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INTRODUCTION

Study and Practice
How can we alcoholics in recovery live happy, joyous, and free? (Alcoholics Anonymous, 133: 0)
Alcoholics Anonymous is the life changing program formed by two desperate alcoholics in 1935. In the Big Book, as the text Alcoholics Anonymous is known, we read the written words of the first 100 men and women of AA as they were put in the way of a spiritual awakening. Where did their words come from? What were their practices of the day by day disciplines that became the 12 Steps? How did they do it?
The Steps are suggested guides for recovery. There is no rule that says anyone has to do them, and there is no regulation about how they should be done. This Steps by the Big Book workbook is for those who are willingto grow along spiritual lines (60: 1) by studying the first 103 pages of the Big Book while actually doing the Steps. Our goal is to study the Steps as a friendly, focused group, and work them as the authors of the Big Book described. We wish to make the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous part of our lives by collaborating with a power greater than ourselves – an inner knowing, our own best and highest nature. To this end we ask ourselves two primary questions:
-What do the Big Book authors say about the Steps?
-What does the Big Book say to each one of us about our own real practice of the Steps?
Some of us in the recovering community in the Brattleboro, Vermont, area found that we did better studying the Big Book as a group rather than on our own. It is our belief that the only wrong way to work the Steps is alone. Together we can do it! The work of this group study supports the pass-it-on process of one alcoholic talking with another. This manual is for those in recovery who want to go through the Steps again; or freshen up on their Steps prior to working with a sponsee; or for sponsors and sponsees who want to progress through the Steps together. The only requirements are to show up, study the Big Book, and do each Step. This guide comes from these experiences. This is an introduction to the spiritual riches of the Big Book’s directions to the 12 Steps. We hope this guide is useful throughout recovery, whether one is working the Steps for the
first time, or has followed the Steps for many years. Perhaps your group may craft its own manual, the better to reflect the warmth and strength of the safe haven found in the 12 Steps. If appropriate, simply say your own addiction in place of alcohol.




To Be Continued