Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Step Twelve

"Having had a spiritual awakening as the result
of these steps, we tried to carry this message to
alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all
our affairs."

THE joy of living is the theme of A.A.'s Twelfth Step, and
action is its key word. Here we turn outward toward our fel-
low alcoholics who are still in distress. Here we experience the
kind of giving that asks no rewards. Here we begin to practice
all Twelve Steps of the program in our daily lives so that we
and those about us may find emotional sobriety. When the
Twelfth Step is seen in its full implication, it is really talking
about the kind of love that has no price tag on it.

Our Twelfth Step also says that as a result of practic-
ing all the Steps, we have each found something called a
spiritual awakening. To new A.A.'s, this often seems like
a very dubious and improbable state of affairs. "What do
you mean when you talk about a ‘spiritual awakening'?"
they ask.

Maybe there are as many definitions of spiritual awak-
ening as there are people who have had them. But certainly
each genuine one has something in common with all the
others. And these things which they have in common are
not too hard to understand. When a man or a woman has
a spiritual awakening, the most important meaning of it is
that he has now become able to do, feel, and believe that