Step 12 suggests service -- to other alcoholics, in the AA version, but to "others" in the Al-Anon version. Service to others lies at the heart of Program -- the word "serve" appears, for example, in the classic six-word summary of Program: "Trust God, clean house, serve others."

There are at least two problems associated with service. The first is that we do it for the wrong reason, as something which we can talk about as a measure of how well we're doing in recovery. The other is the misplaced hope that service will make us more acceptable to God as we understand God -- that we'll get a passing grade, and God will therefore love us more. That idea has been a heresy in the Christian church from time immemorial, but it does occasionally make an appearance in other religions -- for example, the Buddhist notion of storing up merit for oneself (or others) by performing good works.

There is a third reason we may be attracted to service work -- its possible glamor. It sounds so noble -- "to do service work." However, service work in the broader Al-Anon sense can be performed in all sorts of unglamorous places. It may mean taking extra time with a spouse; doing chores; listening when we really want to talk; patiently hearing out the problems of someone not in Program, even though there is little prospect of there being any benefit to it. "Benefit" -- there's the fourth problem. We want to perform service work to a particular end. We want it to have some positive result. And that's not a good place to start from. When we aim for a result, it's because we've already determined what the outcome of our actions should be. And that takes us straight back to the business of playing God. To do service because of -- not despite -- its apparent pointlessness is the real basis of the activity. And naturally enough, our ego doesn't want to do that.