The 3 Stages of Recovery
Step 1: What is the problem?
Step 2: What is the solution?
Steps 3-12: What is the program of action necessary for me to find and to use to implement that solution?

The Nature of the Problem:
AA & The Work ::Powerlessness (alcohol, thoughts)::
AA (“Main problem centers in the mind” AA p. 23
The Work ::An unquestioned mind::

The Solution to the Problem:
AA & The Work ::Power (God, God/love/reality)::
The Work ::Inquiry::

Another way of looking at the steps:

Steps 1-3 Getting right with God
Step 1: I can’t
Step 2: He can
Step 3: I think I’ll let Him

Steps 4-7 Getting right with self
Steps 8-9 Getting right with others
Steps 10-12 Living it out on a daily basis!

Some addictions have a physical component where a craving is set up once the substance is ingested. For the most part, The Big Book and The Work of Byron Katie agree that “the main problem …centers in the mind.” Therefore it is important to begin inquiry from the beginning.

This site is an offering of deeper support for all people suffering from addiction to a specific substance or behavior and those affected indirectly from someone else’s substance or behavioral abuse. While we are all addicted to our stressful thinking, those of us in recovery and doing The Work felt the need to create this site for those of us who may have or still are working their 12 step program of recovery and want to support themselves with the tools of The Work as a complement to their step work.
Currently there are 12 steps fellowships for:
AA – Alcoholics Anonymous
Al-Anon – for those directly affected by the substance abuse of a family member, friend, etc
OA – Overeater’s Anonymous (for Compulsive Overeating, anorexia and bulimia, compulsive exercising, body obsession)
NA – Drugs and Narcotics
DA – Debtor’s Anonymous
SLAA – Sex and Love Addiction.
Other fellowships exist for gambling, marijuana and the list goes on. Most fellowships have websites with meeting info and directories to find support locally in your area.

AN OUTLINE OF THE TWELVE STEPS

The Twelve Steps begin by admitting powerlessness over our addiction and that our lives have become unmanageable. (Katie would say when we believe our thoughts we have zero choice over our behavior in relation to that thought. If I believe I have to eat and I don’t question that thought, how could I not?) When I continue believing stressful thoughts and then act from them, my life becomes unmanageable. This is Step 1.

From here we come to believe in a power greater then ourselves (reality beyond our story) and surrender to that Power. We then proceed to take a moral inventory, tell the truth, get honest, make amends, drop into meditation and practice selfless service. Living this way, working these steps, hundreds of thousands of us have found we are relieved from our addictive behavior and /or substance. We don’t control or force anything.  Rather it falls away as we put our attention on the internal house-cleaning and rigorous honesty necessary to maintain our spiritual condition.

Many of us, anchored in the 12 step world and recovery from addiction, have come across The Work of Byron Katie. We have discovered this work to be a powerful and potent variation of the steps. In the 4 questions and turnaround we are doing Steps 4-11. The willingness to do the work itself is like Steps 1-3 and we live in Step 12.

Katie says the work is for people who want it fast–who want to end suffering now. We hare excited to offer the incredible tools here to all those struggling with addiction and/or working a program. We have found the tools offered here support us in our program of our recovery.

Source of Addiction
All addiction stems from self will. SELF, meaning a concept of who-we-are based upon past experiences and WILL being a projection onto a future that does not yet exist that we are attempting to control. Most addicts discover from working the steps and doing The Work that what we are really addicted to is painful thinking based upon a past or future that is completely devoid of Reality: the present moment– right now. To put down our substance cold turkey is often impossible for many of us, because we are flooded and inundated with our stressful thoughts.  Many of our thoughts are unconscious.  We have believed stressful thoughts for so long that they feel like reality. It is not until we begin taking inventory and putting our resentments and fears in writing or sharing them with others or taking them to inquiry (not analysis) that the attachment to the substance or behavior begins to fall away on its own. This is often refereed to as “God doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.”

Concept of God
If you have an issue with the word or concept of God this is NOT a problem. Neither the Twelve Steps nor The Work fall into a religion category.  God or spirituality has a different meaning for each of us.  All ways are welcomed here. We are interested in freedom and those of us who have had these psychic changes that the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous speak about have surrendered our will to something greater than ourselves. Katie might call this God… or simply the essence of Love, the questioned mind.

