What Are The Principles We’re Supposed To Practice? – Practice These Principles By Ray A.

I found this article very helpful in exploring this question of what are the principles that the 12th step suggests we need to practice in all our affairs. There are many versions of different answers to this question that you can find with a google search. For me , I found Ray A’s approach more comprehensive and clear than what I had heard before. He breaks principles down into two categories .. virtues and disciplines. He identifies the following as what he would describe as the key virtues we should practice : honesty, humility, acceptance, courage, faith, forgiveness, gratitude, hope, joy, kindness, love, open-mindedness, serenity, simplicity, tolerance, willingness and wisdom. But what further stood out for me was his identification of some foundational disciplines that allow us to empower and embody these virtues. Here is his list of these disciplines: surrender, self-examination, confession, restitution, prayer, meditation, service, witness, and fellowship. I hope you find this article enlightening and helpful in your own practice of these principles in all your affairs. – Bruce M.

Steps vs. Principles

If we are going to “practice these principles in all our affairs,” which we reiterate is the loftiest goal of the 12 Steps and our highest aspiration—indeed AA’s prescription for the good life—we need to know what this part of Step 12 is calling us to do.

There is a functional relationship between Steps and principles such that these terms cannot properly be considered identical or interchangeable. Admitting powerlessness, taking inventory, admitting our wrongs, making amends, carrying the message—these acts are not principles in and of themselves. Rather, the principles lie at the root of these acts, informing, motivating, and directing them. The acts are predicated and follow upon these underlying principles. What the Steps do is embody the principles. The Steps are guides to action, and the action is based on certain animating principles embedded in the steps.

Many of us are left with a general and vague impression of the principles and their association with the Steps. This may suffice for early sobriety, but it produces diminishing returns as time goes on and we are faced with the need to grow in emotional sobriety and apply those principles beyond our drinking to issues affecting the ordinary course of our lives. Over the long haul—and it is a long haul—how well we work the Steps depends on how well we practice the principles inherent in them. To work a Step fully is to practice all of the principles it embodies. To practice these principles in all our affairs is to practice all of the principles in all of the Steps.

What are principles?

“Principle” derives from a Latin word meaning “first” and denotes a basic truth, law, rule, or standard that forms the foundation on which other things are built or which governs their operation. Principles are first things, that which comes before, that on which other things rest. Principles are objective, permanent, and universal. They come first, before other things, not just because of sequential, order-of-importance considerations, but because they are foundational. They order not just transient activity but life foundations.

That there is an order to life and that there are principles governing that order are ideas largely foreign to the mind of the active alcoholic. Chaos marked our lives. We lived in reaction to instincts, feelings, desires, obsessions, compulsions, and impulses—all ignited and fueled by self-will.

What is the nature of these principles, which work where everything else failed? The Foreword to the 12& 12 is explicit: the 12 Steps are a set of principles “spiritual in their nature” (p. 15). This claim, that the principles of the program are fundamentally spiritual, is repeated and sustained throughout the Big Book and the 12& 12. Yet it is not readily apparent why this is so. This gives some of us reason, particularly if we have trouble with the spiritual part of the program, to look for an alternative.

First, these principles have a spiritual purpose: to lead us to a spiritual awakening, to lay our spirit open to a relationship with God as the Power who can restore us to sanity. Second, they have a spiritual application: they represent practical expressions of God’s will for how we are to live a life of sobriety in all its dimensions, as it affects our character, our emotions, and all our God-given faculties. Third, these principles are guides to continued spiritual progress; they give us direction as we grow along spiritual lines in our relationship with God and our fellows. Fourth, these principles cannot be practiced on our own power, but by the power of God granted through grace. It is the Spirit of God, working within our spirit, who enables us to live these principles out in the real world.

