Most of the 12 Steps tend to engage my attention.

For the first nine Steps, it's a lather-rinse-repeat process; having reached the level of desperation necessary to pick up such a "drastic course of action", I'm pretty willing to move along with the "next...then..." motivation from Step to Step.

The last three Steps, however, aren't - by that I mean, they really aren't "Steps in the Program", from the way that I read my book. The first nine are definitely part of a program - i.e "a sequence of events or instructions" - in that we are told to execute them in a specific order; but the last three don't fit that pattern. I don't have to do a Tenth Step before I do an Eleventh Step before I do a Twelfth Step - the last three Steps are very plainly given as a design for daily living.

Step 10 includes a continuing awareness - a lookout for "selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear" - and the Step includes a prescription of four actions to be taken "when these crop up".

Step 11 has the most ubiquitous set of instructions - it's hard to find a time of the day when I'm not supposed to be doing Step 11. There's the nighttime inventory (my apologies to anyone who thought that the nighttime inventory was part of Step 10 - if you can find justification for such a view in our Big Book, I'd really love to hear it) and the morning session of meditation and directed thought in which we receive our plan for the day.

In addition, there are two other bits of instructions that get carried throughout the day - "we constantly remind ourselves that we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day 'Thy Will, not mine, be done'", and "when agitated or doubtful, we ask for the right thought or action".

Twelve is the only Step of the last three that is reactive, rather than proactive - in other words, Ten and Eleven are Steps that I take of my own volition, whereas Twelve is one that I take in response to somebody else's actions. There is a school of thought that says that just showing up at meetings or working on H&I committees is doing Step Twelve, but the Book says that this Step involves " intensive work with other alcoholics" - it's sitting down with another alcoholic and following a prescribed method of passing on our message.

When I say that it's reactive, I mean that one can't really do Step Twelve (as per the instructions in the Big Book) until one is asked to do it. Making oneself available is most definitely necessary, but it's not Step Twelve, any more than buying a pencil and a notebook is Step Four.

This reinforces one of the things I've learned (primarily in Al-Anon) -

Q: how do I know when I'm supposed to help somebody?
A: when they ask me to.

This keeps things really simple, and also cuts down on my opportunities to play God.

It's a good thing that I didn't write the Big Book, or I might (in my literal-minded way) have decided to wind up with Ten Steps, lumping these last three together as "Keep taking inventory, praying and meditating while attempting to carry the message to other alcoholics".

There's another interesting thing about these last Steps - the last two of them give us credit just for trying. The other Steps (One through Ten) all say that we DID this or that - but Eleven and Twelve actually say that we SOUGHT and TRIED, rather than FOUND and DID.

Of course, that last bit of the last Step really turns the whole thing into a "Lather, Rinse, Repeat" cycle; since it says that we "practice these principles in all of our affairs", and since the Principles are the Twelve Steps (not the last three :) this bit of verbiage says (to me) that I'm supposed to keep doing ALL of them - the first Nine over and over again whenever necessary, and the last Three on an ongoing basis.