Preface to the second printing
Eight Step Recovery Meetings
Since we launched Eight Step Recovery we have had many requests on how to run an Eight Step Recovery Meeting. These Eight Step Recovery Meetings have been pioneered in India, the UK, the US, Canada, Mexico, and Finland. Many people have benefited from these meetings and we hope you will too.
The meeting formats, given below, have all been tried and tested. We suggest several formats, but we request that you always include the Welcome, Meeting Guidelines, the Preamble, Moral Inventory, and reciting the five training principles (in negative and positive form) in call and response, and the eight steps in unison. We also recommend that you end with Transference of Merit and the three-minute breathing space (AGE).
It is helpful to print the Welcome, Meeting Guidelines, Preamble, Moral Inventory, Eight Steps, and the AGE and Transference of Merit on cards or laminated paper so that different people can read them out aloud. Make sure you have someone signed up to chair each meeting. Also ensure you have enough printed paper copies of the eight steps and the Transference of Merit for everyone. Some groups create booklets for people.
The chair’s role is to begin the meeting and end the meeting on time, and also ask for dana. Some of you will know this as the seventh tradition. Dana is an expression of generosity. Making a donation supports the group to continue holding meetings, and helps to pass on the teachings you have been given.
The chair opens the meeting with the Welcome.
Welcome
Welcome. My name is ___________ and I will now lead the three-minute breathing space AGE):
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Become aware of your body; aware of sensations in the body; aware of thoughts; aware of emotions. |
• |
Gather your breath on the upper lip, the chest, or in the abdomen, and let the contact of the breath soothe your thoughts. |
• |
Expand the breath throughout the whole body. Let me hear everyone take a deep breath and expand it throughout the body. |
We invite you to briefly introduce yourself and say why you are here this evening. Please take up to a maximum of thirty seconds; thank you. It is also okay for you not to say anything.
(After introductions, ask if there are any newcomers, and please welcome them.)
Will somebody now read the Meeting Guidelines?
Meeting Guidelines
I would like to remind all of us of our suggested meeting guidelines:
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If there is more than one person, there are enough people for a meeting. |
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The only requirement to attend this meeting is the desire to live your life by the five precepts, which are training principles to help train the mind, and a desire to be free of your addictions and/or compulsive behaviors. |
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Please respect people’s personal sharing – let what you hear stay here. |
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Be kind to yourself, and in turn be kind to others. |
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Enjoy your recovery. |
Will somebody please read the Preamble?
This Eight Step Recovery Meeting explores recovery through the lens of the Buddhist teachings, and Buddhism through the lens of recovery. If you are attending twelve-step meetings, this can be your expression of your eleventh step and if you are not in a Twelve Step Program, it can be another way to approach your recovery. This is an extra meeting to complement your recovery, whatever that looks like.
For the next one and a half hours or two hours we are temporarily going for refuge to the Three Jewels. What we mean by that is, as best we can, we are placing the Buddha (the Awakened mind), the Dharma (the teachings of the Buddha), and the sangha (the spiritual community that has recovered and woken up to the truth) at the center of our thoughts. Those of us in recovery know too well that our addiction has often been at the center of our thoughts.
Will somebody please read the Moral Inventory?
So we begin with our moral inventory. We are turning our thoughts over to the Three Jewels. To the Buddha, the Awakened mind, which has gained liberation from suffering. To the Dharma, the teachings that point to the truth. And to the sangha, the spiritual communities, which have gained liberation. We will now recite the training principles to help train the mind in call and response. I will say a line and you repeat it.
1. |
I undertake to abstain from harming life. With deeds of loving-kindness I purify my body. |
2. |
I undertake to abstain from taking the not-given. With openhanded generosity I purify my body. |
3. |
I undertake to abstain from sexual misconduct. With stillness, simplicity, and contentment I purify my body. |
4. |
I undertake to abstain from false speech. With truthful communication I purify my speech. |
5. |
I undertake to abstain from taking intoxicants. With mindfulness clear and radiant I purify my mind. |
We will now say the Eight Steps together.
Eight Steps
Step One: Accepting that this human life will bring suffering.
Step Two: Seeing how we create extra suffering in our lives.
Step Three: Embracing impermanence to show us that our suffering can end.
Step Four: Being willing to step onto the path of recovery and discover freedom.
Step Five: Transforming our speech, actions, and livelihood.
Step Six: Placing positive values at the center of our lives.
