Awareness and Knowledge

The 11th Step, "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with our Higher Power, seeking only knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out," is a Step we practice from the very start of our recovery process, whether we are aware of it or not.

Before we look at some of the dynamics of the 11th Step, let us define some terms for the purposes of this Study:

1. "prayer,"—communication of any kind, conscious or not, with the Higher Power, which we

   may or may not understand at all;

2. "meditation,"—a state of being, the conscious awareness of our Higher Power in all things at

the present moment;

c) "conscious contact,"—the awareness of the state of being produced by

prayer and meditation in which we are aware of our Higher Power’s

existence in the current moment;

d) "knowledge,"—that which is real as opposed to that which is

illusion; the opposite of perception; that which is not subject to

change; equivalent to "truth";

As the text of this Step states, the purpose of our prayer is the attainment of truth, the unchanging truth in any situation that is not subject to our diseased and changing perception. Understood in this way the Serenity Prayer, which asks for discernment between that which we can change and that which we cannot change, is a terse, poetic expression of the same thing we see in the text of the 11th Step.

The prayers we pray spontaneously reflect our beliefs about ourselves, our self-worth, personal vulnerability, strength, weakness, our relationship to our Higher Power, the nature of parenthood, of parental, unconditional love, the nature of "createdness," or "beingness," as surely as do our behaviors and feelings, as seen graphically on our 4th Step inventory.

Significantly, when we first come into recovery that Power seems to be, for most of us, a Celestial Santa Clause, a Heavenly Magician who should be at our service whenever we utter the right magic incantation. Furthermore, since all of our prayers, if we made them at all, were cries for help or requests for things, it is clear that we believed ourselves to be incomplete and lacking, and the only hope for happiness lay in people and things outside ourselves. Most of our prayers were cries of entreaty arising from our own lack of self-worth and low self esteem. It takes a good deal of healing before we can even conceive of our prayer arising from any other self view. When our self esteem is low, the best we can manage is a cry to Daddy for help.

However, once our faith begins to grow our prayers start to change, and it becomes possible to pray for gifts like honesty, goodness and forgiveness toward others. Although such prayers presuppose a belief in the presence of some Power greater than ourselves and a recognition of the importance of spiritual qualities over temporal gifts and magical panaceas, they are still founded in our own sense of lack, and a belief in our intrinsic incompleteness. Though a step forward, this prayer is still a reflection of our low self esteem.

Closely linked with the prayer for spiritual qualities that we perceive are lacking in us is the prayer for those we perceive as our enemies. This prayer arises out of our fear and deeply-felt sense of personal vulnerability. The invulnerable have no need to pray for their enemies because they have no true enemies. This prayer is still predicated on our own perceived weakness and fear.

As sobriety begins to grow and the Steps come to be our guideposts, our prayer also changes. Whereas our low self esteem had previously formed the foundation for our "foxhole" and "shopping list" prayers, our increasing positive self image sires whole new forms of self expression and prayer. It becomes possible to pray for spiritual insight and to see the truth as our Higher Power would have us to see it; to pray for wisdom so we will know how to make the most loving response to the truth. Most of these prayers fall into the general form: "help me to see what is really true in this situation and help me to know the most loving response to it." It becomes possible to honestly pray for others, realizing that whatever benefits our brothers ultimately benefits us. Our prayers begin to express a self seen as more whole, more complete, less vulnerable and less needy. We can honestly say, "Thy will be done," and mean it. The prayer that comes from a sense of wholeness is also distinguished from its earlier forms by another quality: the prayers that arise out of low self esteem express profound isolation, a pervasive sense of separateness from others. When our prayer comes from our fear and vulnerability it becomes impossible to honestly pray for or with others. Yet when prayer begins to come from a sense of security and wholeness its natural expressions are no longer exclusive, but are inclusive. The exclusive "I" and "me" forms begin to make way for the inclusive " we" and "our" forms. The difference is the direct result of the healing process. As recovery becomes a reality, isolation gives way to community.

