In our initial practice of the first nine Steps, we lay the foundation for a spiritual awakening that results in the Promises given us in the Big Book (pages 83–84).
We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Now, in working Step Ten, we begin the final stage of experiencing a spiritual transformation on an ongoing basis, culminating in Step Twelve. As the Big Book tells us, “We have entered the world of the Spirit. Our next function is to grow in our understanding and effectiveness” (page 84). Step Ten, along with Eleven and Twelve, helps us to stay in the world of the Spirit.
The word stay is vitally important. The first nine Steps have now become our way of living. As the Big Book explains, “This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime” (page 84).
In earlier Steps, we discovered that the only sustainable solution for us was a complete spiritual change. That change has now been brought about, with the help and guidance of our Higher Power. Step Ten enables us to maintain this change—and readies us for further changes. Many of these will occur privately, in our heart, in a manner not immediately visible to the outside world.
In early Step Ten work, we often say, “Wait a minute. What I just said or did was wrong. I’m sorry. Let me make it right.” As we mature in our Step Ten work, however, we need to do this less and less often. We learn to observe ourselves, realize what we’re doing, and stop—before we’ve done much or any harm. With practice and experience, we catch ourselves earlier and earlier—first, after we act; then as soon as we act; later, as we begin to act; and eventually, before we act, at the moment of impulse or emotion.
When we did our initial moral inventory, we saw our shortcomings and character defects as painful objects that needed to be removed, like cancerous tumors. Now, however, our vision is clearer, our insight deeper, and our discernment stronger. We see that our character defects and shortcomings are processes, not objects. They cannot simply be discarded and forgotten. They can arise at any time and in any situation. Old flaws that we thought we had grown out of long ago can unexpectedly reappear; so can flaws we didn’t realize we had. Unresolved or previously unexamined resentments, fears, guilt, shame, and remorse can all still show up. And when they do, we need to deal with them promptly, as a necessary part of our ongoing recovery.
In working Step Ten, we accept these as natural parts of being human. We do our best to notice them when they arise, and address them as quickly as possible by working Steps Six and Seven.
We have also learned that our character defects and short comings are not inherently wrong or bad; they are simply over-or under-expressions of our human nature. We do not ask our Higher Power to remove our desire to be social, or sexual, or safe. Instead, we ask our Higher Power to remove our desire to express those desires in harmful and unsustainable ways.
Amahl: I was tempted to stray—and then I beat myself up for it
I used to be a serious pot smoker. I lit up pretty much every day, sometimes two or three times. I was also a pretty heavy drinker. Am I an addict? At a certain point I decided it didn’t matter—I just needed my life to be manageable. I needed to do something before everything fell completely to pieces. That’s when I started going to MA (Marijuana Anonymous) and AA meetings.
The Program has worked well for me. I’ve been drug- and alcohol-free for just over three years. Life isn’t perfect, but it’s good. And it really helps to have a clear head.
Here’s what happened just two weeks ago. I’m reading in the library, in one of its big cushioned chairs. I feel something shift in my pocket and fall out. So I stand up and, sure enough, my keys are gone.
I pull off the bottom cushion of the chair. There are my keys—along with a bag of weed, maybe half an ounce.
My first thought is, Wow, it’s a gift from the gods. My second is, Don’t be an idiot. You know you’ll regret it if you light up. My third is, I don’t have to smoke it. I can sell it. If it’s good stuff, it’s worth sixty or seventy bucks. All this goes through my head in about two seconds.
Then my good sense returns. I stuff the bag and my keys into my coat pocket and head for the men’s room. I dump the pot into the toilet and flush it.
I go back and start reading again, but now I’m feeling really uncomfortable. How could I even think about using again? Or worse, dealing? I feel like I’ve committed some terrible Twelve Step sin. And then I think, Have I just taken the first step toward relapse?
I take out my phone and call my sponsor. I say to him, “Brent, can you talk? I feel terrible, like I just stole toys from Santa Claus or something.”
He laughs and says, “Okay, tell me what happened.”
So I tell him the story and say, “I know I need to do a Tenth Step about this. Can you help me think it through?”
Brent is silent for a couple of seconds. Then he says, “Working Step Ten is a good idea. But I’d say you’ve only committed one wrong, and it’s not the one you think. You’re trying to punish yourself for being human.”
