By Steve K and John S. Listen to the podcast: This week’s podcast features an interview with Steve K. who discusses his book, The 12 Step Philosophy of Alcoholics Anonymous: An Interpretation by Steve K. Inspired by Aristotle’s “Virtue Ethics,” Stoic philosophy and the liberal principles embedded in AA history; Steve interprets the Steps from a humanistic […]
By Steve K. My reply to this question is that it can be for some of us in recovery. Specifically, those of us who have experienced high levels of shaming (rejection, neglect, and emotional or physical/sexual abuse) in the developmental years of childhood and adolescence. During my own upbringing, I experienced a lot of anger, […]
By Lisa Martinovic In battling addiction, neuroscience offers a complementary and alternative approach to twelve-step programs. Cutting-edge 21st century neuroscience and a certain Depression era, Christian-based self-help fellowship might make strange bedfellows, but they have one thing in common: when it comes to the treatment of addiction, both rely on the brain’s innate capacity for […]
By Steve K. Members of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) quite often state that the Twelve-Step program is “Spiritual, rather than religious”. I think this distinction is based upon one’s definition of the two terms. Some people understand the terms as more or less synonymous, but within AA, they are generally understood to mean different things. The […]
By Galen T. Many of us are familiar with the events that brought AA’s two founders together for the first time. On May 11th of 1935 Bill found himself pacing back and forth in the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel in Akron, OH. At one end of the lobby was a bar and at the […]
By Steve K. In the book Alcoholics Anonymous, it suggests that resentment is the number one manifestation of self/ego. “Being convinced that self, manifested in various ways, was what had defeated us, we considered its common manifestations. Resentment is the “number one” offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else.” p.64. The book goes on to […]
By Steve K. In a spiritual sense, it’s often suggested that love is the opposite of fear. When considering the characteristics of these two states of being, I can see the truth in this point of view. However, I would suggest that this viewpoint relates to unhealthy or neurotic fear, rather than ‘in-the-moment’ instinctual fear, […]
By Steve K. I’ve never been a fan of suffering during my life. I’m ashamed to say that I have a track record of trying to avoid it as much as possible, and would suggest that this fear based tendency is a key factor in my history of substance, as well as other types of […]
By Steve K. As an agnostic member of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), I have a tendency to question or rationalize so called ‘spiritual experiences’. However, this year I have experienced three ‘synchronicities’ that I find difficult to relate to in any other way. The most recent being a powerful experience which moved me greatly and relates […]
By Steve K. In the context of Twelve Step recovery, there is the concept of ‘having had a spiritual awakening as the result of practicing the 12 Steps.’ (1) The American psychologist and philosopher William James suggests that this awakening is often an educational process. (2) My experience of this process over 25 years in […]
By Paul Henry (aka AlcoholicsGuide). Here I cite and use excerpts from an interesting article by Kathy Brous (1) that suggests addiction is the consequence of insecure attachment to our caregivers in early childhood and that as the result addicts often learn to consume substances, or behave in certain “rewarding” ways such as gambling, hypersexual activity etc to […]
By Steve K. “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practise these principles in all our affairs.” Step Twelve – Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). The following description of AA’s Step Twelve is based mainly upon my own personal experience of practicing Twelve […]
By Steve K. In the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) book, The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, the source of human emotional difficulties is identified as the result of instinctual excesses; specifically, the basic needs for emotional and material security, social approval and acceptance, and the need for sex. “Yet these instincts . . . often far […]
By Steve K. Anyone who’s been a member of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) for a significant amount of time will have heard the saying “it’s men for men, and women for women” stated in the rooms. It’s often asserted as some sort of AA law or rule, by well-meaning members of the Fellowship. However, according to […]
By Marya Hornbacher. The practice of acceptance isn’t something that comes easily to very many of us. I think it’s in the nature of the human – at least many humans – to think that we can control virtually everything, and that belief leads to a constant fight against the fact that we can’t. The […]
By Glenn Chesnut, Professor Emeritus of Ancient History, Indiana University. In terms of the ancient background of the Serenity Prayer, the distinction between “the things we do not have the power to change” and “the things we do have the power to change” is a fundamental and central part of ancient Greco-Roman Stoic philosophy. In […]
By Steve K. I heard this unthinking platitude at an AA meeting recently: “you can’t think your way into right acting – you must act your way into right thinking.” A bias toward the behavioural relationship to thoughts and feelings, and a dismissal of the cognitive influence in this respect. Err…someone needs to inform scientists, philosophers, psychologists (particularly Cognitive […]
12-STEP PHILOSOPHY 