According to "Charlie P." during a presentation by "Joe & Charlie":

The 12th Step has three pieces in it:

(1) the first part is the greatest promise in the Book: “Having had a spiritual awakening as THE result of these steps...” I think that promises me that if I apply the first eleven steps in my life to the best of my ability, I will have a spiritual awakening. Now what is a spiritual awakening? It is a personality change sufficient to recover from alcoholism.

Bill tells us in the ‘Twelve and Twelve, there are as many kinds of spiritual awakenings as there are people in AA, but they’ve all got certain things in common. That is, that we're able to feel, believe and do things that we could never do before on our own strength unaided (Paraphrased from pages 106 & 107 of the "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions").

I feel things I’ve never felt before. I feel love, patience, tolerance, compassion and good will toward my fellow man. Before AA, I could have cared less about you. Oh yeah you could have some, but I always got mine first. I don’t feel that way anymore.
I believe things I never believed before. I believe God is a kind and a loving God. I believe He stands ready to help any human being anywhere in the world the instant they’re ready to give up on self will and turn to Him. When I came here I thought He was hell-fire and brimstone. I thought He was a God of justice. Thank God He’s not a God of justice. If He was I wouldn’t be here today would I? Some of you guys wouldn’t be here either if He was. Surely, surely He is pure mercy, pure love, believe that with all my heart.

I can do things I never could do before. By golly, I can stay sober. I never could do that before. And because of the fact I’m sober I’m allowed to do many, many, many things that I never dreamed that I could ever do. Like being here, (like going to Iceland, driving under the Chunnel going to Paris, France;) doing things that I never could do before. So surely I’ve had some kind of spiritual awakening.

(2) Now I’m charged with a responsibility. There really are no free rides; you do have to pay for what you receive: I am now charged with the responsibility of carrying THIS message to other alcoholics - not ‘a’ message, not ‘the’ message, not ‘some’ message, ‘THIS’ message.

What is ‘THIS’ message? “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps ...” I’m not like I used to be.

Now if you’re in AA today and you’re all screwed up and you don’t feel good; if you’ve been doing a little drinking or even thinking about doing a little drinking I know exactly where you’re coming from, that’s where I came from too. But I applied the first eleven steps and I had a spiritual awakening and I’m not that way anymore. If you don’t want to be that way anymore, then you apply the first eleven steps and you won’t be that way anymore either, cause you’re going to have a spiritual awakening. It’s the only message that AA's got.

Some of us start fancying ourselves as healers, miracle advisors, spiritual advisors, economic advisors. God I don’t know of anybody that’s screwed those things up worse than we have. No, we just know one thing. And let me tell you something, the one thing we know, we know it better than anybody alive.

You and I know more about alcoholism than anybody alive, we’re the only people that have only experienced it. We know more about recovery from alcoholism than anybody alive; we’re the only people that have ever done it. I think we’re the luckiest people in the world.

I think surely, surely, surely God got tired of seeing people like us die back in the 1930’s. I think he decided to do something about it, and He’s always worked with people through people. I believe He picked Bill and Bob and the first one hundred. I think he picked Ebby Thatcher and Dr. Jung and Dr. Silkworth; the Oxford Groupers, that whole bunch, and put it together so we could have it today.

If that’s true, and He picked people then, we’ve got to realize that those people are dead and gone; they’re no longer here. If He picked them then, why surely He’s still picking them today. There’s not an alcoholic in this room that ought to be here. Every one of us ought to be dead, some of us two or three times. And we said, "my weren’t we lucky last night!" I don’t think luck had anything to do with it.

I think God picked you out, let you suffer your alcoholism so you would learn what he wants you to know. And then when He got ready to use you, He removed the obsession to drink. That’s the only reason we’re here today, to be able to help other alcoholics.

They tell me that 97 out of 100 of us are going to die, never even knowing we’re alcoholic. If that’s true 3% of us are stumbling in the doors of AA Less than half of us are recovering. We’re talking about one out of 100. I used to say "God, why am I an alcoholic?" Today I say "God why am I not one of those dying from alcoholism?"

He’s got a job for me; he’s got a job for you. It’s only when YOU fit into God’s plan for you, that you really become happy. I think every human being on earth today; God’s got a certain purpose for them, and I think ours is to carry this message of recovery to other alcoholics.
We have the ability to avert death in countless thousands and thousands of people. Very few people have that opportunity. Carrying this message is very simple, just do it like the book says to do it and it always works for those that want it. If they don’t want it we can't do a thing about that.

(3) The final thing I have to do is practice these principles in all my affairs.

Now what are the principles? We hear arguments about this all the time. "The principle of Step One is this" and "the principle of Step Two is that" and "no, no I think he’s referring to the Sixth Step". He said, “Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps”... he already used the word "steps" once in Step Twelve so he’s not going to use it twice. So this time he’ll call them "principles". In another place he’ll call them "proposals". In the front of the Twelve and Twelve he says "the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous are a set of principles.” He is always referring to the Steps.

Now it’s easy for me to practice the twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous in AA: I love you, I hope you love me and we’re going to do our best not to hurt each other. But I’m only in AA at the most an average of one hour a day. What do I do the other twenty-three hours?

• Can I practice these principles, these Steps in my home with my spouse?
• Can I realize just how powerless I am over that lady? (Step 1)
• Can I realize the insanity in trying to control her, knowing full well I can't? (Step 2)
• Can I make a decision and turn her will and her life over to the care of God, as I understand him? (Step 3)
• Can I inventory me and find those defects of character that keep me trying to control? (Step 4)
• Can I talk about that to another human being? (Step 5)
• Can I become willing to have God remove and ask Him to do so and take those away? (Steps 6 & 7)
• Can I make amends quickly to her when I’ve harmed her? (Step 8, 9, 10 & 11)

There are times when I’m ashamed of me. There are times when I treat absolute strangers on the street with more courtesy than I treat my own wife in my own home. Just think; if I could practice these principles with her and she practice them with me, why we might pick up ten, twelve hours a day where we could be peaceful, happy and free in our home. If we don’t practice them we don’t stand a chance, we’ll be at each other’s throat continually.

Can I practice them with my children? If I can do this with my children what little time I have left with them is good times. If I don’t, I try to control, they resist, and we’ll have no good times at all. I might pick up another hour, two or three a day there.

Can I do it on the job with my co-workers? If I can do it on the job with my co-workers why I might be peaceful, happy and free there for eight or nine or ten hours a day.

Aren’t we really saying that we have a set of tools and if we practice them in all our affairs we can be peaceful, happy, free and serene twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year if we wish to?

My sponsor used to say "Charlie, you can be just as happy as you want to be." And I’d say; "you old fart you have no idea what you’re talking about."

Today, I hear myself saying "you can be just as happy as you want to be. You got the tools to do it with".

Now make no mistake, God is not going to do this for you. Other people are not going to do this for you. But you, with Gods help and the help of other people, can do it for yourself.

I think we are the luckiest people in the world, I really do.