This is completely not what I’m expecting. I say, “Come again?” My sponsor says, “Remember what the Big Book says? If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. That’s exactly what you did. Nothing in the Program says that it’s wrong to feel tempted. In fact, the sentence I just quoted implies that we likely will be tempted. That’s what I love about the Program. It allows us to be human. It assumes we’re going to be human. It doesn’t demand perfection. It focuses on spiritual progress, not spiritual perfection.”
I say to him, “So it’s not a shortcoming to be tempted?”
“No,” he says. “It’s a shortcoming to act on that temptation. But, you know, it’s also a shortcoming to expect that you’ll never be tempted. You’re showing yourself too little compassion and understanding. That’s something worth asking your Higher Power to remove.”
In my head and heart, I did a Step Ten right there in the library. I also found a copy of the Big Book on the shelves and looked at what it had to say about that Step. On page 85 was a sentence I’d read many times before, but had never really thought much about. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid.
I had gotten afraid—afraid that I was losing my sobriety because I’d felt a moment of temptation.
Promises, Directions, and Warnings
The Big Book provides us with specific directions for working Step Ten, as well as some clear promises and warnings. When we follow its directions, we live into the promises. When we don’t, we live into the warnings.
On pages 84 and 85, the Big Book promises us eight outcomes, which I’ve numbered here as a list.
1. And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone—even alcohol (or any other addiction).
2. For by this time sanity will have returned.
3. We will seldom be interested in liquor [or whatever substance or activity fueled our addiction].
4. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame.
5. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor [or any other addictive substance or activity] has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it.
6. We’re not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality—safe and protected. We have not even sworn off.
7. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us.
8. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid.
The Big Book goes on to tell us that all this becomes the reality of our life, “. . . so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.”
How do we stay in fit spiritual condition? By living according to these clear directions (page 85): “Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God’s will into all of our activities.” Instead of constantly asking What do I want? as we did when we lived in the grip of self-centeredness, we ask,
“How can I best serve Thee—Thy will (not mine) be done.” These are the thoughts that must go with us constantly. We can exercise our willpower along this line all we wish. It is the proper use of the will.
The Big Book has just warned us that because we now live in the world of the Spirit,
. . . It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We’re headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve, contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.
And that’s true not only for alcoholism, but for any addiction, including our addiction to self-centeredness. Self-reliance, self-sacrifice, and other forms of self-centeredness are also subtle foes. Because they can creep in in exactly the same way, we need a daily reprieve from these as well. Step Ten is the ongoing practice that, day by day and moment by moment, prepares us for that reprieve. As the Big Book reminds us on page 83, “The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it.”
Corey: I was complacent—and then I worked Step Ten on my knees
If you live in Portland and you’re in recovery, you might have met me, or at least heard of me. For a few years, I was a popular speaker at AA gatherings.
I’m in my fifties now. The time I want to tell you about was when I was in my late forties. I had eight years of sobriety, and almost nine of working the Program. I’d been a sponsor for half a dozen folks. Unquestionably, the Program saved my life, my marriage, and my career.
Although I wouldn’t have put it this way, back then I also thought that it had cured my alcoholism. Any desire to drink had long ago disappeared. I would go to parties, or jazz clubs, or restaurants where everyone was drinking alcohol, and I had no problems. Occasionally I’d marvel at how immune most people seemed to be to the disease of alcoholism, but otherwise I’d feel fine, and serenely drink coffee or tea.
At the time, I was at the peak of my career, although of course I didn’t know it then. I’m in industrial sales, and I was doing very well, making a six-figure income. And I was happy. The pain of addiction was gone. I’d made all the amends I could. Things were back on track with my wife and my kids. They’d all seen my life turn around, and they all told me they were proud of what I’d become. I was volunteering as the assistant coach of our church’s junior high softball team, and that was fun and rewarding too.
Then one morning I threw my back out. I could still walk, but just barely. I went to an osteopath, and she said, “Corey, you’re not a kid any more. If you want to keep this from happening again, you need to be exercising regularly. You need to do some cardio and some weights.” Which was fine. I’d walk and I’d work out. But walking and working out take time.
I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I remember thinking at the time, Okay, then. I’ll swap some of my AA activities for exercise. I’ll just be shifting from one form of self-care to another. I even remember thinking, My alcoholism isn’t a problem anymore, but my back is. I need to make this switch.
That’s the brilliance of the disease of alcoholism. It distorts your thinking so badly that you actually think your rush toward relapse is something you’re doing for your health.
