Certainly there is a body of knowledge that it is important for us to acquire about the self. Truths like each "self" is uniquely designed by its Creator, each of us is always warmly accepted by our loving Acceptor, and none of us can out-sin Grace. These facts are essential to an empowering view of the self. But we all learn sooner or later that insight has its limits. Recovering a healthy view of ourselves will require more than just increasing our knowledge about what is true. In addition to learning the truth about ourselves we will need to learn ways to feel and experience these truths. Consistently feeling and experiencing these powerful truths personally in one's soul requires process, struggle, and time. Knowing is important. But by itself it is not powerful enough to make possible the changes that need to be made.

The problem with all addiction however, is that the sufferer cannot tell you where the pain is coming from – and this is a particularly severe problem with the emotional pain. The simple reason for this is that where the source of the addiction is obvious, then the afflicted individual will already have taken all available steps to limit or expunge it. Where the origin of the pain is obscure – as here – then the addicted one can see no way through and therefore cannot help themselves. What they need most, is a clear, believable, and reliable pathway to stability which is given in Solution Based Recovery.

 

1. Identify the decision to be made or the issue to be resolved.

The issue should be practical—about doing or not doing something.

It has to be real; that is, there really is a decision to be made—a question about whether you should or should not do something.

It must be an issue about which you have the right to make the decision.

You must have or be able to obtain the necessary information to decide intelligently.

If you have difficulty identifying the issue, follow this five-step procedure:

1. List the various issues you might be deciding about in the next few weeks or months, or in the next year’s time.
2. List the actions you might take about these issues.
3. Make a list of pros and cons for each issue or possible action.
4. Rank the issues and possible actions in the order of preference as you currently experience them.
5. Use the issue or possible action ranked first as the focus of your discernment.

2. Formulate the issue in a proposal.

State it as a positive, concrete choice.

Make it as specific as possible (What you will do, where, and when).

State it in the way that God initially seems to be drawing you.

State it in the form of X vs. non-X or X vs. Y.

Example of an X vs. non-X proposal: “I will take enough courses next term so that I can graduate this coming May.”­

 Example of an X vs. Y proposal: “I will stay in my current job with company A or I will accept a job offer from company B.”

3. Pray for openness to God’s will, and for freedom from prejudgment and addictions.

Ask for that inner freedom and balance that allows you not to be inclined more toward one alternative or option than to the other. This means to ask to be free enough to be influenced only by this one value: which alternative will give most glory to God and be expressive of my own deepest self, my authentic self?

 To arrive at this absolutely necessary inner freedom, you may wish to discuss the matter with a spiritually mature person who can help you. In particular, discuss what obstacles could be limiting your freedom by blocking you or inclining you to one alternative over the other.

Possible obstacles: projections, disordered attachments like inferiority complexes, superiority complexes, or glorified self-images; “shoulds” or “oughts” that tyrannize you; perfectionism, fears, materialistic greed, and possessiveness; past hurts and self-pity; competitiveness that leads to envy; impatience with yourself or others; lust, ingratitude, and irreverence; desire for control, power, status, prestige, exclusiveness, and so forth.

As preparation for your prayer, read over slowly, carefully, and attentively the following Scripture passages:

Luke 17:5-6	Luke 12:22-32	Matthew 13:44-46
Matthew 14:22-33	Luke 18:35-43	Mark 10:17-22
Matthew 5:13-16	Luke 14:33	2 Timothy 1:7
Matthew 7:24-25	Luke 16:13	Philippians 3:7-10
Luke 11:5-13	Matthew 20:26-28

Note the passages that strike you most strongly. Make these passages the source from which you talk with God about the particular areas where you need freedom. Where do you need greater detachment about the alternatives or options in your proposal? Bring them to God in prayer. Ask above all for a deep love: love for God, for the people being affected by the decision, and for your own true self or authentic self. Pray that no self-centered attraction or aversion about a choice will sidetrack you from what the Holy Spirit is pointing you to. Ask for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in all this.

4. Gather all the necessary information.

Find out all the relevant specifics relating to the decision: Who? What? Where? When? How much? Why? Be satisfactorily informed.

