Mind Your Business

By Rest on Your Laurels

Have you ever caught yourself wondering why someone else in the fellowship isn’t handling a situation the way you think they should? Maybe you’ve thought: “They’ve been sober awhile; they should know better.” Or perhaps you’ve silently judged how someone else is working (or not working) their program. After all, we have a blueprint for handling conflicts within the fellowship, right?

We often talk about practicing these principles in all our affairs, but do we realize that includes how we respond to others in the fellowship, especially when we think they’re doing it wrong (Alcoholics Anonymous [AA], 4th ed., p. 60)? The truth–their program is not our business.

Isn’t it just like an alcoholic to miss the point of practicing these principles in all our affairs? Our only concern is how we handle ourselves, how we apply the steps to our behavior and thinking, and if we owe amends for any actions that have harmed others. Step Ten is clear: “We continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. We vigorously commenced this way of living as we cleaned up the past.” (AA, 4th ed., p. 84). Nowhere in the Big Book or any approved literature will you find it written: Continue to take another’s inventory and determine if they are applying the steps correctly. That falls solidly in the category of “not your business.”

The Big Book may not say outright, “Mind your own business,” but the message is clear in the spiritual principles woven through the Steps: humility, restraint of tongue and pen, and personal responsibility. “So we clean house… asking each morning in meditation that our Creator show us the way of patience, tolerance, kindliness and love.” (AA, 4th ed., p. 83). “Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them” (AA, 4th ed., p. 84).

Well, that is easier said than done, we think with a huff. Then our heads full of AA admonish us before we even finish that thought, “If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison” (AA, 4th ed., p. 66). Next, we hear our sponsor’s voice in our head, “Resentment is the ‘number one’ offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease...When we harbor such feelings, we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit” (AA, 4th ed., pp. 64, 66).

Not willing to lose the Sunlight, we reconsider tallying up another’s flaws, and instead we pray the Set Aside Prayer:

“God, please help me set aside everything I think I know about myself, my disease, these steps, and especially You, so that I may have an open mind and a new experience with all these things. Please help me to see the truth, Amen” (commonly attributed to Joe H., Joe & Charlie Big Book Study).

Suddenly, we feel the bricks lift from our chest. We realize we can breathe deeply again. What a shift! It occurs to us that practicing the program in all our affairs means we don’t get to judge how others practice their programs. We apply the core spiritual principles of the Twelve Steps, not only where it is convenient or easy in our lives, but also in challenging places, which require courage, restraint, love, and compassion. What does practicing spiritual principles in all our affairs look like? Here are a few examples:

• Being honest at work, even when it’s uncomfortable
  
• Choosing forgiveness in conflict
  
• Owning your part in relationships
  
• Setting boundaries with kindness
  
• Speaking respectfully, even when angry or afraid
  
• Not taking someone else’s inventory
  
• Saying “I was wrong” and making amends

The 12 & 12 tells us, “It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions [12 & 12], p. 90). Just like a carousel, we watch as our spiritual growth develops, and we bring the focus back to ourselves. If something is off, whatever the disturbance, we must look in the mirror. There, printed in big, bold letters, reads: You are looking at the problem. (This is Karen C’s famous quote, and she has the stickers to prove it.)

How grateful we are to have this enlightened awareness of self. “We feel that elimination of our drinking is but a beginning. A much more important demonstration of our principles lies before us in our respective homes, occupations and affairs” (AA, 4th ed., p. 19). Sobriety is a miraculous and beautiful start, but the real test of the program is how we treat others and how we conduct ourselves in all our affairs. This is the cornerstone of our recovery journey in Alcoholics Anonymous.