First I stopped the AA speaking, and going to AA roundups and conferences. I told myself that some day I’d start those again. But I kept going to two meetings a week.
Things were still okay. My life was work, family, exercise, coaching, and meetings. It was still a very good life.
But something surprising happened. I liked walking, and I loved working out. The walking was relaxing and meditative, and working out pumped up my endorphins. I always left the gym feeling fantastic. Plus, I was getting stronger every day. I lost eight or nine pounds too, and that also helped my back.
I’d started by walking every other day and working out twice a week. Soon I was walking daily and going to the gym three times a week, sometimes four. I wasn’t exactly buff, but Charlene told me I looked sexier and more handsome.
I’m sure you know where this story is headed. After a few months, I cut back to one meeting a week, then to one whenever I felt I could squeeze it into my busy schedule.
And the fact was that I was feeling better than ever. I still had no desire to drink. But somewhere inside me I hadn’t forgotten that alcoholism has no cure. And neither does self-centeredness.
After I’d been working out about four or five months—and more or less stopped going to meetings—people began to mention things to me. One night my wife asked me if I was feeling okay. I said, “Sure. Why?” She said, “You don’t seem as upbeat or as relaxed as you used to.”
It was the same at work. One day my boss asked me, “Hey, Corey, are things okay at home?” I said, “They’re great. Why are you asking?” He said, “Well, in the last couple of months you haven’t seemed as focused.” I just said, “Thanks for the feedback. I’ll work on that.”
Then, one day after softball practice, Anthony—the coach—called me over and said, “Corey, what the hell is up with you today? You’ve had your head up your ass all afternoon.”
My jaw dropped. I thought I’d been doing fine, doing all the things I was supposed to. I just said, “What do you mean?”
Anthony said, “You kept jumping right down those kids’ throats, man. The minister’s son was on the verge of tears. You’re not training Olympic athletes; they’re just here to learn teamwork and have a good time.”
That hit me hard. I apologized and thanked him. That same day, as soon as I got home, I got a call from Douglas, one of my sponsees. We hadn’t talked in a long time. He said, “Corey, I really miss you. I’ve kind of been keeping track, and you haven’t been at our home group in four months. Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. “At least I think so.”
We talked for a while, and then he said, “Tell you what, I’ll buy you an early dinner on Thursday, and then we can go to our home group meeting at six. I’d be so proud to go back with you.” I told him sure, that sounded great. And it did sound great. I figured I’d go straight from softball practice to dinner, and then to the meeting.
On Thursday afternoon, practice went pretty well until about halfway through, when one of the younger kids twisted her leg sliding into home. She lay there in the dirt, bawling her head off. Anthony and I did all the normal first-aid interventions, but none of it helped. She’d probably torn a muscle or even broken a bone. Anthony called her parents and I hustled her off to the emergency room.
We spent a couple of hours in the ER. It turned out to be a partially torn calf muscle. By the time her father arrived and I felt okay about leaving, it was almost six o’clock. I was feeling tired as hell, so I just drove home.
Now I had my cell phone on me the whole time. At any point I could have called Douglas and said, “I’m really sorry. There’s been an emergency and I’m with a kid in the ER. Let’s try again next week.” But I didn’t. I didn’t call him at all.
I could also have gone to the restaurant. I’d have been late, but I could have explained the situation, and we’d have had dinner and gone to the meeting.
But I didn’t do any of those things. I just didn’t show up. I blew off my sponsee. And you know what? A part of me was 100 percent aware of what I was doing.
The next morning, Douglas called me. He said, “Hey man, I missed the meeting because I was waiting for you at the restaurant for you. What the hell is wrong with you?”
Suddenly I was infuriated. I said to him, “You know what? You’d better add Al-Anon to your Twelve Step meetings, because you sound awfully miserable based on what another alcoholic is doing or not doing.” And then I hung up on him.
That night I went to a bar and drank seven beers. At least I had the presence of mind to walk home instead of drive.
When I woke up the next morning, my wife and kids were gone. Charlene had left a note for me that said, Call me when you’ve stopped drinking. I hope that’s soon. The kids and I will be at my parents’ house.
I couldn’t believe I’d gotten so sick so fast.
But, of course, it wasn’t so fast at all. My chemical relapse was only half a day old, but my spiritual relapse had been going on for months.
I took a shower, all the while saying aloud, over and over, “Step One. Step One. I’m back on Step One.”