Acccording to Byron Katie: “Addictions are always the effect of an unquestioned mind. The only true addiction to work with is the addiction to your thoughts. As you question those thoughts, that addiction ceases because you no longer believe those thoughts. And as those thoughts cease, as you cease to believe them, then the addictions in your life cease to be. It is a process. And there’s no choice; you believe what you think, or you question it.”

“People say, ‘There are too many concepts to question. ..I’ll never be done with it’…Well, you know, we begin right here, right now or not. But this is the only place we can begin and right here, right now is the only time you will ever have…..and now and now and now. We begin now.”

The Solution
Byron Katie continues, “So to question these stressful thoughts, where is cause for addiction? If you were not worried, if you were not stressed out, and your mind was filled with more joy than your life could give you …Life ceases to be the effect of your happiness. So mind is cause and life is the effect. So as you work with cause, you work with the mind. Then the effects (addiction) have no cause. They have to stop. And if you take out the concept of time, and simply work with the thoughts that are arising for you now, then addictions start to shift. Again, the ultimate addiction is the addiction to our thinking.”

Katie continues, “We work with our thinking and we loose stress, and we move out to addictive behavior because it’s a way almost to control the mind. It’s like if we keep moving, if we just keep being radical enough, then we shift the mind away from what we cannot deal with. But through The Work, we begin to deal with the mind, the stress level drops, so we don’t use things any longer…that ceases, that begins to balance out….and then as the mind gets clearer, we begin to notice that we just notice cause and effect; for example, if you’re allergic to wine, it just becomes clear that if you drink it, you just notice there is an effect that you don’t particularly care for. And maybe there’s not, so you might continue. Or an alcoholic who has an allergy to alcohol….they work with their mind and then one day they just notice, this hurts…this is not what I want…because they’re clear enough to make clear choices. Alcohol gives you a head ache the next morning [addendum by SL:(or some people break out in felonies when they drink and use, or are suicidal, or homicidal, angry, etc)] and that’s when you stop. Your mind is just clear enough that you see the internal effects. And then you begin to see the effects in life that alcohol has on your finances and your physical well being. And because your mind has been questioned, sanity takes over. You become so clear, that if I do this, then the physical effect is this. But because your mind is clear, you can take it in and there is no mind to argue with it, ‘Yeah, but I will get away with it,’ because you are just very clear that that’s just not how you want to live any longer. And I have begun to notice that as the mind is questioned, it takes on a peace that I cannot even talk about.”

Here is where The Work comes in: According to Byron Katie, “The only addiction is the unquestioned mind.”

Do you expect others to guess what you need and provide it for you without your having to ask? Or do you have a child, spouse or friends who uses alcohol, drugs, food to excess and you are trying to stop him/her before s/he injures self or others? These are some indications that there are stressful beliefs at work. The problem is never the circumstance; it is how you react/what you are believing that causes the stress.

Here is a man who does not want to be rejected again. Find out the surprising conclusion he reaches when he does The Work!

and further:

Are you willing to go to any length for freedom?
How it works….
Getting Started

Willingness: Am I willing to go to any lengths to get and stay clean and sober/happy and healthy?
If not, what am I willing to do to recover?
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. [Big Book, page 58, line 16]

Are you ready?
Getting willing…
How is YOUR WAY working for you?
Is it time to try another way?

If what you have is not working for you, get honest and set aside the “I know” mind.

The Set Aside Prayer:
God (as you understanding him, her, it…or Reality (what is)), please allow me to set aside everything I think I know about myself, my life, others, my spiritual path, and especially about You, for an open mind and a new experience of myself, my life, others, my spiritual path, and especially of You. Thank you

So, there are at least two preconditions to taking the 12 steps.
1.The first of these is that you want recovery.
2.The second is that you must take these steps until the steps take you/ do The Work until The Work works you.

Yes, but HOW?

The Big Book of AA states that…the main problem of the alcoholic (addiction) centers in his mind, rather than in his body. [Big Book page 23, line 5]

…the mental states that precede a relapse into drinking…(are)… the crux of the problem, [Big Book page 35, line 1]

According to Katie,

“Addictions are always the effect of an unquestioned mind. The only true addiction to work with is the addiction to your thoughts. As you question those thoughts, that addiction ceases because you no longer believe those thoughts. And as those thoughts cease, as you cease to believe them, then the addictions in your life cease to be. It is a process. And there’s no choice; you believe what you think, or you question it.”

“People say, ‘There are too many concepts to question. ..I’ll never be done with it’…Well, you know, we begin right here, right now or not. But this is the only place we can begin and right here, right now is the only time you will ever have…..and now and now and now. We begin now.”

