Steps to the Spirit

Send us Fan Mail This week  I’ll be speaking about the second of the four spiritual practices that are proposed by the Oxford Group. This second practice is: 2. Surrender our life past, present and future, into God's keeping and direction.  Well, my friends, as soon as I saw that word surrender, I knew that this was going to be one of my favorites of any of the Oxford Groups writings. This pa...

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Send us Fan Mail This episode is about the last two “steps” in the list that Abby Thatcher left for Bill Wilson on that crumpled piece of paper. Little did he know at that time, the impact that that little piece of paper would have on both addiction and the lives of thousands of others with just plain living problems. Below are the fifth and sixth items on that list: 5. Restitution.  6. Continued...

Send us Fan Mail So, my friends, I will be talking about the third and fourth item in this list of six steps that Abby Thatcher gave Bill W as he was composing the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, commonly referred to as The Big Book. The third and fourth steps, from the Oxford step, are: 3. A Moral inventory.  4. Confession.  These two steps match up perfectly with the fourth and fifth steps in the cu...

Send us Fan Mail In the next few episodes I am going to talk about five of the writings or lists from the Oxford Group that have influenced the 12 step program. The first list I would like to speak about the six steps that every left with Bill Wilson, (the cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous),. It was a handwritten list which I think very succinctly summed up the 12 steps as we know them today. I am...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I shall continue with the influence of the Oxford group on the 12 step program. Of course, in the beginning, the 12 step program was known as Alcoholics Anonymous , or maybe I should say that the 12 step program was contained within the program of Alcoholics Anonymous . There are many anecdotes and stories about the beginning of the 12 step program, and even thoug...

Send us Fan Mail Although I am still speaking about the Oxford group, I have changed the podcasts from an introduction to the Oxford group to how it actually influenced the beginnings of the 12 step program. Hence, I gave a new title to the rest of this series, which is, “The Oxford Group’s Influence”. The influence of the Oxford group reinforces my belief that this is a God-given program, or at t...

Send us Fan Mail To continue with the Oxford group, I have once again used AI to give you a description of Frank Buchanan  by giving you a brief biography of his life.  BEGIN AI EXCERPT Frank Buchmann Certainly! Here's a biography of Frank Buchman , the founder of the Oxford Group : Frank Buchman: Founder of the Oxford Group Franklin Nathaniel Daniel Buchman (June 4, 1878 – August 7, 1961) wa...

Send us Fan Mail The following episodes, (I’m not sure how many there will be), are about my opinions, both historic and personal, Of the Role Played by the Oxford Group in the founding of AA. I have included below an excerpt from the Internet that I asked AI to research. I don’t make a habit of using AI for anything, but it was just easier in this case because I wanted to get the information to y...

Send us Fan Mail This is the last of our four-part series this 12.) I would like to talk about the phrase, practice these principles in all my affairs . This is certainly nothing new. I would almost say that, for me, this is an extension, or reiteration, of step number three. For me, it seems to be like a person on television getting a total makeover . Going back to one of the references in the Ox...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode , I would like to talk about the phrase we tried to carry this message to others . I tried to remember that these original 12 steppers were pretty much just putting 1 foot in front of the other each day. They knew that, in most cases, they began their journey to recovery as a result of someone else sharing with them what it used to be like, what happened, and what...

Send us Fan Mail Step 12 is not only an important step in order to help me maintain my new way of life but it is also important because it helps to keep these 12 step programs flourishing. One of the best phrases I’ve heard in the 12 step rooms is that of, pass it on . The 12 step program originated in the homes of alcoholics. This is where they had their meeting, probably more like get-togethers...

Send us Fan Mail step 12 is the wonderful conclusion to the 12 steps. Mind you, I don’t mean the conclusion to working the steps. Step 12 is simply the last step in the order and gives us the wonderful opportunity to pay back the new way of life we’ve received. As a reminder step 12 is: Having had a spiritual experience as a result of this course of action I tried to carry this message to others,...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I will be speaking about the last phrase in step number 11, “and the power to carry that out”. At this point in my life, I find that I am constantly returning to the words of the first few steps in this program. For instance, in the first step I referred to my powerlessness, (over everything), and that my life was not manageable. In essence I was living a life of...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I will still be talking about step number 11 and this is part number three, in particular the part of this step that says, “knowledge of His will for us”. I don’t believe there is much of a problem understanding that I must try to live my life by fulfilling God’s will for me. In step number three when I said I decided to turn my will and my life over to the care o...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I am going to talk about the idea of improving our contact with God. As I said last episode my ability to contact God through my Spirit has certainly improved over the years. It is, however, nothing like what I expected or would like it to be. As it says in the literature, we strive for perfection. I cannot remember it saying anywhere that we have become perfect....

Send us Fan Mail As a reminder ,this is the 11th step is: “I seek, through prayer and meditation, to improve my contract with God, praying only for knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry that out.” This step is taken from the first edition of what is called the big book, or otherwise, Alcoholics Anonymous . I almost feel like, wow, I finally have gotten to step 11. This is one of my f...

Send us Fan Mail So, my friends, in this final part of step number 10, I would just like to talk about the last part of step, namely, when I was wrong, promptly admitted it . As a reminder for those of you who may be new, the 10th step is, I continued to take personal inventory, and when I was wrong promptly admitted it . What I have to keep in mind as I do this step every day, is the last part of...

Send us Fan Mail In this second episode of step number 10 and how I handled it, I would like to say a little more about confidence. I believe there are two kinds of confidence associated step number 10. I am talking about what it says in the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous , 1st Edition. It talks about folks early in the program that, at this point me steps, were no longer concerned about the thing...

Send us Fan Mail Well, my friends, here I am at step number 10. As a reminder, my version of step number 10 is: I continue to take personal inventory and when I am wrong, promptly admit it. These final three steps, 10, 11, and 12, are commonly known as the maintenance steps. These steps don’t provide me with maintenance in the same way as my car, say, every 5000 miles. Hopefully, I learned to appl...

Send us Fan Mail Here we are at part two of step number nine. To refresh your memory, step nine is, “Made direct amends to such persons wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others ”. So, I am looking at the phrase, except when to do so would injure them or others , as the second part of this step. Now, the key phrase within this phrase of the ninth step, is them or others ....

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I will try to relate what it was like for me to wrestle with step nine. My version of step nine reads as follows: “I made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.” I am going to treat this step in two parts. The first part has to do with making direct amends wherever possible. The second part will deal with i...

Send us Fan Mail so, in the first part of this step I made a serious attempt at writing a list of those persons I had harmed. I did my best to hold nothing back . At times, my rationalization got the best of me. In those early days of my current sobriety I made some serious excuses for not adding people to that list of amends. Of course, none of those excuses were valid, but they make perfectly go...

Send us Fan Mail This eighth step is one that I remember well. I remember it mostly because of all of the false starts I had in the 12 step program. In all of those many times that I convinced myself I was truly “working” the program, I conveniently left out some steps that I considered irrelevant to me. I remember starting with step number one (sort of), going to steps number four and five, (most...

Send us Fan Mail I need to start this episode with an apology. When I went to publish the first part of this step last week, I realized that the MP3 files were not uploading. Then, as I looked at the episodes, I realized that none of the episodes for the past three weeks had uploaded. The reason was that I installed a new modem-router and I said it to work constantly on a 5G speed. Well, the 5G wa...