As soon as I was dressed, I went online and found an AA group that would meet later that morning. Then I made a point of getting down on my knees and putting my forehead on the floor. I asked God to remove my selfishness, my foolishness, my thoughtlessness, and my complacency.
Then I made several lists—of how I’d harmed my wife and kids, my sponsee, the kids on the softball team, and my boss and coworkers.
And then I picked up the phone and started making phone calls. The first two were to Charlene and Douglas. To each of them I said, “I’m so sorry. I’ve been a total jerk. Can you talk?”.
Step Ten and Now
When we did our first moral inventory in Step Four, we looked at how we had harmed others—days, weeks, months, years, and perhaps even decades ago. Then, in Step Nine, we made amends to as many of those people as we could. We cleaned up a great many old messes.
Now, as we work Step Ten, we don’t have to spend so much time cleaning up past messes. As a result, we are able to focus on the present instead of the past.
Focusing on the present means being fully engaged, here and now. We’re not regretting or reliving the past, or anticipating or worrying about the future. We’re fully here. This allows us to more clearly see and feel and realize what’s going on. We become able to spontaneously work Steps Four through Nine on the fly. Step Ten is Steps Four through Nine, wrapped into a continuous activity.
In working Step Ten, we steadily build the habit of doing Steps Four through Nine whenever circumstances require it of us. We no longer work the Steps as a careful, highly deliberate performance. We practice them as on ongoing improvisation on the theme of Thy will be done. Eventually, Step Ten becomes a practice, one day at a time, one breath at a time, and one moment at a time.
Observing Our Emotional Selves
Our emotions offer us a continuous opportunity to know if what we’re doing, thinking, or planning is sustainable or unsustainable. They give us immediate and constant feedback about how we’re using our free will—or how we’re about to use it.
Our emotions are also very reliable indicators of when we need to practice Step Ten. Whenever an unsustainable emotion arises, and stays with us more than briefly, that’s a sign that Step Ten is called for.
As we practice paying attention to our emotions day by day, we get a very accurate measure of what’s working in our life—and what’s not.
In Step Ten, as we continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear, we learn to become better observers of ourselves. With practice, we get better and better at these directions:
1. Noticing any harm we create as soon as we create it—and making amends as soon as possible.
2. Recognizing unsustainable thoughts, emotions, and impulses when they first appear.
3. Noticing ever smaller and more subtle manifestations of those emotions, thoughts, and impulses.
4. Intuiting the probable outcome of embracing or following each one.
5. Restraining ourselves from doing harm to ourselves and others.
6. Asking our Higher Power to remove whatever shortcomings and character defects we observe—and to give us guidance for what to do next.
7. Acting out of the best parts of ourselves—with the guidance of our spiritual direction—instead of from our self-direction.
In working Step Ten, we apply our free will by choosing hich thoughts, impulses, and emotions to act on and which ones to let go. We quickly let go of unpleasant and unsustainable emotions as if they were a hot flame. We also recognize that certain pleasurable emotions—self-congratulation, excessive pride, superiority, and their counterparts—as just as unsustainable as jealousy, rage, resentment, or self-pity.
As a result, as we work Step Ten, our transgressions become less frequent. When we do fall prey to the subtle foe of self-interest, we generally create smaller crises and less damaging situations—and we usually learn something important from them. We still make blunders—perhaps even a major one—now and then, but we know how to handle it when we do.
Clarissa: Letting go of a very old resentment
People tell me I have every reason to be angry at my dad, because he molested me regularly for six years—from when I was seven until I was twelve.
I tell them, “No. I have every right to be angry. But I have a very good reason not to stay in anger and resentment.” Then I tell them the story I’m about to tell you.
I’m not going to give you the details of how he molested me. I’ll just say it’s not pretty. It happened dozens of times—whenever my mother was out of town. The details are mostly what you’d imagine—except that usually Dad was drunk or stoned.
The other pertinent detail is that my mom died of lung cancer when I was nineteen. She smoked two packs a day from the time she was a teenager, and she never slowed down until the last few months of her life.
The story I want to tell took place last summer, when I was forty-two. I hadn’t seen or spoken to my father for almost twenty years, when I ran into him unexpectedly.
I live in a small town in Missouri about fifty miles from where I grew up. I teach high school English. I like my job and I love having summers off.
I also love being clean and sober. From high school until five years ago, I put all kinds of shit into my body—meth, coke, crack, quaaludes, and lots and lots of alcohol—but never heroin, thank God. I’ll receive my five-year sobriety medallion next month.
