Blog #14 - Step 12. No mystery, just magic!

Emma had been MIA (Missing In Action) for several weeks now.

She still had a few Step 9 amends to make. There is no hard and fast rule for the order in which a sponsor guides a sponsee to make their amends. We suggest they begin with the easier ones first. It is difficult to revisit the past with humility and a genuine desire to make amends for specific harms caused. We can’t know how they might be received.

With my own amends and every woman I have sponsored, something quite remarkable happens when we complete Step 8 and ‘become willing’ to make those amends.

The Universe, our Higher Power, Source Energy, Infinite Intelligence or a God of our own understanding contrives situations that bring us into the orbit of the person to whom we must make the amend. It is quite miraculous. Chance encounters in the street, a random knock on the door. For me, I was wrestling with how to approach my old boss who I had not seen for a few years. I spectacularly blew up all the doors behind me, following my resignation, leaving piles of rubble so twisted and mangled that there seemed no possibility of clearing a path back to the other side!

One day, as this quandary swirled around me, I sat despondently on a bench in Central London. Early for a job interview, for yet another role that I did not want. Glancing at my phone, a Facebook notification told me that my old boss had accepted my friend request.

WTF? I thought? When had I sent him a friend request? I had not. I would not. I had never wanted to be friends with him! Let alone allow him access to my personal life. How had this happened?

It quickly dawned on me that this was yet another example of ‘GOD’ doing for me, what I could not do for myself. This is a direct quote from the Big Book (of AA) I had not done it. My boss had not done it. The Techiverse had provided a doorway for me to walk through. I sent a hasty request for a catch up. Explaining where I was in my recovery journey and that it was important for me to address the harm I had caused to him specifically for which I wanted to be accountable.

All my amends were lined up by a power greater than me, making it easy to show up and face those I had hurt and show them that I understood what I had done or said. And that the person in front of them had changed through a process of hard work, self-reflection and sobriety and was so changed that the actions taken or words previously used would never be a choice I would make again in this new dimension.

It was the same for all my sponsees and Emma was no different. There are usually a few awkward, tricky ones left at the end. People who might be fellow addicts, still in and out of the madness. Old boyfriends with intense emotional memories who husbands would not like us reaching out to. Parents who were selfish, neglectful and narcissistic while running rampant in their own addictions. It’s not easy work.

So, it was no surprise to me not to hear from Emma, even though we needed to complete the 12th and final Step. The culmination of several years of trying to work together and sixteen months of continuous sobriety. It is very normal for people to feel they are safe and protected in their sobriety at this point. Sometimes deciding to give themselves a break and leave those last few amends, in the hope that they have done enough.

We are not the same after we have completed our Step 9’s. The alteration to our personalities is complete. We have made ourselves fully accountable for our actions. We have tackled all the awkward, uncomfortable conversations and felt all the feelings that we drank to avoid.

Are there any consequences to skipping a few? Probably. It is a program of rigorous honesty, after all.

This story is not about Step 9’s. There is A LOT more I could say about what a true amend is and why we make them. But there is no Step 12 without the other steps.

I wanted to give some examples of how our worlds bend to accommodate the work we are doing by bringing about the opportunities to be brave and thorough.

The goal is to reach, and to live in Step 12.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Steps – the 12th is as follows:

Step 12 – Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

We have made our way diligently through the previous 11 Steps and grasped the learning of the spiritual principles: Honesty, Hope, Faith, Courage, Integrity, Willingness, Humility, Love, Discipline, Perseverance, Awareness and finally Service.

When Emma finally called we established a time to read and complete Step 12.

I really do enjoy that women I work with pay off their debts, find success in their careers, build businesses, overcome fertility challenges, get married, have babies, find safe and harmonious relationships and most importantly, get to bed every night without a drink. Allowing them to be useful and effective in all areas of their lives.

I don’t know why there is a universal dragging of the feet at this point. I can only hypothesize that it is one of life and recovery’s paradoxes. Fear of failure and fear of success. It is at this point that we are wholly responsible for our own recovery and therefore, our own lives. The training wheels are off and we must maintain the momentum.