In the development of our prayer life the key is discipline, just as in the 10th Step. From the beginning of recovery it is suggested that we pray each morning for release from the obsession to drink and that we pray a prayer of gratitude at the end of the day for our sobriety. More important than the words themselves is the discipline of framing our day with prayer, which makes us consciously aware of our Higher Power's presence on some level. In western asceticism this concept is called the sanctification of time. The more aware we are of our true, healthy dependence upon that Power, the less likely we are to give in to "fixing" using our diseased dependence on alcohol (or drugs, or sex, or any number of things). As our sobriety grows and matures, it will be seen that more important than the particular prayers we choose or the particular forms of their expression is the discipline of their regular use. This discipline inevitably results in a greater conscious awareness of our relationship with our Creator, Parent, Source, or, if you will, the Higher Power that we do not understand. That is the objective.

When we first approach the 11th Step we may think that we are doing something new and different from earlier in our program of recovery. We are not. We have been encouraged to pray from the first day we came into recovery. But by the time we reach the 11th step we are ready to deepen our experience of prayer and to begin to be more aware of that for which we are praying. A thorough 10th Step inventory is excellent preparation for our time of prayer and meditation, because through the personal inventory of the 10th Step we become very aware of two things: first, the areas where we are in need of more healing, and second, the areas in which we have experienced the results of prior healing. A thorough personal inventory helps us to become aware of specific areas or situations about which we need to pray for a change in perception, or specific areas for which to give thanks for healing already received. Prayer that arises from a thorough self examination is not judgmental, but rather views all situations as an opportunity to learn and grow; it is not an experience of subjugating ourselves to an externally-imposed discipline, but rather an exercise of our freedom to choose that which will help us to experience love more abundantly; it is not a response to a demand, but a freely-made choice for love.

In the beginning, the use of pre-written prayers is recommended, including the Serenity Prayer and the Lord's Prayer (if one is comfortable with a Christian prayer), both having long been associated with recovery. It is also recommended to utilize a standard source of daily prayers like the Twenty Four Hour Book, or one of the other daily manuals like Touchstones published by Hazelden Educational Materials. What should be stressed is their disciplined, daily use, at the same hour.

As our confidence grows, we will gradually include more extemporaneous prayers. Classically, a gratitude prayer including a gratitude list may be added. Similarly, an intercessory prayer may be included in our devotions. We may find it helpful to compose our own prayers in a written form.

As our prayer discipline grows we may wish to take the opportunity to attend a retreat. Many 12 Step retreats are conducted in various areas, sometimes at a monastery or a convent. These give us the opportunity to get away from our regular routine for a day or two and concentrate on prayer or learn meditation techniques. All of these are helpful in improving our conscious contact with our Higher Power.

The actual practice of meditation is beyond the scope of this introductory commentary. Let us point out that there are various disciplines, both within the western and eastern traditions, and they are documented and easily available in libraries and bookstores. Sources for information on western meditation include ministers, priests, rabbis, monks and nuns, and various religious publishing houses. Eastern techniques are well documented. Zen is probably the best documented eastern discipline here in the west. Non-religious meditation disciplines include Transcendental Meditation, with its emphasis on body awareness and centering. Any of these can be used to enrich recovery provided they are approached in a disciplined manner.

Suggested assignment: begin to enrich your prayer discipline by trying to write your own prayers for your own personal use. You need not abandon any prayer disciplines you have already in place, but instead think of writing your own prayers as a way of augmenting and enriching your existing disciplines. When composing your own prayers, do not feel it necessary to use any specialized language, like Elizabethan English for instance, but try to compose your prayers using the same language and forms of expression that you would normally use in your daily conversations. You might choose a theme or a set of themes about which to center your prayers, e.g. write one prayer on each of the 12 Steps, or choose a set of common recovery topics like acceptance, denial, etc. and write one prayer dealing with each topic. Alternatively, you may find that your own list of character defects might prove to be fertile ground for subject matter for your own prayers. Another possibility is to write a series of prayers for each day of the week. If you find the discipline particularly meaningful, you might consider compiling your own book of prayers and meditations on the model of, say, the commonly found manuals published for people in recovery. Once you have written some of your own prayers, discuss them and share them with your sponsor or spiritual advisor. Then, begin to put them into your daily routine of prayer.

Above all, watch carefully for the natural tendency to try to evaluate the status of your prayers on the basis of any expected emotional response to them. Prayer may at times produce warm feelings and emotions and at other times produce no feelings at all. There is no such thing as a valid "emotional barometer" with which we can judge the quality of our prayer life. The objective is to achieve and deepen our sobriety, not to produce any particular emotion.