Being clean and sober has meant not having to live in hell. I’m very grateful for that. But until about two years ago, I wasn’t very happy either. I’ve done plenty of therapy, and all kinds of healing strategies—EMDR, somatic therapy, massage, reiki, tai chi, yoga. They all helped me to come back to my body. But they didn’t help me with my anger and resentment. Those emotions kept living inside me like rats inside the walls of a house.
Early one morning last summer, I was rereading the story “Freedom from Bondage” in the Big Book. That really struck a nerve in me. In that story, a woman feels like she’s being eaten away by resentment toward her mother. I’d read it before—a couple of times—but this time a voice in my head said, That’s me.
I closed the book. That same voice said, Enough. I’ve had enough. Dad already screwed up my life big time. I don’t want resentment and anger to screw it up more.
I started crying—and I couldn’t stop. I must have cried for ten minutes straight.
And you know what? After all those tears, afterward I was just as angry and resentful as before. That’s when I knew I couldn’t heal on my own. Even if I tried every type of therapy in the whole goddamn world.
I opened the Big Book again, to the Steps on page 59. I bowed my head and said aloud, “God, I have to have your help. Please take away my resentment and anger at Dad. I’ve kept him out of my life, but I can’t keep him out of my head.” And then I said something I hadn’t even consciously realized: “I don’t know if I can keep feeling this way without drinking or drugging again. Thy will be done.”
I felt a little better after that, so I wiped my eyes and drove to a restaurant downtown that makes really good pancakes.
I was sitting in a booth by the window, drinking coffee and waiting for my food, when a beat-up station wagon pulled up outside. The driver’s door opened and an old, obese man got out—very slowly. It looked like he had serious arthritis, or some other problem with moving. He kept trying to pull himself up out of the seat, without success.
I thought, There’s someone who needs some help, so I slid out of the booth and started to go outside to help him.
And then, after a few steps, I realized—it was my father. Much older and much heavier, but definitely him. And what I felt for him right then was sadness. Just sadness. And a little twinge of pity.
At that point, he managed to stand up, close the car door, and take a couple of steps. He didn’t look in my direction, and for a second I thought he was going to come into the restaurant. But he walked past the door and down the sidewalk. And then I lost sight of him.
I sat back down in the booth and said silently, Thank you, Father.
I have some compassion for my father now. At times I still have flashes of anger or resentment toward him—but when I do, I immediately say a prayer: God, please take this away. And soon the feelings blow away.
I’m not interested in forgiving my father or reconciling with him. But I am interested in having a life—and I’m doing my best to have one, with the help of my Higher Power.
Suppose that you wake up on a Sunday morning and review your plan for the day. As part of working this part of Step Eleven, you also review your emotions around each part of the plan. Okay, we’re going to have breakfast and read the paper. Nice. We’ll also do some chores around the house. It’ll be good to get those done. Then I have to write that report for our Monday morning meeting at work. Crap. I don’t want to. Not on a Sunday.
Because you’re observing your own emotions, you can see immediately that you’re feeling positive, sustainable emotions about everything except the report. You’re feeling some resentment about that. But because you immediately recognize that resentment, you don’t have to go through the day feeling resentful. You have other choices. You can remind yourself that the resentment is a form of self-interest, and let go of it—or ask God to take it from you. You can write the report right after breakfast. By getting it out of the way, you can spare yourself (and your partner) your resentment all day.
When an emotion, thought, or impulse arises, you can also ask yourself this question: Is following this likely to bring me peace of mind? With some self-examination, the answer will usually be quite clear. We’re never baffled for too long in distinguishing self-will from the will of our Higher Power. When we’re attracted to an unbalanced or unsustainable activity, we’ll sense that it’s not right. We’ll recoil in guilt or distaste or unease. That is all the information we need.
We ignore this information at our peril. One of the greatest missteps in long-term sobriety is having clear insight into what’s right and what’s not—and then ignoring that insight.
Our self-observation throughout the day leads us, naturally and seamlessly, into Step Eleven: “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.” The book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions describes this transition beautifully—and makes a solemn promise to us—on page 98:
There is a direct linkage among self-examination [Step Ten], meditation, and prayer [Step Eleven]. Taken separately, these practices can bring much relief and benefit. But when they are logically related and interwoven, the result is an unshakable foundation for life.