Principles as disciplines and virtues

Taking a closer look at the principles now, we will see that they can be classified into two broad, predominant groups. In the Western or Judeo-Christian spiritual tradition, these have come to be known as disciplines and virtues. Together, they comprise principles of the spiritual life governing our relationship with God, and principles of the moral life governing our relationship with our fellows. We can look at the virtues as the goals or ends, the spiritual qualities, character traits, and mental and emotional dispositions we aspire to attain; at the disciplines as the means through which we strive toward them.

Many of us prefer generalization, vagueness, and imprecision when it comes to the Steps, the principles, and how AA works. We see this as safeguarding our individuality and leaving us free to choose how to work the program. The more generic or malleable a term, the more we can give it our own personal meaning. AA bends over backwards to accommodate us, even as it pointedly declares that the main purpose of the Big Book is “To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered”.

Disciplines and virtues are concepts that have developed over the course of more than two millennia within a variety of secular and religious traditions as people have tried to understand the principles underlying human behavior, thought, and emotion, and to apply that understanding to the question of what constitutes a good life and how to pursue it.”

What are the disciplines used in AA?

Looking first at what is meant by a discipline, we will find that the term comes from a Latin word from which we get our word disciple, meaning a pupil or student, that is, one who follows or adheres to a given set of teachings or course of learning or training. Attaining mastery or excellence in any field of endeavor requires following a particular discipline, a set of methods, exercises, or practices peculiar to that field. Recovery in AA is no different. It too has its own set of disciplines. These disciplines apply to two fundamental aspects of our lives: the spiritual and the moral, that is, our relationship with God and our relationship with others.

The disciplines form the backbone of the 12 Steps. In AA these consist of surrender, self-examination, confession, restitution, prayer, meditation, service, witness, and fellowship. All of these are of course ancient religious or spiritual practices, though their names and how they are understood and applied may vary from one tradition to another.

Surrender is the foundational discipline. This is so in two ways. First, it is the core discipline of the first three Steps (often called the “surrender Steps”), which lay the foundation for the other nine. Second, it is the discipline at the root of each of the other disciplines. We will find that without surrender, no other discipline can be fully practiced and no Step fully worked. Rebellion blocks our way at every turn. Surrender is the requisite spiritual discipline, the discipline that opens the door to a right relationship with God, which in turn makes a right relationship with neighbor possible. Thus our journey through the Steps and the disciplines is first and foremost a continuing and deepening process of self-surrender.

The first step in surrender is our admission of powerlessness to control our drinking and manage our lives. At first, this admission doesn’t rise to the level of a discipline, which is inherently a product of choice. Instead, it is forced on us by circumstance. But as we continue in recovery, our admission of powerlessness begins to transcend our problem with alcohol and extends to all our affairs. It is then that we start to practice surrender as a discipline and Step 1 becomes, at all times and in all situations, the first and indispensable Step. In Step 2 we continue to yield power and control by surrendering unbelief, which separates us from the greater Power who can restore us to sanity. In Step 3 we make a decision to surrender all to God, our will and our very lives.

The other disciplines grow out of and in their own distinctive ways continue this process of surrender. They become operational through one or more specific Steps. Self-examination (self-appraisal, self-survey, self-searching) is the discipline we practice when we make an inventory of ourselves in Step 4 and draw a list of character defects and of persons we have harmed; when in Step 6 we review our list of defects and prepare ourselves to have them removed; when in Step 8 we build on the list of those we have hurt, and preparing to make restitution, consider more closely the actual harm we did and the defects in us that caused it; and when in Step 10 we repeat the whole process as we continue to take inventory. We engage in confession when we admit the exact nature of our wrongs in Step 5, when we acknowledge to others in Step 9 the harm we caused them when we drank, and when, having fallen again into wrongdoing in sobriety, we promptly admit it in Step 10 to God, to ourselves, and to the person we hurt. Confession simply means to admit (in the original Latin) and is synonymous with acknowledging or disclosing our wrongs.

Besides confession, Steps 9 and 10 also involve the discipline of restitution, so that we seek not only to admit but also to amend, giving back or restoring what we have taken from others (things tangible and intangible) and repairing our relations with them in acts of reconciliation.