We stood at the turning point, [Big Book page 59, line 4]

” So mind is cause and life is the effect. So as you work with cause, you work with the mind. Then the effects (addiction) have no cause. They have to stop. And if you take out the concept of time, and simply work with the thoughts that are arising for you now, then addictions start to shift. Again, the ultimate addiction is the addiction to our thinking.”

“We work with our thinking and we loose stress, and we move out to addictive behavior because it’s a way almost to control the mind. It’s like if we keep moving, if we just keep being radical enough, then we shift the mind away from what we cannot deal with. But through The Work, we begin to deal with the mind, the stress level drops, so we don’t use things any longer…that ceases, that begins to balance out….and then as the mind gets clearer, we begin to notice that we just notice cause and effect; for example, if you’re allergic to wine, it just becomes clear that if you drink it, you just notice there is an effect that you don’t particularly care for. And maybe there’s not, so you might continue. Or an alcoholic who has an allergy to alcohol….they work with their mind and then one day they just notice, this hurts…this is not what I want…because they’re clear enough to make clear choices. Alcohol gives you a head ache the next morning [addendum by SL:(or some people break out in felonies when they drink and use, or are suicidal, or homicidal, angry, etc)] and that’s when you stop. Your mind is just clear enough that you see the internal effects. And then you begin to see the effects in life that alcohol has on your finances and your physical well being. And because your mind has been questioned, sanity takes over. You become so clear, that if I do this, then the physical effect is this. But because your mind is clear, you can take it in and there is no mind to argue with it, ‘Yeah, but I will get away with it,’ because you are just very clear that that’s just not how you want to live any longer. And I have begun to notice that as the mind is questioned, it takes on a peace that I cannot even talk about. We will know peace , [Big Book page 84, line 1]

Here is where The Work comes in: According to Byron Katie, “The only addiction is the unquestioned mind.”

Question Your Thoughts:
So, go to Get a One Belief at a Time Worksheet and let’s get started!

Recovery is too hard; Recovery is a myth;

____________(Other people) is/are responsible for my problems

Alcohol (Drugs, Food, Gambling, Being in control) offers me_______________________

Alcoholics, (Addicts, Overeaters, Gamblers, Codependents) are ____________________

Killer reservations. Most people being introduced to recovery have reservations (thoughts) as to whether they should adopt a program of recovery. Here is some of the mythology we often hear that keeps addicts away:

* I would rather not associate with a bunch of admitted ________ (alcoholics, addicts, self-help types, overeaters, gamblers) who have done (and might still do) some pretty sordid things. I am a cut above/different.
According to Katie, “There are no new stressful thoughts. …They are all recycled.”
Belief to question: ___________ (alcoholics, addicts, gamblers, overeaters, etc) are beneath me (useless, weak, less than human, etc.
* I may not be (alcoholic, an addict, gambler). I didn’t ___________ (drink, use, eat, gamble) as much as you did, and I have never been ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­_______________(in jail, in the hospital, etc).
Belief to question: As long as I can find someone worse off than me, my life is fine.
* My problems are with my environment (job, home, health, misfortune, etc.). Once these externals are fixed, I’ll be fixed, too.
Belief to question: _____________ (wife, husband, partner, boss, etc) is responsible for my difficulties.
* I need to find out why I ____________(drank, overeat, gamble, use, etc) before I do all that step stuff.
Belief to question: Self understanding, self reliance, self will can solve all my problems.
* This process just might be a religious cult.
Belief to question: All this God stuff is intrusive, ineffective, irrational and irrelevant.

Interviewer: Jim Guinness

So certainly your experience in 1986 is the defining point of your life from then on.

BK: Yes.

Q: And it certainly is very remarkable by your published accounts. Can you speak about what happened?

BK: What happened was, if I had to name it, a state of grace. And that state of grace came from realizing mind. I realized that mind was everything, and that it was nothing: by the time we think it, it’s gone, and only another thought would tell us that it existed at all. So that doesn’t leave much. (Laughs) But I noticed that no thought was true and that before thought there was nothing, and those realizations are where the questions of The Work came from. And it’s not just for me. Everyone can have that same realization now by using these questions.

Q: People have compared your Work to everything from Socratic dialogue to Buddhism and 12-step programs. What do you think about that?

BK: A lot of people claim it. They’ll say, “Oh, my gosh, that’s Buddhism,” or “Oh, my goodness, that’s Christianity.? Others say, “It’s meditation,” or “It’s A Course in Miracles.”