Working Step Ten at Home
Many of us in the Program discover, to our surprise and dismay, that we have the most difficulty working Step Ten with the people we’re closest to: the very people we love the most. We are usually much better Step Ten practitioners out in the world, at work and with strangers, than with are with our own families.
This is certainly true for me—even today, after more than four decades of recovery.
There’s a good reason for this. The closer we are to someone, the more vulnerable we are to them, and the more easily they can hurt us. Usually there is also some unfinished emotional business: competition, resentment, guilt, jealousy, and so on. As a result, we tend to be more reactive—and sometimes even volatile—toward that person than we would be toward others.
It’s not that our closest relationships bring out the worst in us. It’s that they bring out a lot more of us. This includes more fears, more resentment, more anger, and more reactivity—as well as more love, more caring, more generosity, and more sacrifice.
When I lead Twelve Step workshops, I often ask participants, “How many of you know exactly what to say to your partner (or child, or parent) that would absolutely devastate them?” Invariably, hands go up all around the room. That’s how vulnerable we are to the people we’re close to.
If a stranger overhears you explaining Daylight Saving Time to your five-year-old daughter and then pipes up, “I didn’t understand that, and I bet she didn’t either,” you’ll probably just shrug and try again. But if your partner overhears you giving the same explanation, then walks away with an eye roll, you’ll probably feel insulted and angry.
This is entirely normal. It’s also a clear sign that you need to practice Step Ten right away.
You can note each of your emotions and then say to yourself, My loved one isn’t trying to insult or attack me, so there’s no need to fight back. Anyway, this isn’t about me. It’s about teaching a useful concept to our daughter. I can let go of these emotions and focus on explaining the concept to her again, in a different way. And you can say to your Higher Power, Please take this impatience and emotional fragility away from me.
That’s the ideal. In real life, most of us have had the experience of leapfrogging over every possible mindful response. We growled at our partner, “I suppose you can do much better, huh?” or “Don’t you dare roll your damn eyes at me,” or “Why don’t you just come out and say it? You think I’m a friggin’ idiot.”
Here’s part of the magic of Step Ten: if we do say something reactive and caustic, we haven’t blown our chance to work the Step. As soon as the words are out of our mouth, we can still catch ourselves and say, “Hold on. That was a crappy thing to say. I shouldn’t have said it. I was feeling hurt and angry, and I lashed out at you. I’m sorry.” Internally, we can add, God, please remove this fear of criticism from me.
And even if the interaction turns into a pissy, pointless, juvenile argument with your partner, you can still work Step Ten at any moment. As soon as you have the presence of mind—whether it’s five seconds later, or five days—you can take a moral inventory, admit your wrongs, ask your Higher Power to restore you to sanity by removing your flaws, and make appropriate amends.
Even though so many of us have a hard time practicing Step Ten with the people we’re closest to, most of us still practice it. We just tend to practice it after we’ve made fools of ourselves, instead of before.
But over time, with practice and painful experience, we learn to do better. We catch ourselves sooner. We make smaller and less harmful mistakes, and make them less often. Practice makes progress.
Here’s the biggest piece of Step Ten magic: The very moments when you’re having the hardest time, and feeling the most guilty and embarrassed, are when you’re practicing Step Ten especially well. When you’re standing in front of your family, shaking your head and saying, “I’m so sorry; what the hell was I thinking? I was 100 percent wrong; what amends do you need me to make?”—that’s when you’re doing some of your best and most healing Step Ten work.
Violette: Working Step Ten with my parents in mind
I’m a student at a well-known art school, majoring in painting. I turn nineteen in a couple of months.
I come from an overachieving family. My father’s a successful lawyer; my mother’s a doctor for the state health department. I’m the youngest of three kids. Both my sisters are very smart and athletic; one went to Northwestern, the other to UCLA. Suzanne is doing her medical residency in North Carolina; Yvette is working as a Congressional aide in Washington. Mom and Dad pushed all of us to work hard and succeed.
Growing up, Suzy and Yvette did work hard and did succeed. I was the black sheep. I worked as hard as they did, but I just didn’t have their abilities, at least in the traditional stuff—top grades, varsity sports, all of that. Through ninth grade I did okay, but nothing special—I mostly got Bs, and a handful of Cs.
I grew up in a small town, so I had the same teachers my sisters did. Like my parents, they expected me to be a clone of Yvette and Suzy—which I wasn’t. Still, my teachers all made it clear that I was disappointing them—that I could magically become my sisters’ clone if I only put my mind to it and tried hard enough. As if it was my fault that I didn’t have their talents. The really sad part is that for a long time I believed them.
