Those of us who are members of AA are used to seeing the Gothic-lettered slogans in the meeting rooms all over the English-speaking world. "Easy Does It" and "There but for the Grace of God" in that old-fashioned red and black script are just a part of the history of our recovery.

If there is an odd man out in these slogans, it's "Think, Think, Think." Many of us were told things like, "It means think through the first drink" or "Think before you do anything foolish." Some of us were told, "This slogan doesn't apply to you" -- meaning, perhaps, that in our early days, any temptation to think for ourselves is probably a bad idea.

"Think, Think, Think" has the same sort of ambiguity when we start working the last three Steps, in particular Steps 10 and 11. On the one hand, our tendency to think -- and think too much -- is a problem we often encounter when practicing meditation in Step 11. Instead of focusing on our breathing or on the prayer of St. Francis, we find ourselves following some tempting thought: that new car we'd like to buy, that intractable problem at work that simply won't go away. And then, with a jolt, we recognize what we're doing, and pull our minds away from the thinking to the subject of our meditation.

Step 10, on the other hand, probably does require that we think. Encountering some situation in our everyday lives, Step 10 invites us to reflect on the feelings that the situation arouses, to consider carefully the course of action we are contemplating taking, to defer action in favor of reflection if there is any doubt as to what we should do. "Think, Think, Think" may sometimes be a nuisance for us, but thinking seems to be an essential part of our moment-to-moment working of Step 10.