It's easy to look back on the pop psychology crazes of earlier decades and laugh. Yet those movements have often had a profound effect upon our thinking. Most people today have heard the phrase "I'm OK, you're OK," even if they have no idea where it came from. In fact, it's the name of a book -- an immensely popular book from the 70's, which remarkably is still in print.

There is no need here to talk about the book or the principles of transactional analysis upon which it was built. But a question worth asking is this: After the work I have done in Program, whether it be weeks, months, or years, how do I feel about myself? Do I think that I'm OK?

Well, probably not. Even if I'm OK on some days -- perhaps many days -- there are going to be times when I'm far from OK. This in itself wouldn't be a problem, were it not for the fact that recovering addicts persist in measuring themselves on the basis of whether they feel OK. One of the most common reasons that people go back out is that they encounter a substantial period of time where they feel anything other than OK. And -- taking that as a barometer of their supposed recovery -- they drink, drug, gamble or whatever all over again.

Whether I am OK or not may be a reasonable topic of inquiry, but it can never be the defining question if I am pursuing a truly spiritually based recovery. Instead, the defining question is this: I may not be OK today, but it is OK that right now I'm not OK?

If the answer to that question is No, then a vigorous working of the last three Steps is in order. Too many of us work the last three Steps -- indeed, all the Steps -- in order to be OK. But that's not the point of Program. The point is that it's OK whatever is going on -- however I may feel about myself, about you, about the world.