One night, the summer after ninth grade, my friend Bryant and I bought a few cans of spray paint and sprayed some cartoon figures on a railroad bridge just outside of town. When he saw mine, he said, “Vi, yours is really good. Do another one.” So I did, and he went, “Wow, those are both amazing. Really amazing.” That’s how I got started as a graffiti artist.
And not just graffiti. I did these surreal, colorful portraits and landscapes—Salvador Dali meets Peter Max. I painted on bridges, underpasses, parked railroad cars, abandoned buildings. Always late at night, when my parents thought I was asleep. They didn’t have a clue what I was up to.
Bryant was a photographer, and he took pictures of all my art. Not that I could show them to anyone but my friends, since what I was doing was illegal.
Later that summer, I met a couple of other graffiti artists from the area, and we started hanging around together. They all told me my art was really good. They all were also serious drinkers. I started drinking with them. By the end of that summer, I was a full-blown alcoholic.
So now it’s October of tenth grade. I’m sneaking out at night with my friends two or three nights a week, doing my art, and then getting drunk. I’m not paying much attention in school, but my parents don’t realize it yet, because the first set of grades hasn’t come out.
Then, one night, my friends and I get busted as we’re painting stuff on the base of the town water tower. Which, looking back, wasn’t a very smart idea. The cops catch us red-handed with paint cans and a bottle of Johnnie Walker. They were actually pretty easygoing as they took us in—I mean, we’re just a few drunk kids. We’re not stealing or fighting with knives. They booked us for underage drinking and defacing public property. And then, of course, they called my parents.
Soon Mom and Dad show up, looking like they’d both strangle me on the spot if they could get away with it. My mother cries the whole time. My father keeps asking me, “How could you do this to us?” As if the whole point of my art is to make him unhappy.
So now I’ve totally proven to both my parents that I’m a worthless drunken criminal.
But then a funny thing happens. The school district, which covers four towns, has a social worker on staff, and she urges me to go to AA meetings. I figure, my life is complete shit, my parents are ready to ship me off to the Home for Hugely Disappointing Children in Siberia, or possibly someplace worse. What do I have to lose?
There’s a meeting on Monday nights at the Methodist church. So I go, and at the meeting, of all people, I see the high school art teacher. He’s been sober eleven years. And get this—my friend Bryant has shown him photos of my paintings. After my first meeting, he comes over and says, “Violette, I want you to know that you’re very talented. If you want some mentoring with your art, I’m happy to help.”
This is the first time an adult has ever called me very talented. Including my parents.
Wait. It gets better. I also get separate phone calls from both my sisters. Both of them say the same thing: they’re pissed at our parents. They’re pissed at Mom and Dad for pushing them so hard and so relentlessly, and for insisting that they achieve in the ways Mom and Dad wanted, not in the ways they wanted. They’re delighted that I’m doing art on my own terms at age sixteen. Yvette just says, “From now on, Vi, do it in ways that are legal, okay?” And Suzy tells me, “Get sober and stay sober and things will get better, I promise. Once you graduate and get out of the house, Mom and Dad can go to hell if they can’t appreciate you for who you are.” I can’t believe those words are coming out of Ms. Perfect’s lips.
So now everything starts to fall into place. I transfer from one of my classes into art, and the teacher turns out to be incredibly helpful. He even speaks on my behalf at my Juvenile Court hearing, so I’m sentenced to repainting the base of the tower and doing 100 hours of community service. I’ve stopped drinking and I’m working the Steps and going to my meeting every Monday.
I’m still a B and C student in most of my classes, but I get straight As in every art class I take. Mom and Dad are still not happy, but they forget about exiling me to the Gulag for Disobedient Teenagers.
The rest of high school goes okay. I work the Steps and don’t drink, and whenever I get the urge to cover a wall with graffiti art, I cover my bedroom wall with flip-chart paper and paint on that.
In my senior year I apply to art school, and my art teacher gives me a great recommendation. I get a nice merit scholarship that pays half the cost. Near the end of the school year I have my own senior art show, which goes great. There’s even a little article about it in our town paper.
Now my parents are popping their buttons with pride. They tell everyone how talented I am and how they always knew I could do great things. Which is 100 percent bullshit. But I figure, one more summer and I’m gone, so I keep my pie hole shut.