Step Seven: Making every effort to stay on the path of recovery.
Step Eight: Helping others by sharing the benefits we have gained.
Below are several formats that can take place at your meeting. Please decide which meeting format you will use before you begin your meeting.
1. Step Meeting
2. Book Study Meetings
3. Speaker Meetings
Once this part of the meeting is over, please always end with the following:
The chair will lead the three-minute breathing space (AGE): AGE
• |
Become aware of your body; aware of sensations in the body; aware of thoughts; aware of emotions. |
• |
Gather your breath on the upper lip, the chest, or in the abdomen, and let the contact of the breath soothe your thoughts. |
• |
Expand the breath throughout the whole body. Let me hear everyone take a deep breath and expand it throughout the body. |
Let’s all say the Transference of Merit together.
Transference of Merit and Self Surrender
May the merit gained
in my acting thus
go to the alleviation of the suffering
of all beings.
My personality
throughout my existences,
my possessions,
and my merit in all three ways
I give up without regard
to myself
for the benefit of all beings.
and other elements
are serviceable in many ways
to the infinite number of beings
inhabiting limitless space,
so may I become
that which maintains all beings
situated throughout space
so long as all have not attained to peace.
Please ask at this point for dana (voluntary financial contribution) – nobody is paid. Dana is an act of generosity, showing an appreciation of the Buddhist teachings. However, there is no suggested fee, and nobody is turned away. There is no price to attend a meeting. And nobody should be made to feel uncomfortable if they don’t put into the pot. This must come from each individual’s generosity of spirit. Some people may give dana by offering to open up and put out chairs each week, and tidy up after. Being of service as dana is as valuable and generous as giving money.
Just as recovery is a process, so is the act of generosity. Dana will pay for your meeting space, for materials, books, nonalcoholic beverages, and anything else you need. If you have a surplus, you might wish to give money to a participant who wants to attend a recovery retreat.
At a future date we will also be introducing a donation facility on an appropriate website for Eight Step Recovery work in underprivileged communities, which will help some of the poorest communities in the world to deal with addiction, as well as helping to support people to go on recovery retreats.
(If you only have an hour – or there are a lot of people – we suggest you work through the steps weekly in the following way.) You could perhaps read a short passage from the step you are reflecting on before people answer the prompt question. Some groups go through one step a month, others one step a week, and once they have completed eight steps they just begin all over again.
Prompt questions for short meeting
Today we will focus on Step One: Accepting that this human life will bring suffering. What does it mean for you to accept that this human life will bring about suffering, in the context of your dis-ease?
Today we will focus on Step Two: Seeing how we create extra suffering in our lives. How do I create extra suffering in my life?
Today we will focus on Step Three: Embracing impermanence to show us that our suffering can end. What do I need to let go of in my life today?
Today we will focus on Step Four: Being willing to step onto the path of recovery and discover freedom. How willing am I to step onto the path of recovery today? or What is one aspect of freedom I have discovered since being on the path of recovery?
Today we will focus on Step Five: Transforming our speech, actions, and livelihood. How can I begin transforming or continue to transform my speech, or actions, or livelihood? Just choose one to focus on.
Today we will focus on Step Six: Placing positive values at the center of our lives. What are some of the things that tend to occupy my thoughts? What is the impact of having these thoughts at the center of my life?
Today we will focus on Step Seven: Making every effort to stay on the path of recovery. How can I make more effort to stay on the path of recovery?
Today we will focus on Step Eight: Helping others by sharing the benefits we have gained. What could I do this week to help share the benefits I have gained?
Another way of holding a short meeting is asking somebody to select a text that they would like to focus on from one of the steps, and read for fifteen minutes and then ask people to share on the reading.
End with the AGE and Transference of Merit and Self Surrender.
(This is for longer meetings of ninety minutes to two hours.)
For the next few weeks we will be exploring Step One. We will discuss every exercise, one exercise a week, and when a meditation or reflection comes up, we do the practice and discuss it afterwards. We will work through each step in this way, until we get to the end of the book, and then begin again. We suggest that, if you have the technology, you play the meditation or reflection out loud. They are hosted as a free download on the website – the link can be found at the end of the book.
Participants begin from the beginning of the book. They read a section for fifteen to twenty minutes, and then discuss the text. When a reflection or meditation comes up, either listen to it from the download or somebody leads it, and then discuss. Mark the page you finish on at each meeting so you can begin from the correct page at the next meeting.
