In this closing lecture of a two‑week, multi‑day online course on the 12‑step recovery program, the instructor reflects on the difficulty and transformative power of the steps, walks listeners through the canonical wording of each step, and shares personal experience of how the steps have become a “secret club” of coping skills. The speaker emphasizes the necessity of humility, inventory‑taking, making amends, and ongoing spiritual practice, while acknowledging the vulnerability of putting the material on video and the mixed feedback received. Listeners are invited to re‑engage with the material, join the classroom discussion, or reach out for further support, and are reminded that they are not alone in their recovery journey.
Chapters
Welcome to day 14 of this course that I still have not named. I just wanted to wrap this up by saying you've been here for 2 weeks if you've been coming every day, and maybe more than 2 weeks if you've been spreading these out further, or maybe you listen to them all in a day and have taken in a lot of information. But no matter what your time frame is, You made it through this course that I don't think is an easy one. I don't think this is a feel-good course. I don't think this is, you know, here are some coping skills to feel immediate relief. The 12 steps are hard work. They're hard and they're painful and they're to me one of the most impactful journeys I have ever been on and continue to be on. But they're not easy. There's a line in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says, almost none of us liked the leveling of our pride, the naming of our shortcomings, but this journey requires it. I just paraphrased that. I do remember the leveling of our pride piece. This is a journey that requires it, and In taking our own inventory, in turning things over, in noticing where we're gripping, we get the keys to the kingdom. That's what it says in AA. We get to experience freedom from suffering, and then we suffer again, and we notice that we're suffering, and we experience freedom again. And I feel like being in a 12-step program I've been let in on a secret. I feel like I'm part of a secret club. I feel like almost all of my coping skills and my ability to handle life on life's terms come from the 12 steps. They've been a bridge for me for every other area of my life. And like I said, you don't— if you aren't going to join a 12-step program because it doesn't Call to you. I think this course is meant to be just a summary of the steps. If you've ever wanted to learn a little bit more about them, get curious about them, maybe you know someone who's in a 12-step program. And besides the wording of the first step, admitted we were powerless over blank and that our lives had become unmanageable, The wording of the 12 steps is almost always completely similar across the board. There'll be little semantics changes here and there, but the 12 steps are the 12 steps. We admit that we're powerless and that our lives have become unmanageable because of trying to exert power where we have none. We come to believe that something greater than ourself could restore us to sanity because we have been insane. We make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of whatever it is we believe in. That decision is made by taking the 4th step, which is a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, resentment, fears, relationship patterns. We admit to ourselves, to God, to another human being, the exact nature of our entire inventory, right? We talk to someone about it. We shed light on our shame and we experience connection. We humbly— oop, no, wait. We become willing to have whatever it is we believe in remove the things that block us. We humbly ask whatever that is to remove those shortcomings from us. Hold on. 5, 6, 7. We make a list of all people we had harmed and we become willing to make amends to them all. We make direct amends wherever possible, unless when to do so would injure them or others. My favorite. We continue to take personal inventory, and when we are wrong, promptly admitted it. Note that it says when we were wrong, not if. When we were wrong, promptly admitted it. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand God, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we continue to— we try to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs. Those are the 12 steps. I can change the wording here and there. I can change the semantics, but those are the 12 steps. And I'm so excited that you got through this. I've said it a bunch of times, but this is my first course. It feels uniquely vulnerable that it's on video. It feels really exciting. It feels really scary. You know, I've received some comments. I've received incredibly amazing reviews and comments, and I've received some pretty hurtful ones. And this work allows me to keep showing up and keep putting myself out there, even though I know this is not going to resonate with everyone. Because what other people think of me is none of my business. And all I can do is show up authentically and walk through the fear of being seen or criticized or rejected and say, oh, I'm noticing that that's a fear, and I'm gonna turn it over. Oh, I'm gonna do an inventory on this fear and turn it over. I'm going to notice the things in me that keep me feeling stuck and essentially opposed to reality as it is. And I'm going to do what I have to do to deconstruct those barriers. So I hope you got something out of this. If you have not been participating in the course classroom or commenting, I invite you to do that now that you're at the end of the course. But if you don't, doesn't matter. Thank you so much for being here and giving me this platform and space to deepen my relationship with the 12 steps. Thank you. And if it so calls to you, you can start at step 1 again. I put so much information off the top of my head into this course. My favorite thing to do with the courses that I love is to finish them and then start them from the beginning. I don't know if this course will do that or be like that. Maybe you got a copy of the book and you want to go through it with me via this course. If you would like to go through anything with me, you can always just reach out and we can talk about that. But whatever you do, remember that you are so not alone in your experiences, and there is a way up and a way out no matter where you are in life. And I will see you at my next course or around Insight Timer. How do you end a course? I don't know. Thank you for being here and take care. Bye!
