Step Twelve – An Unexpected Emphasis

Posted on November 18, 2025, tagged as

Step Twelve – An Unexpected Emphasis

There are some surprising things that are both found and not found in the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. For one thing, there is very little to be found about drinking, or more importantly, not drinking in the steps themselves. What strikes me as of particular interest is what the Twelfth Step both says and what it does not say. I wrote about this in my book, The Twelve Step Pathway: A Heroic Journey of Recovery.

“What strikes me as the most remarkable of all the words and ideas expressed in the Big Book is what the Twelfth Step does not say. The Twelfth Step does not say, ‘Having stayed sober as the result of these steps.’ One could have expected exactly that. Instead, it says, ‘Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps.’ The word the is used, as though a spiritual awakening was the singular purpose of the journey. It is not ‘having had a spiritual awakening as a result, among many results, of these steps.’ No, it is that the result of these steps is a spiritual awakening.”

This raises two important questions which I will briefly address here. 1) What is a spiritual awakening? 2) Why is a spiritual awakening so important to recovery from alcoholism? 

There are many good definitions of a spiritual awakening, and I will offer one here. A spiritual awakening is the realization that there is a sense of purpose to one’s life beyond that of survival and devotion to the accumulation of things. It is an awareness that can occur suddenly or develop over a considerable period of time. Frequently it is accompanied by an awareness of the existence of a higher power that has a positive influence on one’s life, and in life in general. This higher power is often experienced as love. 

Such a spiritual awakening is important to recovery because it allows one to find new meaning in life. It not only energizes one to want to be a better person, but it provides the means to continue in life by the pursuit of altruistic motives, and by reliance upon a higher power. 

Of course, unless one quits drinking, drugging, gambling, or whatever else has taken over one’s life, there can be no spiritual awakening. The means to do so is offered in the first nine steps, and the means to continue on the spiritual path of the heroic journey of recovery is presented in the last three steps. That such a spiritual awakening, however one defines it, is central to the process of recovery is attested to by the successful recovery of millions of people who have undertaken this journey. 

1 Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How Thousands of Men and Women Recovered from Alcoholism. 4th ed. Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, 2001, pp. 59-60.
2 Gordon, Michael Cowl. The Twelve Step Pathway: A Heroic Journey of Recovery, Rowman & Littlefield, 2023, p. 134.