Prayer as a discipline is the business of Step 3, where we offer ourselves to God; of Step 7, where we ask for the removal of our shortcomings; and of Step 11, where we petition for the knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to do it. But we may work prayer into other Steps as well. There will be times when we will ask God to help us accept our powerlessness in Step 1, to help us come to believe in 2, to help us become willing in 3. When prayer guides our self-examination in Step 4, it is more likely to be searching and fearless, for it is conscious contact with God that makes inventory-taking a spiritual practice and not just an intellectual exercise in self-analysis or a morbid introspection driven by guilt. The same applies to confession in Steps 5, 9, and 10, where prayer can help us let go of fear so we can be totally straightforward in our admission of wrongs. In restitution, making it a habit to pray—for ourselves and for the person we are making amends to—can enhance our efforts at healing wounds and division.

As with prayer, conscious contact through reflection, contemplation, or meditation can help us get in the proper spiritual frame of mind so that we can look at our shortcomings, the harm we have done, and the restitutions that we need to make free from fear, anger, resentment, and other emotional obstacles that arise when we try to operate without God’s guidance.

Service is the discipline we practice in Step 12, where we give freely of ourselves. We share the message of recovery with other alcoholics, and through our conduct in all our affairs, we bear witness to the power of God’s love to change lives, helping to bring healing and hope to non-alcoholics as well. As this suggests, there are two other disciplines closely allied with service in this Step, and we think it useful to distinguish them. These are the disciplines of witness and fellowship. Service is a broad category in AA, and witness is generally subsumed under it. There is logic to this, for as a spiritual principle we can view service as what we do for others for God’s sake, because of what he has done for us in restoring us to sanity, and in this sense it does include witness. But witness has its own distinct characteristics as a discipline. In its essence, witness (Old English for personal knowledge) is primarily concerned with testifying to the truth of something, providing evidence or proof that something is in fact the case. This is what we do when we carry the message by sharing, whether through the spoken or the written word. It is also what we do when we carry the message by example, by applying the principles to the way we live.

We practice the discipline of fellowship when we come together as a group to share. Such sharing of course commonly involves witnessing and may also involve service if, let us say, we are leading or qualifying at the meeting. But fellowship as a discipline aims at more than giving our testimony or volunteering to help. Its goal is to help build a certain kind of relationship among the members of the group, a spiritual kinship or friendship, we might say. In building this relationship another discipline, already linked to Steps 5, 9, and 10 comes into play, and this is the discipline of confession. We share our weaknesses or shortcomings and our hopes for healing and growth, and as others identify and share in the same spirit, our fellowship deepens. It is in these moments of candid confession, often punctuated by undisguised pain, that many of us sense the presence of God in the rooms of AA.

These various practices exhibit all the characteristics of a discipline outlined earlier. As disciplines, they account for the fact that none of the Steps of AA is a one-time or a one-issue proposition, meant to be taken only once or just occasionally or haphazardly. The disciplines that lie behind them are intended to be practiced regularly and applied to all aspects of our lives with purpose and commitment.

“In the process of our doing so, the Steps gradually become less of a tall order, and in time the disciplines grow into spiritual habits, a progressively natural way of life. We surrender and yield with greater ease and grace. We examine our conscience daily and are quick to admit wrongs and make amends. We seek conscious contact and God’s will consistently, taking to our knees morning and night in prayer and meditation and reconnecting at regular intervals during the course of the day. We give of ourselves and share freely. We engage with others and participate with pleasure in the things that bring us together for the common good.

The Virtues

But the disciplines will not accomplish these things on their own. The disciplines are means or channels. They are the agency through which we practice the second set of principles embedded in the Steps. These are the virtues.

Like principles and Steps, disciplines and virtues are also sometimes conflated in AA. This results in part from the fact that the practice of a virtue requires discipline in the sense of consistent and repeated effort. More generally, the confusion stems from the fact that disciplines and virtues are closely connected and interdependent. They share common ends. Both are ordered to our relationship with God and neighbor. Both seek to further a spiritual transformation that brings about a change in character and in emotional and behavioral patterns.