Be sure to consult with everyone who will be intimately affected by the decision being made: spouse, children, other family, friends, colleagues. Get their input about it, including their feelings and desires.

Discuss this matter with someone sensitive to Christian spiritual values. This could be a friend, counselor, priest, or minister—someone who will be honest and objective with you. Discuss the matter in detail—its values and possibilities, your strengths and weaknesses.

5. Repeat the third step: Pray for openness to God’s will.

Pray about the matter again in light of the data you have gathered and the counsel of others. Most likely new feelings and desires have been stirred up that need to be shared with God so that they might be purified of any prejudgment or disordered attachment. This is a “freedom check.” Are you free enough to be influenced only by this one value: which alternative will give most glory to God and be expressive of your own deepest self, your authentic self?

6. State all the reasons for and all the reasons against each alternative in the proposal.

For a proposal of the X vs. non-X form, make two lists: “Advantages for me” and “Disadvantages for me.” For a proposal of the X vs. Y form, make a table with four lists: “Advantages for Me” and “Disadvantages for me” for each alternative (See the table below.)

Stay with Company A		Take a New Job with Company B
Advantages for me	Disadvantages for me	Advantages for me	Disadvantages for me
1.	1.	1.	1.
2.	2.	2.	2.
3.	3.	3.	3.

Begin with a short prayer asking God to be with you as you make your lists. Ask particularly for light to see clearly what God chooses for you and what will best honor and serve God, your neighbor, and your true self.

List all the reasons you can think of. Do not prejudge their merit. You will evaluate them in the next step.

7. Do a formal evaluation of all the advantages and disadvantages.

The point of this evaluation is to see which advantages and disadvantages seem to be coming from the influence of the Holy Spirit and which ones do not.

Attempt to get in contact with your motives and values. To do this well, you may have to spend considerable time on this step. It may take weeks if you are making a major life decision.

Repeat Step 3, praying for openness and freedom. Pray for light about factors that inhibit freedom and openness to God. Are there any? Beg God for the help to be detached from disordered attachments that might be influencing you. Pray for a deeper faith in God and love for God.

Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages by asking four questions:

• Which reasons are the most important? Why?
• What values are preserved or realized by each option? (Many advantages and disadvantages may be pointing to the same value.)
• Which option more evidently leads to God’s service and better serves the growth of your true self in the Holy Spirit?
• Which option seems more consistent with your own faith journey and history with God?

8. Observe the direction of your will while reflecting on the advantages and disadvantages.

As you evaluate the choices, your desires will be influenced by the Holy Spirit; that is, your will becomes more inclined toward one option and less inclined toward the other. These inclinations may fluctuate between options. Pay attention to these inner movements. Pray for light from the Holy Spirit about them. Eventually, your will is likely to focus on one of the alternatives.

If your will does not settle on one choice but continues to fluctuate between the two, a disordered attachment may be influencing you. This is a signal to do some more prayer. Return to Step 3. Ask God to free you from any selfish inclinations and lead you to worthy motives. Pray that the Holy Spirit draws your will and its desires to God’s will.

9. Ask God to give you feelings of consolation about the preferred option.

This is the third of three states of the discernment. First, you asked the Holy Spirit to transform your thoughts (listing advantages and disadvantages). Second, you asked the Holy Spirit to transform your desires (your will) while evaluating the lists of advantages and disadvantages. Now you ask the Holy Spirit to stir feelings of spiritual consolation. These are feelings of joy, enthusiasm, deeper faith, greater hope and trust, greater love, confidence, courage. These thoughts, desires, and feelings are all parts of your inner experience of the Holy Spirit guiding you to the truth.

These feelings of consolation accompany your desires when they are clearly pointed toward loving and serving God, others, and your true self. They are very different from the feelings that accompany your desires when they are influenced by disordered attachments aimed only at your selfish ways.

If your feelings fluctuate between consolation and desolation, you may be under the influence of mixed motives and disordered attachments. If so, return to Step 3: pray for freedom and openness to God.

