I posted this on our AA forum, we get some different traffic in here so I thought I would repost a recap

The Book Alcoholics Anonymous is a textbook about how to "manually" create a personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from Alcoholism, it is about how to remove the problem, not fight it, it about having a fundamental change in our reaction to life, not "relapse prevention"

How does this work you ask

The Steps, which lead in time to "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps:, which are as follows:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.

Show up at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, raise your hand, state your name followed by "I am an alcoholic" congratulations, you have taken step one, none of us flew in on the wings of victory, if a power greater then yourself, such as your wife or parole officer sent you to a meeting, please rethink that bit about where you are managing your own life, in step two and the subsequent steps, we learn how to make something different our higher power, that alcohol and the consequences thereof are no longer a power greater then ourselves that is managing our life.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

came (to a meeting)
came to (brain cleared)
came to believe (that a power greater then myself, such as a higher power, God or the group in AA could restore me to sanity by working the steps. However, we are only restored to sanity if we actually do the work, just like going to a synagogue doesn't make me jewish, going to meetings don't make me sane, there are actions I need to take in order to be restored to sanity or convert to judaism, sitting there wishing won't cure my diabetes, or my alcoholism, it takes action.)

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

That's a big one, thankfully step 3 is broken down into bite sized pieces and we are shown how to actually turn our and will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God.

They are called steps 4-12, those are what align my will with Gods will, and how I learn to actually turn my will and life over to the care of God as I understand God, trying to think our way through 3, or analyze our way through any of the steps much less step 3 is about the same as trying to use self will to stop or analyze diarhea

the decision we make is to work the steps to show us how to actually do turn our will and our lives over to the CARE of a loving God of our own understanding, or higher power, or if you prefer an extremely benevolant light bulb, whatever floats yer boat.

The action we take to do step 3 is actually putting pen to paper and starting on the program of action outlined in step 4-12, this is a program of action, not a program of analyzing, if any of us could think ourselves sober there wouldn't be an AA, we take the steps which lead to an experience which changes our reaction to the world around us, steps 10, 11, and 12 ensure that we allow this experience to continue and deepen and remain ongoing.

All three steps can take anywhere from 10 minutes to about 3-4 hours each if we go over the book, read it, and take each step as we come to it, or in 3 weeks in two to three hour meetings each week, personally I have found going over each chapter and turning the statements into questions the most effective, asking myself if these statements are true about me in The Doctors Opinion, and More about Alcoholism, seeing if I can relate to Bill's story

These steps and all the following steps just take action not analyzing

trying to keep myself sober on steps 1, 2 and 3 is like trying to stop self will using self will, or using a pressure washer to push water off a porch, the more water you push off, the more water is left behind, so although you think you are seeing results with all the water pouring off, the truth is you are, in a short time, worse off then before and everything is soaked.

It really is amazingly simple

Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas:

(a) That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives.

(b) That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.

(c) That God could and would if He were sought.

Every part of the book up to page 60 leading to the the three pertinant ideas can be highlighted to illustrate A, B or C, everything following Page 60 is "The Solution"

Being convinced, we were at Step Three, which is that we decided to turn our will and our life over to God as we understood Him. Just what do we mean by that, and just what do we do?

The next five paragraphs explain "just what do we mean by that"

The following four paragraphs until the word "Next" (and after of course) cover "just what do we do" specifically, word for word verbatim instructions

and then it says:

Next we launched out on a course of vigorous action, the first step of which is a personal housecleaning, which many of us had never attempted. Though our decision was vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent effect unless ***at once*** followed by a strenuous effort to face, and to be rid of, the things in ourselves which had been blocking us.

Our liquor was but a symptom.

So we had to get down to causes and conditions.

Blocking us from what? Isn't this about not drinking? Where is my relapse prevention? What do they mean liquor is but "a symptom"?

Blocking us from "God as we understand him"

Drinking aint our problem drinking is a symptom of an inability to fit in with life, we feel wrong unless we drink, we have something wrong with our spirit, we have a spiritual sickness, that is why any program solely based on protecting and shielding the alcoholic from temptation is doomed to failure

You can't protect an alcoholic from himself, and the alcoholic is fundamentally insane, so he can't protect himself, all the phone calls, tips and tricks, and slogans in the world won't get between this man and his first drink.

So what do we do?

Therefore, we started upon a personal inventory. This was Step Four.

So what the steps are there to do are unblock you from your higher power, which remember:

(c) That God could and would (relieve our alcoholism) if He were sought.

and the key?

Sometimes we had to search fearlessly, but He was there. He was as much a fact as we were. We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis, it is only there that He may be found. It was so with us.

OK, That bears repeating:

Sometimes we had to search fearlessly, but -it- was there. -it- was as much a fact as we were. We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis, it is only there that -it- may be found. It was so with us.

The answers lie within, we just have to access it

So the steps 4-12 are there to remove what is blocking you from God, or in another words, as the Buddhists call it, your inner self, or true self, and it can only be found from within

That's it, that is the whole deal

remove the stuff that had been blocking you from God as you understand God or your Inner self

These are the "causes and conditions" we must get to the root of, we do that we don't need all that relapse prevention fear based tips and tricks and meetings every day stuff

This is why it says in step 10

We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us

For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality safe and protected.

It aint about relapse prevention, slogans and tips and tricks, or what kind of day you had or who you called, or didn't call that is all training wheels and bullshit and short term tools, it's the duct tape and bailing wire of the recovery world, some people can stay sober with duct tape and bailing wire, it don't snap, most don't, it's about uncovering our original operating system that is underlying all our bullshit and effectively remapping our brain, because when our minds open up their mouth to talk to us, it's lying, that little voice in our heads is our ego, and with alcoholics, our egos are hardwired into our illness, that's why every step is about ego deflation and smashing the ego, not smashing the beautiful person underneath, the child of God, but the ego, and when the ego is smashed the child of God can emerge, or the true self, or whatever, but it's the ego that has to go, it's trying, successfully in most our cases, to kill us.

This is why you hear people sharing about trying to get out of their own way, they know it's their own thinking is what is blocking them from God, their own thinking is what is trying to kill them and to keep them sick.

This is why the entire program can be summed up in

Trust God
Clean House
Help others

or

Love
and
Service