A recent meeting on Step 12 showed the narrow divide between selfless service work and the danger of our egos getting involved. Like many meetings on the Twelfth Step, comments were mainly about carrying the message: how many hospitals and jails we visit, how many letters we write to loners, how many people we sponsor. Then a relative newcomer made an interesting point. He did not talk directly about his own work in carrying the message; instead, he simply asked if it was possible to call anything service work if we talked about it. If I start telling people how much service work I'm doing, he asked, doesn't that mean I'm doing it for the wrong reason -- and that therefore it's not service work at all, but ego work?

After that comment, the meeting started to go a different way. A couple of people talked about their service work quite unashamedly in terms of making themselves feel good, and that the unselfish sentiments associated with it tended to arise afterwards. These comments were thought-provoking. They may not have been altruistic, but they had the advantage of being honest ... and humble.

The suggestion in Step 12 of carrying the message to others comes -- quite deliberately -- after the spiritual experience. That experience teaches us that, in trying to carry the message, we are motivated not by attempting to make the work a better place, improving the lot of another alcoholic, or establishing a personal track record of unselfish service, but by exploring that spiritual experience in greater depth. After all, we are not carrying the message to somebody else, but to ourselves; for the spiritual experience at the beginning of the Step has taught us that we are those other people, and they are us.