Q: How do you think The Work is similar to or different from them, and what makes it unique?

BK: Well, The Work is just four questions, so it’s nothing, actually. It has zero motive, zero philosophy. The questions don’t even say, “Answer me.” People hear the name ‘The Work’ and they think it’s a religion or a belief system, but it’s really a way we can question the beliefs that we already have.

Q: So when you use the word ‘religion,’ you mean it in a broader sense.

BK: Yes, in the sense of stressful beliefs that we haven’t questioned. For me, my religion was, “My children should pick up their socks.” I was devoted to it. Until they’re questioned, thoughts like this make up our whole life. We’re stuck in the small, painful world of our beliefs instead of experiencing the unlimited, infinite mind. So now we have a way out of the ‘I know’ mind. And as more and more people realize the power of questioning their stressful thoughts or beliefs, then it’s easier for the next one to do it, and the next. And as I travel the world, I see this. It’s becoming so potent.

Q: So as one person and then another and another learns this process of inquiry, that makes it easier for more people to engage in it themselves.

BK: Yes, because we’re detaching from what we believed was true. And mind loves it! You know, when it can explode its own theories, mind finds peace, and that’s exciting. That’s what this is, it’s the mind questioning the mind. This is the end of war. It’s the end of internal war, and when that is lived outwardly, it changes the world.

Q: Now, let’s talk about The Work itself, since that obviously is what you?re about.

BK: That’s what I’m about.

Q: You’ve boiled it down to a remarkably concise process: Judge your neighbor, write it down, ask four questions, turn it around. Most of us are used to hearing that we shouldn’t judge our neighbor. Why do you suggest that we start there?

BK: Because that’s where we are. I mean, where else should we start? Would it be loving to say, “No, start where I want you to.” If’ that’s where we are, it just makes sense to begin there.

Q: Well, some people would claim that they don’t have judgments. You know: “I’m not involved in that sort of thing.” But you seem to be observing that all of us, whether we think about it or not, actually are judging pretty much all the time.

BK: Yes. Anyone who sees the world as absolutely perfect, flawless, is a person who doesn’t need this Work. But our judgments about having judgments can sometimes prevent us from realizing what we’re actually experiencing. With The Work, we don’t shame or blame ourselves about our judgments. We welcome them, and we use them to find our own freedom. It really is the truth that sets us free.

Q: And the next step is to write it down. Some people might wonder why that’s important. If I already pretty much know what I’m judging, what’s the purpose of the second step, writing it down?

BK: It’s the mind’s job to be right. If we don’t write the judgment down, mind begins to prove its case with all its rationalizations and justifications and it gets lost in the process. But if we write it down, we have taken a stressful part of our mind and stopped it. There it is, our judgment on paper. Now when we put the questions up against that written statement, the mind can?t move. So it’s a simple way to investigate the mind: Put it on paper, bring it into the world. And it doesn’t mean the rest of it isn’t going to fly around in our heads. But something from our minds is stable there, and we can use inquiry on that.

Q: Writing it down holds it still, so you can inquire into it.

BK: Yes. Then eventually, people don?t have to bother, because the questions become alive in them.

Q: So after time, this process becomes more or less integrated and automatic, without having to think of it in terms of steps.

BK: A stressful thought will come, and the questions will come with it, and the war ceases. People are reading Loving What Is, and I?m so pleased with that, because inquiry is starting to come alive in many of these people just from reading the book. That delights me.

Q: That must be gratifying.

BK: It is, because I know they become kinder to their children. I know they become kinder to their spouses and their neighbors. So that?s a wonderful feeling, the end of war. It’s what we’ve all wanted.

Q: So continuing with the steps of the process, after we are told to judge our neighbor and to write it down, then we question the thought we have written. Maybe you could go through these four questions, and give an example of how they work.

BK: Okay. One example I use is about a man I recently worked with in New York. His business partner had called him a troublemaker in front of their employees and peers. And this man was furious. He believed that his partner should apologize. And so we began to question that thought.

Q: So his statement was,
My partner should apologize for insulting me.”

BK: Yes.

Q: And the first question you ask is?