But while the disciplines aim to effect this change, we might say, indirectly, through the practice of certain acts (self-examination, confession, restitution) that remain external to us, the virtues aim to do so directly, through the practice of certain acts that ingrain specific inner qualities in us to which the acts correspond and of which they are the outward expression.

Examining, admitting, and making amends for our wrongs are activities that require certain inner qualities in us if we are to carry them out to good purpose and maximum effect. When driven by these qualities, repeated practice of the activities has the effect of etching the qualities deep into the self so that, over time, they become the kinds of interior habits we call character traits.

While complementary, then, disciplines and virtues are not equivalent. Disciplines are activities, virtues their motivating traits. Disciplines involve external acts, virtues include internal qualities. Disciplines are what we do, virtues how we do them.

Virtues are interior habits or traits of character, and in recovery we acquire them in the process of practicing them within the framework of the disciplines. We practice the virtues that they may take root in us, that they may become an ingrained and integral part of our character, disposing us to think, to feel, and to act in certain ways.

It may help our discussion at this point if we look at a list of the principal virtues that are named in the two basic texts of AA. In alphabetical order, these are acceptance, compassion, consideration, courage, courtesy, discretion, faith, forgiveness, fortitude, frankness, generosity, gentleness, gratitude, harmony, honesty, hope, humility, integrity, joy, justice, kindness, love, mercy, moderation, modesty, open-mindedness, patience, peace, perseverance, prudence, responsibility, restraint, serenity, simplicity, sincerity, tactfulness, temperance, tolerance, trust, understanding, willingness, and wisdom.

These virtues are variously embedded in different Steps. Those in boldface are the ones that will ring a bell with most of us. We may easily link many of them with specific Steps. We may associate humility with Steps 1 and 7; open-mindedness and hope with Step 2; willingness, acceptance, serenity, courage, and wisdom with Step 3. Faith we may connect with Steps 2, 3, 6, 7, and 11; forgiveness with Steps 8, 9, and 10. And we may associate honesty, one of the most frequently mentioned virtues in the program, with several Steps, including Steps 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10. Gratitude, joy, and love we may link with Step 12.

Connecting the virtues to the disciplines that are also embedded in those Steps may not be as easy, but it isn’t hard to see that surrender calls for humility; self-examination, confession, and restitution for honesty; and prayer for faith. The disciplines and the virtues are respectively the “what” and the “how” of the Steps. This is reflected in a familiar acronym that stands for three of the virtues on our list, virtues generally considered indispensable for recovery: Honesty, Open-mindedness, Willingness (HOW). If we don’t have these three even in their most rudimentary form, our chances of getting sober are practically nil. If we don’t grow in these and the rest of the virtues, our chances for emotional sobriety are similarly negligible.

When we specify that honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness are principles, we are saying that they are more than just qualities, or whatever other label we may conventionally attach to them. We are saying that they are first things, things that form the foundation of the program of recovery and govern the operation of the actions we take through the Steps. The Steps rest on these principles and will not properly work without them. When we further define those three principles as virtues, we are also talking about more than qualities, values, strengths, or assets, even though they are all of these things. We are talking about interior habits of mind and heart, about character traits that are essential to the practice of the disciplines, which in turn facilitate their acquisition by providing a spiritual framework for their consistent practice. The disciplines depend on the virtues and will not bear fruit without them.

Without growing in the virtue of honesty beyond the minimum required to admit that we are powerless over alcohol, we cannot make progress in our practice of the discipline of self-examination in Step 4, confession in Step 5, or restitution in Steps 9 and 10. And without such growth and progress, we cannot continue to change and achieve full sobriety. The virtues make it possible for us to continue to grow along spiritual lines toward full sobriety because they shape how we think and feel and therefore how we act. They give form both to our character and to our emotions.