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    "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps ... "

The Spiritual Experience, or Spiritual Awakening, is said in our literature to be critical to our ongoing sobriety. So how do I know if my spiritual experience is real? The short answer is: Are you sober today? It's real.

A spiritual Experience is basically a radical change in our life direction via a connection to a power greater than ourselves. It can be sudden - (1) as was the case with AA's co-founder Bill W. - or (2) it can take place over time, one day at a time, as we put spiritual ideas into practice. 

Most spiritual experiences in AA (and probably elsewhere) are of the type 2 variety, a combination of a slow awakening, but one having clear guidepost experiences along the way.

We see it in newcomers when they suddenly start to see the wonders of nature all around them and when they take real delight in helping a fellow member of the fellowship. We often don't immediately see spiritual growth happening in ourselves, but we can see it happening in others around us in the program.

 
One Big Book story illustrates that perfectly:

     Yet I had a spiritual experience the night I called A.A., though I didn't realize it until later. Two angels came, carrying a real message of hope, and told me about A.A. My sponsor laughed when I denied that I had prayed for help. I told him that the only time I had mentioned God was when, in my despair at being unable to get either drunk or sober, I had cried out, 'God! What am I going to do?'
    He replied, 'I believe that prayer was a pretty good one for a first one from an atheist. It got an answer, too . . .

A few of the signs someone is experiencing spiritual growth is they start having an increased empathy with others, while becomes more intuitive about themselves and the events happening around them. 

("We will intuitively know.")

They feel a stronger connection with nature and realize that all life is sacred, not just human life. 

They are uncomfortable around negative people or those behaving badly. 

Spirit-guided people live in the moment and generally bring peace to those around them.

The effects of a spiritual experience are long-lasting and ever-evolving. Critics of Bill W.'s immediate life-changing awakening suggested he had hallucinated God's presence, but the results of his experience were both long-lasting and world-changing. Those who hallucinate simply don't reap those kinds of lasting benefits!

Dr. Bob, on the other hand, suffered strong cravings for alcohol for a long time in his recovery. He only found relief through helping others which probably helped with that rapid growth of Akron's AA Group Number One.

In an early letter between AA's founders, one wrote: 

Though it may seem a paradox, we must believe in spiritual forces which we cannot see more than in material things which we can see, if we are going to truly live. In the last analysis, the universe consists more of thought or mathematical formulas than it does of matter as we understand it. Between one human being and another only spiritual forces will suffice to keep them in harmony. These spiritual forces we know, because we can see their results although we cannot see them. A changed life - a new personality - results from the power of unseen spiritual forces working in us and through us.

I once heard a speaker give four reasons that people change for the better, but he was talking about non-alcoholics so only one of his reasons applied to us -

 "People change when they hurt enough and they have to."

Even then many AA members seem content to achieve sobriety while essentially not seeking the true spiritual experience that changes them into entirely different people. We've all met them in the rooms, old timers who share the same story every time. They talk a lot about their drinking days, but not a lot about how they've stayed sober or what's going on in their life right now. One is always left wondering who they really are. What I know for sure is I don't want what they have. 

I was once envious of Bill W.'s immediate spiritual transformation, but the Big Book promised me I could have one of my own no matter how long it took, as long as I stayed sober and kept trying. 

I stayed sober and I kept trying, but I will admit it took a long old time before I understood even the basics of God's will for me. ("Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.")

We - WE - are God's worker bees, both in AA and in society.  Any spiritual power we may manifest is God in action. We don't change others, but God working through us can bring change in the lives of others. 

AA gives us a tool kit for living so that we can become God's "tool kit." 

Our founders understood this, and they understood their (our) limitations. As Bill W. wrote in a letter in 1967: 

Day by day, we try to move a little toward God's perfection. So we need not be consumed by maudlin guilt for failure to achieve His likeness and image by Thursday next. Progress is our aim, and His perfection is the beacon, light-years away, that draws us on. 

Well all this might sound very uplifting, but where's the fun in it? Is there any?

Look around you in the rooms. Look for the people working a good program and reaping its rewards. Have you noticed they smile a lot? That they seem to find the fun in everything they do? Spiritual people tend to be joyful people.

As the Rabbi Rebbe Nachman noted, Joy is the highest expression of love. Joy is not incidental to the spiritual quest. It is vital.

And the spiritual guru whose writings inspired AA's founders (and AA members ever since), Emmet Fox, wrote this about smiling: 

A smile affects your whole body from the skin right in to the skeleton, including all blood vessels, nerves, and muscles. It affects the functioning of every organ. It influences every gland. Even one smile often relaxes a number of muscles, and when the thing becomes a habit you can easily see how the effect will mount up. Last year's smiles are paying you dividends today.

The effect of a smile on other people is no less remarkable. It disarms suspicion, melts away fear and anger and brings forth the best in the other person - which best he immediately proceeds to give back to you. A smile is to personal contacts what oil is to machinery, and no intelligent engineer ever neglects lubrication.

Spiritual seekers also tend to have a lot of gratitude for their lives and their life lessons. They pray for others and they meditate to discover the will of their Higher Power for themselves. When we pray it changes our attitude toward God. When we meditate we feel God's presence and know that all is well. 

When we stop being grateful our negativity stops the flow of good into our lives. 

AA's 12 & 12 book has a lot to say about the benefits of prayer and meditation, including this: 

Meditation is something which can always be further developed. It has no boundaries, either of width or height. Aided by such instruction and example as we can find, it is essentially an individual adventure, something which each one of us works out in his own way. 

Daily prayer and meditation, laughter, friendship, meetings and all the other things that make up our doing-the-doing of AA bring us to the discovery of our own true wonderful inner self. From them we gain strength and experience a sense of well-being. We become open to all that life has to offer and we become filled with gratitude at knowing God is doing for us all those things which we would otherwise be unable to do for ourselves.

My first waking thought before becoming an active and contributing member of Alcoholics Anonymous was not I arise, O God, to do Thy will. My thoughts then were frantic with worry about just getting through another day of a life on a toboggan to hell. 

But one sober day at a time, using the tools of recovery, that morning prayer has become my mantra to a happy fulfilled life where laughter and miracles are the soundtrack. 

If AA could do that for me, a one time fear-filled miserable drunk woman, it can do it for you, too. Just follow the instructions. AA is your shortcut to your spiritual awakening.

And don't forget to smile.