10. Trust in God and make your decision, even if you are not certain about it.

11. Confirm the decision.

Live with the decision for a while to see whether your thoughts, desires, and feelings continue to support it. If not, new data is needed and the process must be redone.

The first thing you need to do is get in touch with negative feelings that you're not even aware of. Lots of people have negative feelings they're not aware of. Lots of people are depressed and they're not aware they are depressed. It's only when they make contact with joy that they understand how depressed they were. You can't deal with a cancer that you haven't detected. You can't get rid of boll weevils on your farm if you're not aware of their existence. The first thing you need is awareness of your negative feelings. What negative feelings? Gloominess, for instance. You're feeling gloomy and moody. You feel self-hatred or guilt. You feel that life is pointless, that it makes no sense; you've got hurt feelings, you're feeling nervous and tense. Get in touch with those feelings first. 

The second step (this is a four-step program) is to understand that the feeling is in you, not in reality. That's such a self-evident thing, but do you think people know it? They don't, believe me. They've got Ph.D.s and are presidents of universities, but they haven't understood this. They didn't teach me how to live at school. They taught me everything else. As one man said, "I got a pretty good education. It took me years to get over it." That's what spirituality is all about, you know: unlearning. Unlearning all the rubbish they taught you. 

Negative feelings are in you, not in reality. So stop trying to change reality. That's crazy! Stop trying to change the other person. We spend all our time and energy trying to change external circumstances, trying to change our spouses, our bosses, our friends, our enemies, and everybody else. We don't have to change anything. Negative feelings are in you. No person on earth has the power to make you unhappy. There is no event on earth that has the power to disturb you or hurt you. No event, condition, situation, or person. Nobody told you this; they told you the opposite. That's why you're in the mess that you're in right now. That is why you're asleep. They never told you this. But it's self-evident. 

Let's suppose that rain washes out a picnic. Who is feeling negative? The rain? Or YOU? What's causing the negative feeling? The rain or your reaction? When you bump your knee against a table, the table's fine. It's busy being what it was made to Be -- a table. The pain is in your knee, not in the table. The mystics keep trying to tell us that reality is all right. Reality is not problematic. Problems exist only in the human mind. We might add: in the stupid, sleeping human mind. Reality is not problematic. Take away human beings from this planet and life would go on, nature would go on in all its loveliness and violence. Where would the problem be? No problem. You created the problem. You are the problem. You identified with "me" and that is the problem. The feeling is in you, not in reality. 

The third step: Never identify with that feeling. It has nothing to do with the "I." Don't define your essential self in terms of that feeling. Don't say, "I am depressed." If you want to say, "It is depressed," that's all right. If you want to say depression is there, that's fine; if you want to say gloominess is there, that's fine. But not: I am gloomy. You're defining yourself in terms of the feeling. That's your illusion; that's your mistake. There is a depression there right now, there are hurt feelings there right now, but let it be, leave it alone. It will pass. Everything passes, everything. Your depressions and your thrills have nothing to do with happiness. Those are the swings of the pendulum. If you seek kicks or thrills, get ready for depression. Do you want your drug? Get ready for the hangover. One end of the pendulum swings to the other. 

This has nothing to do with "I"; it has nothing to do with happiness. It is the "me." If you remember this, if you say it to yourself a thousand times, if you try these three steps a thousand times, you will get it. You might not need to do it even three times. I don't know; there's no rule for it. But do it a thousand times and you'll make the biggest discovery in your life. To hell with those gold mines in Alaska. What are you going to do with that gold? If you're not happy, you can't live. So you found gold. What does that matter? You're a king; you're a princess. You're free; you don't care anymore about being accepted or rejected, that makes no difference. Psychologists tell us how important it is to get a sense of belonging. Baloney! Why do you want to belong to anybody? It doesn't matter anymore. 

