, 11, and 12 are to make sure my house stays in order. This does not negate the importance of steps 1-9 which a person must stay constantly reminded of to maintain sobriety. I feel as though 10, 11, and 12 are the ones that need to be acted out each and every day. Step 10 tells us we’ve continued to take a personal inventory, and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. For me this means that this day I’ve made a conscious effort to remember my character defects and when I begin to act out upon one of them I recognize the action before or during it occurring and stop it in its track and admit that we were wrong in doing so. Then at the end of the day I would look back over the events that happened and see if there’s anywhere I might have done that without being able to recognize it. It’s a step of complete honesty with yourself and others. Step 11 for me is probably one of the most important steps there is. Personally prayer is not something I’m used to or comfortable with. I prefer to meditate to get in touch with my higher level of spirituality. It’s something I strive to do everyday. I feel that my higher power is omniscient and is constantly around me so what I do to recognize and embrace that is try to live in and for the moment. I feel like there is no better way to get in touch spiritually to my higher power. Step 12 is new to me. It’s basically wrapping all the steps, although they are each important in their own way, into a bundle and applying them to our life. Its about utilizing the steps and letting them manifest in our daily lives. In turn we would be an example to all who care to look. The newcomers, the strugglers, or even the old timers can all learn something from my actions and vice versa.