BK: “Is it true?” And he said, “Yes.” He was sure of it. And then I asked him the second question: “Your partner should apologize.” can you absolutely know that that’s true?” And he was an intelligent man, so he began to go inside and look at it. And he said, “Well, I can’t know where he’s coming from. I can’t know another person’s mind. For all I know, he believes he’s right. So I can’t absolutely know that it’s true that he should apologize.” Then I asked him the third question, “How do you react when you think that thought?” And he began to give me a list: “I get angry. He comes up with a good idea, and I slam it down. I talk about him behind his back. When I see him, I avoid him. When I go home, I take the resentment with me, and I complain to my wife.” Then he said, with a look of amazement, “Oh, my gosh. I am a troublemaker. He was right.”

Q: The way he acted when he held the thought that his partner should apologize for calling him a troublemaker, was to act like a troublemaker himself!

BK: Yes. And in that discovery, he connected with his partner. Instead of defense and war, there’s connection, and there’s relief from fighting the truth and believing the lie.

Q: The lie, in this case, being that the partner should apologize.

BK: Yes. How do I know he shouldn’t apologize? Well, what’s the reality of it? Has he apologized? No. That’s how I know he shouldn’t apologize. He hasn’t! And when we try to push reality, to make reality the way we think we want it, we’re not happy human beings. Anything that argues with reality is stressful. So I asked him the fourth question: “Who would you be without that thought? Who would you be, working with your partner, if you didn’t believe that he should apologize?” And he said, very softly, “His friend. His friend. I wouldn’t be talking about him behind his back. I’d be working with him again, and our company would benefit from that. And I’d set a better example for everyone, and be a lot happier at home.”

And then I asked him to turn it around, “Your partner should apologize; turn it around to the opposite.” There are variations on the turnaround–I walk people through them in detail in Loving What Is? but what he found was, “I should apologize to him.” He could now see where his partner was right to begin with. And then another turnaround is: “I should apologize to myself.” Yes, he had cost himself money, he had cost himself a friend, he had cost himself his home life, and his professional life. So he owed himself amends. And then another turnaround is, “My partner should not apologize.” And that one hit him really hard. You know, it turned out to be his own problem–the problem was caused by his thinking, not by his partner’s action. Whatever the right or wrong of his partner’s action might be, this man was prepared to clean things up on his side. It was wonderful watching him.

Q: So even if the partner had been inappropriate or out of line in saying what he did, the man himself could clean it up, he didn’t have to wait for his partner to do something with it.

BK: Exactly. He could see and the three hundred or so other people in the room could see that we’re responsible for our own happiness. If I think that someone else is my problem, I’m insane. I do The Work on my own thinking, clean up my own mess, and the other person lives with what they live with. But the only question we need to ask is “How am I doing?” because we can’t change the world. Look at what he had done to manipulate and shift the world around him. It was unkind to everyone involved, especially himself. So through these four questions–I call them “checkmate!”

Q: Why do you call them checkmate?

BK: Because if you really want to know the truth, they’ve got you. There’s no way out for people who really want to know the truth. It brings you back to reality. And what a joy that can be.

Q: Other spiritual or self-improvement practices suggest either disciplining your thoughts or cultivating positive thoughts or simply watching our thoughts. In The Work, how do we relate to our thoughts?

BK: As friends, as the beloved. What else is there? Who would want their mind to be quiet if they understood it, if they really understood it? If they could meet all their thoughts with unconditional love, which is what these questions bring, then who would want the mind to shut up? Who would want to escape or change it? We haven’t been able to quiet the mind. And we haven?t been able to meditate it down or medicate it down, not for long. It looks like we have control over it until we get the parking ticket. So instead of fighting our thoughts, through these four questions we welcome them as friends.

Are you struggling with stressful thoughts about your body or a food addiction?
Take a look at your thoughts!

Here are some of mine:
You can never be too thin.
I need to loose weight.
If I can only get thinner, then life will be great.
I can only attract a friend if I am “hot.”
My ___________is too big/too small/too__________
What are your stressful thoughts?
People shouldn’t binge.

Fat people are disgusting, lazy, ugly.

If you are in pain, look to your mind and your stressful thoughts.
There are no new stressful beliefs. You are killing yourself by believing your stressful beliefs. If you want your body to improve, question the thoughts that keep you ill, but do it for the love of truth, for freedom.

Let’s say you are going to the refrigerator for ice cream and, before you reach for it, put the story on paper, do The Work, and then you either eat it or not. Every thought is about your identification. It’s as though when you eat the ice cream, notice all the thoughts that attack you; until you come to love yourself, there is no way to understand that love is the power and hate is not. Keep questioning your thoughts until you come to LOVE.

Work with the mind and the body will follow!

Here is one example: