Episode 7 -- May 12, 2020

Working Step 10: Paying Attention to Our Emotions

Whether we've been working the Twelve Steps for a while, or are new to them, we're experiencing a time like no other during this global pandemic. We're finding new ways to maintain our recovery, so we don't destroy all that we've worked so hard to build. We don't have to do it alone. Here are some thoughts from Fred H. about emotions and Step 10 in Drop the Rock--The Ripple Effect. It has been edited for brevity.

Promises, Directions, and Warnings
The Big Book provides us with specific directions for working Step Ten, as well as some clear promises and warnings. When we follow its directions, we live into the promises. When we don't, we live into the warnings.

On pages 84 and 85, the Big Book promises us eight outcomes, which I've numbered here as a list.

1. And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone--even alcohol (or any other addiction).
2. For by this time sanity will have returned.
3. We will seldom be interested in liquor [or whatever substance or activity fueled our addiction].
4. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame.
5. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor [or any other addictive substance or activity] has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it.
6. We're not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality--safe and protected. We have not even sworn off.
7. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us.
8. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid.

The Big Book goes on to tell us that all this becomes the reality of our life, "...so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition."

How do we stay in fit spiritual condition? By living according to these clear directions (page 85): "Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities." Instead of constantly asking What do I want? as we did when we lived in the grip of self-centeredness, we ask, " 'How can I best serve Thee--Thy will (not mine) be done.' These are the thoughts that must go with us constantly. We can exercise our will power along this line all we wish. It is the proper use of the will."

The Big Book has just warned us that because we now live in the world of the Spirit: "It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve, contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition."

And that's true not only for alcoholism, but for any addiction, including our addiction to self-centeredness. Self-reliance, self-sacrifice, and other forms of self-centeredness are also subtle foes. Because they can creep in in exactly the same way, we need a daily reprieve from these as well. Step Ten is the ongoing practice that, day by day and moment by moment, prepares us for that reprieve. As the Big Book reminds us on page 83, "The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it."

Step Ten and Now
When we did our first moral inventory in Step Four, we looked at how we had harmed others--days, weeks, months, years, and perhaps even decades ago. Then, in Step Nine, we made amends to as many of those people as we could. We cleaned up a great many old messes.

Now, as we work Step Ten, we don't have to spend so much time cleaning up past messes. As a result, we are able to focus on the present instead of the past.

Focusing on the present means being fully engaged, here and now. We're not regretting or reliving the past, or anticipating or worrying about the future. We're fully here. This allows us to more clearly see and feel and realize what's going on. We become able to spontaneously work Steps Four through Nine on the fly. Step Ten is Steps Four through Nine, wrapped into a continuous activity.

In working Step Ten, we steadily build the habit of doing Steps Four through Nine whenever circumstances require it of us. We no longer work the Steps as a careful, highly deliberate performance. We practice them as on ongoing improvisation on the theme of Thy will be done. Eventually, Step Ten becomes a practice, one day at a time, one breath at a time, and one moment at a time.

Observing Our Emotional Selves
Our emotions offer us a continuous opportunity to know if what we're doing, thinking, or planning is sustainable or unsustainable. They give us immediate and constant feedback about how we're using our free will--or how we're about to use it.

Our emotions are also very reliable indicators of when we need to practice Step Ten. Whenever an unsustainable emotion arises, and stays with us more than briefly, that's a sign that Step Ten is called for.

As we practice paying attention to our emotions day by day, we get a very accurate measure of what's working in our life--and what's not.

In Step Ten, as we continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear, we learn to become better observers of ourselves. With practice, we get better and better at these directions:

1. Noticing any harm we create as soon as we create it¿and making amends as soon as possible.
2. Recognizing unsustainable thoughts, emotions, and impulses when they first appear.
3. Noticing ever smaller and more subtle manifestations of those emotions, thoughts, and impulses.
4. Intuiting the probable outcome of embracing or following each one.
5. Restraining ourselves from doing harm to ourselves and others.
6. Asking our Higher Power to remove whatever shortcomings and character defects we observe--and to give us guidance for what to do next.
7. Acting out of the best parts of ourselves--with the guidance of our spiritual direction¿instead of from our self-direction.

In working Step Ten, we apply our free will by choosing which thoughts, impulses, and emotions to act on and which ones to let go. We quickly let go of unpleasant and unsustainable emotions as if they were a hot flame. We also recognize that certain pleasurable emotions--self-congratulation, excessive pride, superiority, and their counterparts--as just as unsustainable as jealousy, rage, resentment, or self-pity.

As a result, as we work Step Ten, our transgressions become less frequent. When we do fall prey to the subtle foe of self-interest, we generally create smaller crises and less damaging situations--and we usually learn something important from them. We still make blunders--perhaps even a major one¿now and then, but we know how to handle it when we do.

About the author:
Fred H. has worked in the field of addiction and recovery for thirty-seven years and is the director of the retreat center for a leading addiction treatment program. He is a popular international speaker on the Big Book and the principles of the Twelve Steps.

© 2016 by Fred H.
All rights reserved.