“My sponsor told me to put my keys under the bed before going to sleep, and then in the morning when I’m down on my knees getting them to say a prayer to God to keep me away from a drink today.”
After hearing this story repeated numerous times in meetings, I began to wonder why I never seemed to hear more detailed stories of prayer in Step meetings or speaker or discussion meetings. “We shouldn’t be shy on this matter of prayer,” the Big Book says – but it seemed that perhaps we were.
Fifth Step Story
While wondering about this, I was sitting in a Grapevine meeting where the article read was on the Fifth Step. The sharing had begun when one of our newer members arrived a bit late. He stuck his hand up right away, and said, “I can’t believe the meeting is on the Fifth Step! I just finished doing mine with my sponsor – that’s why I was late.” And then he went on to tell of the experience of sharing the details of his life with someone else, and the sense of freedom he felt in having gotten out from under a heavy burden of shame and that “terminal uniqueness” we sometimes speak of. He did not tell us about the details of his Fifth Step – just of the experience itself of having done his Fifth Step and the beneficial effect it had on him.
Why not the same for the Eleventh Step?
Our new member’s sharing became my model for sharing on prayer. Why can’t we share in detail at a meeting of the experience we have in prayer – sharing more than just having gotten down on our knees to get our keys from under the bed? What if our new member had just returned from a weekend prayer retreat, or a church prayer service, or a Third Step prayer session with his sponsor and our Grapevine meeting had been on the Eleventh Step? Could he have shared at the same level of detail about his Eleventh Step experience as he had about his Fifth Step experience?
“Knowledge and Experience”
Prayer in the West is “hard-wired” to doctrine and dogma – so it is difficult for us to language experience in prayer without getting theology involved. And as soon as that happens, we have left the Eleventh Step behind, and are sure to offend someone in the meeting. But the Twelve and Twelve says that our spiritual experiences in sobriety are “matters of knowledge and experience.” There’s the key! If we can find language to speak of this knowledge and experience had in prayer – rather than the faith and belief – it seems we then have a good Eleventh Step story for the meeting.
Wishing you all the best in recovery,
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