A friend of mine told me that there's an African tribe where capital punishment consists of being ostracized. If you were kicked out of New York, or wherever you're residing, you wouldn't die. How is it that the African tribesman died? Because he partakes of the common stupidity of humanity. He thinks he will not be able to live if he does not belong. It's very different from most people, or is it? He's convinced he needs to belong. But you don't need to belong to anybody or anything or any group. You don't even need to be in love. Who told you you do? What you need is to be free. What you need is to love. That's it; that's your nature. But what you're really telling me is that you want to be desired. You want to be applauded, to be attractive, to have all the little monkeys running after you. You're wasting your life. WAKE UP! You don't need this. You can be blissfully happy without it. 

Your society is not going to be happy to hear this, because you become terrifying when you open your eyes and understand this. How do you control a person like this? He doesn't need you; he's not threatened by your criticism; he doesn't care what you think of him or what you say about him. He's cut all those strings; he's not a puppet any longer. It's terrifying. "So we've got to get rid of him. He tells the truth; he has become fearless; he has stopped being human.'' HUMAN! Behold! A human being at last! He broke out of his slavery, broke out of their prison. 

No event justifies a negative feeling. There is no situation in the world that justifies a negative feeling. That's what all our mystics have been crying themselves hoarse to tell us. But nobody listens. The negative feeling is in you. In the Bhagavad-Gita, the sacred book of the Hindus, Lord Krishna says to Arjuna, "Plunge into the heat of battle and keep your heart at the lotus feet of the Lord." A marvelous sentence. 

You don't have to do anything to acquire happiness. The great Meister Eckhart said very beautifully, "God is not attained by a process of addition to anything in the soul, but by a process of subtraction." You don't do anything to be free, you drop something. Then you're free. 

It reminds me of the Irish prisoner who dug a tunnel under the prison wall and managed to escape. He comes out right in the middle of a school playground where little children are playing. Of course, when he emerges from the tunnel he can't restrain himself anymore and begins to jump up and down, crying, "I'm free, I'm free, I'm free! A little girl there looks at him scornfully and says, "That's nothing. I'm four." 

The fourth step: How do you change things? How do you change yourselves? There are many things you must understand here, or rather, just one thing that can be expressed in many ways. Imagine a patient who goes to a doctor and tells him what he is suffering from. The doctor says, "Very well, I've understood your symptoms. Do you know what I will do? I will prescribe a medicine for your neighbor!" The patient replies, "Thank you very much, Doctor, that makes me feel much better." Isn't that absurd? But that's what we all do. The person who is asleep always thinks he'll feel better if somebody else changes. You're suffering because you are asleep, but you're thinking, "How wonderful life would be if somebody else would change; how wonderful life would be if my neighbor changed, my wife changed, my boss changed." 

We always want someone else to change so that we will feel good. But has it ever struck you that even if your wife changes or your husband changes, what does that do to you? You're just as vulnerable as before; you're just as idiotic as before; you're just as asleep as before. You are the one who needs to change, who needs to take medicine. You keep insisting, "I feel good because the world is right." Wrong! The world is right because I feel good. That's what all the mystics are saying.

 You are further off the mark if you believe a disordered person is capable of treating you kindly, lovingly and with good intentions. They can't feel these feelings because of their disordered and irrational belief. Why would you expect them to be sane when the world inside of their minds is out of order? You will need to get real and not ponder over the way things used to be. For now, you are confronting Disorder.

These are often called the maintenance steps, or the living steps. This does not mean it is easy to take personal inventory and make daily amends. It is sometimes difficult to pray and meditate daily, and to practice the Twelfth Step by working with others. It certainly isn't easy to practice spiritual principles in all our affairs. However, it is worth it

In the Big Book, on page 13, Bill Wilson wrote about his introduction to the program by his friend, Ebby Thatcher. He writes, "My friend promised when these things were done I would enter upon a new relationship with my Creator; that I would have the elements of a way of living which answered all my problems. Belief in the power of God, plus enough willingness, honesty and humility to establish and maintain the new order of things, were the essential requirements."

 

Solution Based Recovery Yes! In our experience it does take all of the Twelve Steps to produce all of the results we are looking for from the program. Remember the pathfinders of the program were intelligent people. If they could recover by working only three steps, or five steps, or nine steps, they would have created a three, five or nine step program. They created a Twelve Step program because it took them Twelve Steps to recover