One great feature of my art school is that it’s got something called the Student Step Program. You live in a separate dorm that’s drug and alcohol free; there’s an addiction counselor on staff; and there’s an AA and an NA meeting in the dorm every week. How cool is that? I signed up as soon as I learned about it.
So I get to art college, and the first thing that happens is, I’ve got this long list of requirements to fulfill. Basic, formal training in perspective, figure drawing, art history, yada yada. And I have to tell you, I’m bored out of my freaking mind in every class. It’s not at all like high school, where my art teacher was constantly challenging me to stretch and try new things. Here no one seems to give a rat’s ass what I’m capable of. Instead, they’re putting me and every other freshman through art boot camp.
I do my best to keep my nose clean, and I manage to make it through the first six weeks with my body and soul and sobriety intact. But I hate every minute of it.
Then, last Sunday, I’m having brunch at a restaurant with some friends, and one of them orders a mimosa. Her boyfriend says, “Me too,” and the next thing I know, I say, “Me too.”
Everyone at the table turns and looks at me, and suddenly I feel like the biggest piece of shit that has ever existed on earth. I say, “Wait—cancel that,” and I get up from the table and get the hell out of there.
My hands are trembling. I call my sponsor, Tonya, but I get her voice mail. So I leave a message saying “Call me,” and I go down to the park and sit on a bench, and I just start to cry like a damn baby.
After a few minutes, I wipe my eyes and call my old art teacher from high school. “I don’t get it,” I tell him. “They’re making us march in formation and do rifle drills here. I signed up for art school and ended up in ROTC.”
He laughs and says, “Didn’t they explain to you why you need to revisit and refine your basic skills?”
I tell him, “No. They just gave me a list of requirements and said, ‘Here’s what you have to do.’”
He sighs and says, “Oh boy.” Then he spends the next twenty minutes explaining to me the importance of classical training in technique and in the history of art, and how it will support and strengthen everything I do. It all makes total sense. But for some reason, no one at art school bothered to sit me down and explain it.
I do a Tenth Step right then, sitting on that bench. The only harm I did to others was worry the people at brunch. That’s no big deal. In a few minutes, I can just go back and apologize. But right now I need to talk to my Higher Power.
Please, I say, take away my impatience and self-will. Help me trust that my teachers might know what’s best for me and please, God, help me tell the difference between my education and my parents.
A minute later my phone rings. It’s Tonya, my sponsor. I tell her what’s been going on, and she tells me I did exactly the right thing.
Next time you and your partner (or child, or parent, or roommate) are shouting at each other over something trivial, such as leaving your shoes in the living room, and a voice in your head says, Am I imagining this, or am I acting like a complete idiot? that’s your invitation to work Step Ten.
And as you work that Step, remind yourself just how far you’ve come. It’s true, you’re arguing over something silly and unimportant. But you’re no longer arguing over where you hid the booze, or the drugs, or the Visa bill.
The World of the Spirit
A common misconception about Step Ten is that we work it at the end of each day. But the Big Book tells us that we use Step Eleven to review the day when we retire, and review our plans for the day when we wake up. Step Ten is to be worked throughout the day as we put Steps Four through Nine into practice as each situation warrants.
Many of us were taught the following regimen in a Twelve Step treatment program:
Shortly before going to sleep, we review our day—our encounters, our actions and interactions, our decisions, and our emotions and impulses. We do a moral inventory of the day—a short-term Step Four—and list our liabilities and assets. Then we quickly work Steps Five through Eight, and make plans to work Step Nine as soon as we can.
These end-of-the-day reviews are enormously helpful. They keep us humble, and they help ground us in the world of the Spirit. They assist us in recognizing and being honest about our character defects and shortcomings. They help us spot things we may have missed during the day. And they help us continue to become wiser, more compassionate, growing human beings.
But a daily review is always about the past or the future. It is not about now. And now is when Step Ten becomes fully alive.
Unlike our first experience of working Steps One through Nine, we don’t only practice Step Ten at specific times and in particular places. We work Step Ten as a natural and ongoing part of our life. As the Big Book notes on page 84, “we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along.”
We need to work Step Ten moment by moment. We don’t wait for the end of the day to reflect on what we’re doing or feeling. We observe our actions, emotions, and impulses right now. As necessary, we work Steps Six and Seven—or Four through Nine—right now. We surrender now to the will of our Higher Power and to whatever the moment requires of us.
The world of the Spirit is always now.