The 12 Steps - Back to Basics of Recovery
Step XI - How to Listen to God

Step XI:

“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.”

In order to enhance our connection with the “God-consciousness within,” we practice, on a daily basis, what many A.A. pioneers describe as two-way prayer. Prayer is asking the God of our understanding for Divine guidance, and meditation is listening for the answers that produce the “power, peace, happiness, and sense of direction” promised by the “Big Book” authors. Since it is the “One who has all power” that removes our obsession to drink (or use), it is crucial to learn, as quickly as possible, how to listen to this Power.

Listening to the Power–the Indwelling Spirit–is an integral part of the recovery process. In Steps One, Two and Three, we commit to seeking a spiritual solution to our difficulties. This solution is a “Power greater than ourselves” that resides inside each and every one of us. In Steps Five through Ten, we remove the blocks that prevent us from listening to the Power. In Step Eleven, we follow the Divine guidance we receive from the Power, and in Step Twelve we let the Power guide us as we work with others.

By taking the Steps we learn how to distinguishing that which is of God from that which is not. In Steps Four, Ten and Eleven, the “Big Book” authors provide us with a test we can use to separate the “voice of recovery” (God’s will) from the “voice of addiction” (self-will). The “voice of recovery” has to do with unselfishness, honesty, purity and love, whereas the “voice of addiction” is all about “selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear.” So, what recovery comes down to is, “Which voice are we listening to?”

James H., an A.A. pioneer who passed away two years ago at one hundred years of age and seventy-one years sober, used to talk about the importance of listening as it pertained to relapse. He would say, “If a person relapses, the question for him or her to answer isn’t, ‘When did you stop going to meetings?” The question to answer is, ‘When did you stop listening to God?’ ” The point he was trying to make was, for people in recovery, relapse is not part of God’s plan. It is the “voice of addiction” that deceives us into “going out.”

When we look in the “Big Book” for passages about listening to or asking for Divine guidance, we find there are more than twenty of them. The entire list can be found on the www.aabacktobasics.org website. Here are just a couple of them.

In the second paragraph on page 70, the “Big Book” authors tell us we are to ask for guidance when we pray:

We earnestly pray for the right ideal, for GUIDANCE in each questionable situation, for sanity, and for the strength to do the right thing.

In the second paragraph on page 85, they inform us that we become “God conscious” when we follow guidance:

Much has already been said about receiving strength, inspiration, and DIRECTION (GUIDANCE) from Him who has all knowledge and power. If we have carefully followed DIRECTIONS (GUID-ANCE), we have begun to sense the flow of His Spirit into us. To some extent we have become God-conscious. We have begun to develop this vital sixth sense.

In the late 1930’s, a personal friend of Dr. Bob’s wrote a short essay titled, “How to Listen to God.” It is the one of the clearest set of instructions written on how to practice the meditation part of the Eleventh Step.

The author opens with several life-changing statements:

These are a few simple suggestions for people who are willing to make an experiment. You can discover for yourself the most important and practical thing any human being can ever learn—how to be in touch with God.

All that is needed is the willingness to try it honestly. Every person who has done this consistently and sincerely has found that it really works.

Then, the author provides us with guidelines for conducting a morning meditation. They are:

1. Be quiet and still,
2. Listen,
3. (Write down the thoughts and images) that come,
4. Test the thoughts (and images) to be sure they come from God,
5. Obey.

This pamphlet, along with a modified version titled, “Listening to the Indwelling Spirit,” can be found on the www.aabacktobasics.org website.

Next session we will learn more about prayer and meditation as described on pages 85-88 of the “Big Book.”