If we listen carefully in meetings, we'll find that a great deal of the discussions we have tend to be around one subject -- how we behave. In fact, you could make out a case for saying that we spend too much of our time talking about it, and not enough talking about prayer and meditation, or about living the message of recovery.

Program has a peculiar emphasis, to those who look at it from outside. More than half the Steps -- Step 4 thru Step 10 -- are dedicated to the way we behave. Indeed, Steps 4 thru 9 are merely an approach to doing Step 10 for the first time. Why is there this emphasis in Program?

It's because we're addicts, and the core characteristic of the addict is selfish behavior. Furthermore, that selfish behavior won't disappear simply because we remove ourselves from our addiction. As AAs often say, when a horse-thief sobers up, what he becomes is a sober horse-thief. So there is quite rightly a strong orientation towards "cleaning our acts up" when we work the Steps.

But the Steps -- particularly the first nine -- are simply a means to an end, and that end is outlined for us in the last three Steps. It's a life of good conduct, prayer and meditation, and living the message of spiritual recovery in every moment of our lives. Certainly, unless we "behave ourselves," we'll find we can't work those Steps at all. But Steps 10 thru 12 show us that behaving ourselves isn't enough -- it's just one part of our new spiritual way of life.