Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) outlines 36 spiritual principles to guide individuals on their journey to sobriety and spiritual awakening. These principles serve as the philosophical backbone of the AA program, providing wisdom and tools for overcoming addiction and living a meaningful life.
Derived from the 12 Steps, these principles aim to foster honesty, humility, willingness, forgiveness, love, patience, and other virtues. By applying the 36 principles, AA members gain resilience against relapse while connecting more deeply with their inner selves and a higher power.
The Origin and Purpose of AA’s 36 Spiritual Principles
The 36 Spiritual Principles of Alcoholics Anonymous originate from the organization’s seminal text – the Big Book. First published in 1939, the Big Book outlines the philosophy behind AA’s methodology for achieving and maintaining sobriety.
These principles complement the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions – which provide the structural framework for the AA fellowship and recovery program. While the Steps and Traditions focus on the systematic process of achieving sobriety, the principles offer more abstract, conceptual wisdom to guide personal growth.
In essence, the 36 principles help members apply the lessons of AA to everyday life beyond just abstaining from alcohol. They serve as moral and ethical guidelines for interacting with others and relating to oneself and a higher power with honesty, open-mindedness, willingness, humility, and unconditional love.
Key Aspects and Core Values of the 36 Principles
The 36 Spiritual Principles revolve around some core aspects and values:
- Honesty and authenticity with oneself and others
- Humility and willingness to admit wrongs, faults, and limitations
- Self-awareness, self-acceptance, and self-improvement
- Patience, perseverance, and acceptance of what cannot be changed
- Hope, faith, and trust in a higher power to guide the recovery journey
- Unconditional love, forgiveness, empathy, and compassion for others
- Service and carrying the message of AA to help fellow alcoholics
These values and ethical codes help foster personal growth and spiritual awakening. They enable members to take responsibility for their actions, make amends, and start living life on life’s terms without the need for alcohol.
The principles outline a way of being – grounded in humility, driven by service, purified by honesty, and bound together by a common bond of empathy and support.
Explaining and Examining Each of the 36 Spiritual Principles
While interpretations may vary, here is an examination of some widely accepted 36 spiritual principles in AA:
Acceptance
Acceptance involves embracing reality as it is – without attempting to fight, resist or control things beyond one’s power. By accepting hardship and injustice with grace rather than resentment, AA members attain serenity and peace.
Courage
Courage entails having the willingness, honesty and humility to confront one’s inner demons. It empowers members to admit their addictions, make amends, and change their lives without fear of stigma or judgment.
Forgiveness
Forgiveness allows members to make peace with the past, let go of resentment, and show compassion even to those who have caused harm. This principle is vital for reconciling broken relationships.
Honesty
Honesty is about living free from deceit and denial – both from others and oneself. Admitting hard truths is key to self-awareness on which sobriety and awakening depend.
Hope
Hope involves embracing the possibility of recovery and serenity even in hardship. It fuels the optimism and faith to persevere on the lifelong journey of sobriety.
Humility
Humility allows members to accept powerlessness over addiction, take accountability for mistakes, and understand their equality with all people regardless of status. It counteracts the egoistic mindset that feeds addiction.
Integrity
Integrity means honoring moral and ethical principles – even when inconvenient. Members build trust and self-respect by practicing integrity through honesty, kindness, and making amends for harm caused.
Willingness
Willingness refers to an openness to try new perspectives and change oneself through the 12 Steps. It enables members to overcome resistance and denial for transformation.
The above are just a sample of some key principles. Others include patience, tolerance, perseverance, service, spiritual awakening, trust, love, and more. Each principle works synergistically to spur growth.
It is not enough to just understand the 36 principles intellectually. Members must consciously apply them in their attitudes and behaviors daily to achieve radical personal transformation known as spiritual awakening.
Spiritual awakening refers to a fundamental shift in perspective and way of being whereby members detach from egoistic self-destruction and align with universal laws of interconnection, compassion, humility, and love.
This manifests as sobriety, inner peace, self-actualization, and being of maximum service to God and other people. The 36 Principles pave the pathway for this awakening.
For instance, by practicing acceptance, humility, and forgiveness towards hostile coworkers, AA members transcend resentment and reactiveness. This lifts heavy emotional baggage off their psyche, freeing energy for sobriety.
Each principle builds muscle for navigating life’s challenges without succumbing to addiction. The principles leverage mutual support, honesty, and service to empower members to practice spiritual principles in all their affairs – not just recovery meetings.
Through daily practice, members come to own these principles not just conceptually – but as authentic roots of their character and and newly emerging identity as sober individuals.
This enlightened, spiritually awakened state is the ultimate goal of working the 36 Principles. Members become beacons of light, powered by humility and wisdom cultivated on their recovery journey with AA.
The 36 Spiritual Principles thus serve as ethical cornerstones and moral compasses for alcoholics seeking not just to attain sobriety – but to spiritually awaken and reach their highest potential as human beings.