The adoption and assimilation of these principles, is the solution to the problem of alcohol and those created by its control and dominance over our lives. We have come to trust it completely. We have to live life out in our brave new real world a little before fully trusting ourselves.

In between our calls, Emma was given her first opportunity to live in the principle of Step 12. I just love this because, as with Step 9’s, we are now in a different energy where the hard stuff is made easier. We are getting divine nudges and most importantly, we are noticing them and acting upon them.

Hearing her story reminded me powerfully of my first sober Christmas. I was accepted by Crisis at Christmas to be an Art Leader for one of their London-based four-day open houses. Held at various University Campuses, three meals a day and a safe warm environment was provided for those who needed it the most. Activities for everyone, from sports to board games, reading nooks and hearty conversation. I met some of the most talented, intelligent, warm and fascinating humans I have ever encountered. Among the clients, not my colleagues.

I also signed up to support the AA and NA meetings onsite.

Following my first meeting, I made two friends. The two of them were already inseparable. They seemed to be somewhere between newly street homeless and low rent sofa surfing. I don’t know the correct language for discussing degrees of homelessness but we were told not to ask personal questions unless they offered up the information first.

They would invite me to their lunch table, stop and hug me when we bumped into each other and day after day our mutual affection seemed to grow. I was sad that when the event came to an end that I would never know how they made out in life. Would they stay sober? Would they survive out there? Would I ever encounter them again?

In the year that followed, I thought of my friends often. I looked closely at the many street homeless in London, eager to see their smiles again but hoping they had fallen on easier times. I prayed for them and wished them well.

One dark, cold Friday night I dragged myself out to my home group AA meeting in Hoxton. I hadn’t wanted to go. I knew I had to go.

Marching up Hoxton Street, two men bundled out of a kitchen door to a takeaway restaurant just in front of me. They turned to walk in my direction. My heart leapt in excitement. I had only been thinking of them that day. It was around the same time the previous year that I met them! Here they were, my friends. Sober, employed, together and happy. What a life! What a gift!

Emma had been enjoying her lunch in relative peace when she was approached by a homeless man. As an executive PA to an extraordinarily wealthy man she recounted the story with not a hint of horror or judgement. The story would have been told quite differently sixteen months ago but that was not the divine time for this encounter.

“Can I tell you something funny?” the homeless man asked Emma.

She agreed. Only slightly warily as he began to reach into his bag.

“I’ve just stolen two bottles of wine and look,” he said, pointing to the label. “They’re nonalcoholic!”

I cracked up at this point. I could see the irony. Feel his frustration and disappointment. What interested me in that moment was that he could also see the funny side. Humor is a sign of hope and optimism. I could see the emerging Step 12 moment. Maybe this was his first awakening.

Emma shared how their conversation progressed. Sat in the chilly sunshine of a Central London greenspace, they discussed alcoholism, sobriety and meetings. She told him how it had been for her not all that long ago and what she had done to get to this point.

He said he had tried some meetings and perhaps he would give them another go. Perhaps today was the sign he needed to try again.

Maybe their paths will cross again like mine did with my friends. Maybe they won’t.

I share this story to convey that once 11 steps have been completed, what happens at 12 is a guarantee. We are immediately given opportunities to live in the Spiritual Principle of Service.

I sponsor and mentor because I need to have a new experience with these things as an ongoing part of my process. I love to be surprised and delighted by all the ways that individuals are connected to their purpose simply by having done this work.

If anyone reading today is on this journey or considering it – it may mean the closing of a door or two but what’s on the other side will continuously surprise and delight you. As life should!

Putting down alcohol for good was only the first Step in connecting to myself in a world where everything seems designed to divide and disconnect.

One day at a time, one step at a time and just for today – absolutely anything is possible when coincidences no longer exist and life is lining up to show you just how loved and supported you are.

The nights draw in and the sky delights. From the top of the hill in Autignac, Herault. September 2024.