There are several ways of holding this meeting. You can work through the book chronologically, beginning with the foreword. Once the book is completed you may choose to begin the book all over again. Or you may choose to study another book that is related specifically to Buddhist Recovery. For example, you could study Kevin Griffin’s One Breath at a Time or A Burning Desire, Noah Levine’s Refuge Recovery, or Valerie Mason-John’s Detox Your Heart: Meditations on Emotional Trauma.1
End with the AGE and Transference of Merit and Self Surrender.
In some meetings you may like to introduce a speaker by asking someone to tell their story of recovery, abstinence, sobriety, and their connection to the Buddhist teachings. Some groups like to invite people to their meetings and ask them to give a fifteen-minute talk on a topic concerning the Eight Steps. Sometimes groups choose the chair to speak on a topic concerning the Eight Steps. After the fifteen-minute talk, people are then asked to share their reflections, thoughts, and own journey with the steps.
End with the AGE and Transference of Merit and Self Surrender.
Should groups be closed?
Some groups may choose to be closed while working through the book and others may choose to be open. Some groups may choose to have the group just for a specific addiction, gender, or sexuality. Even if it is just for a particular addiction, such as alcohol, we do not say you cannot mention other addictions in the group. This is because everything is interconnected, and the only requirement to attend a meeting is to live your life in line with the five training principles, and a desire to be free of your addictions and/or your compulsive behaviors.
You can be creative with the formats, although every meeting needs to begin with the Welcome, Meeting Guidelines, the Preamble, and Moral Inventory and the Eight Steps, and then end with the AGE and Transference of Merit and Self Surrender.
Remember there are also meditations attached to the book, so for some meetings you could choose to listen to a meditation and then discuss how the meditation was for you. All the meditations in the book can be downloaded for free from bit.ly/eightsteprecovery or windhorsepublications.com/eight-steprecovery-audio (see p.xi). There are additional meditations on our website: insighttimer/vimalasara.
We request that all meetings are free of any food and only serve soft beverages like tea, coffee, or water. If you want to mark somebody’s abstinent birthday, this can be done by the practice of rejoicing in merits, whereby you open the meeting up for fifteen minutes, and invite anybody to rejoice or celebrate in the good deeds or qualities of the person’s whose abstinent birthday it is. We request that there is time for others to share about their hopes and struggles in the meeting too. So, while the rejoicing is to help inspire and motivate others, it needs to take up only fifteen minutes of the meeting. Cakes and cookies are not required. Rejoicing and celebrating someone’s achievements is enough. In this way we learn to celebrate without a substance.
Many of you may know how to meditate, although many of you will not. Therefore we request you read the three-minute breathing space or remember it verbatim, so that everyone can feel comfortable in leading it. There is a logic to the three-minute breathing space, which is why it is important to stick to the script and not take up more than three minutes. We begin and end with the three-minute breathing space to allow us to pause and gather ourselves. This helps us to arrive at the meeting and to connect with how we are at the end of the meeting before going on with our day. It also helps us to get into the habit of stopping and checking in with ourselves. We recommend that the AGE practice is no longer than three minutes, although shorter is fine.
Meetings are peer led. Each group will decide, for example, on someone taking responsibility for making the Welcome and asking people to read the Preamble and lead the AGE, for a month or two. Make sure responsibility is shared.
You may want to close your meeting – this is the group’s decision. You may want to set up Eight Step Meetings for specific addictions, or more generally for substance abuse. This again is the decision of the people who set up the group.
Some people will come to a meeting and ask: “Is Buddhist Recovery an abstinence-based program or harm reduction program?” Beware of this question. The teachings of the Dharma do not tell people what to do. The teachings advise us to try for ourselves and see what happens. We clearly state in the Meeting Guidelines that the only requirement to attend a meeting is to live your life more in line with the five training principles to help train the mind, and a desire to be free of your addictions and/or compulsive behaviors. Therefore we start from where we are at in our recovery. The precepts are principles to train the mind. They clearly state that we undertake to abstain from specific behaviors, actions, and habits. So it is hoped that all of us in recovery are moving in the direction of letting go of harming ourselves and others, from taking the not-given, from sexual misconduct, from false speech and taking intoxicants. How you do this is up to you. We recommend avoiding telling people what to do. For example, saying it is okay to have a drink may be unproblematic for one person, but could be a matter of life and death for another. So please observe the above when asked this question. We are not professionals. We are a group of people in recovery sharing our wisdom.