Newsletter
The Tenth Step
Posted on September 25, 2026, tagged as
As time has gone on in my professional life as an addiction medicine specialist, and in my personal life in twelve-step recovery, I have become increasingly interested in the resistance many people have to making the necessary changes in their lives. Regarding people with alcoholism, I believe there are two main factors that lead to failure to succeed with Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). The first reason is that they don’t really want to stop drinking. The other has to do with discomfort with or rejection of a fellowship that requires reliance upon a higher power, often referred to as God. In fact, my most recent book, Seeking a Higher Power: A Guide to the Second Step, addresses this second issue, and I hope it has helped and will continue to help people find the higher power idea to be more approachable.
But it can’t be that simple. In the book, Alcoholics Anonymous (aka The Big Book), on page 58, we find the following statement: “If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it— then you are ready to take certain steps.” Let’s look at what it is that “we have” that people might want. First and most obviously “we have” stopped drinking, for days, weeks, months, and even for many years. It is now commonplace to find people living what appear to be contented lives with ten, twenty, thirty, forty, and even over fifty years of total abstinence.
I just dropped a clue to another thing that “we have,” that is, contentment. People attending AA, most of them, give off an aura of being happy with their lives. This is appealing to newcomers, and it encourages them to stick around and see if they can get some contentment for themselves.
Importantly, another element that “we have” is community, a fellowship, a brotherhood, a sisterhood, of people who, again mostly, seem to enjoy each other’s company. There is an obvious camaraderie that puts newcomers at ease. In this community there is a sense of willingness to reach out and help others. There is a disarming honesty wherein people share both the horrors of their prior lives and the measures they have taken to change. There is an active mentorship (sponsorship) system that helps both newcomers and old-timers alike. Nobody in AA is afloat on a raft all by themselves. All this breeds humility. Nobody is in charge; nobody has all the answers; there are no gurus (except for a few people who think they are).
What may be most important is that people in twelve-step recovery have gratitude. They all know that their recovery from a terrible state of mind, body, and spirit was an unexpected gift— even an undeserved gift— a gift that is not promised beyond today. Even though it is a gift, they have worked for it. This is the “if you are willing to go to any lengths to get it” part. People must both want it and be willing to work for it. Speaking for myself, it has been a wonderful ride. I remember at my lowest thinking that nothing good could ever come of what I was going through. I can now say that I was mistaken. Of course, I am now completely unwilling to be where I was for even one day, even if I could be promised some ecstatic reward. But I know that I don’t ever have to live the degraded, humiliating life that I used to live. If I could succeed in recovery, so could anyone else. Show up, get involved, and you will find “what we have” for yourself. And then you can pass it along to the next person who needs it.