Step 10 – “1 Minute to Judge Wapner”
At CORE, those of us working the 12 Steps are happily recovered today, but it wasn’t always this way. During our addictions, simply being conscious without the influence of alcohol or drugs was unbearable. We were profoundly maladjusted to life. Our singular focus became obtaining our substance of choice, making everything and everyone else secondary. This extreme self-centeredness—where our personal needs and desires took precedence over everything—was staggering. It’s no wonder our lives were, as the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says, “unmanageable.” Our relationships were broken, our work lives were in shambles, and the world itself seemed hostile.
It all seemed hopeless, and it would have remained so if not for the 12 Steps. As we worked through them, especially when we placed our will and lives in the care of God, we began to realize that the problem wasn’t with the world or the people around us—it was within us. We also recognized that the selfishness we wore so openly during our addictions had plagued us long before our drinking and drugging became oppressive. The harsh truth was that reality wasn’t going to change for us. If we wanted any hope of a happy and normal life, we had to drastically rethink our understanding of the world and our relationships with the people in it.
Steps 4 through 9 provided exactly what we needed. We discovered that our resentments, fears, and the harms we caused others arose from our own self-centeredness. We began to clearly see our part in our troubles. Realizing we weren’t perfect, we also stopped demanding perfection from others. We became more accepting, tolerant, and forgiving – not just of the people around us but also of the world itself. We started caring about others again, treating them with the same respect and kindness we wanted for ourselves and our loved ones.
This transformation wasn’t one-sided. As we changed, so did the way people responded to us. Our attitudes toward life began to brighten, and the world, which once seemed intolerable, became not only bearable but worth living in. In moving from a self-centered existence to a God-centered one, we found new hope, purpose, and meaning.
And in the midst of this change, something miraculous happened—just as the Big Book promises. The obsession to drink or use drugs was lifted. As it says, “We feel as though we have been placed in a position of neutrality—safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed.” Our sanity returned. We had truly recovered.
This brings us to critically important Step 10, which says “Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.”
By the time we reach this step, we’ve made a ton of progress. We may even look and act more or less like normal people again. We are now empowered to say no to drugs and alcohol, and we can choose to be the kind of people God wants us to be. We’ve reconciled with the world, and our future looks bright, filled with hope and purpose. It seems like we can have it all.
But there’s a catch – our choices still matter. We can choose to continue doing God’s will and looking out for our fellow humans, or we can revert to making self-centered decisions based on selfish motives. If we do the latter, we risk backsliding, putting ourselves back into conflict with others, and succumbing once again to selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. We become restless, irritable, and discontent. And eventually, the obsession to use returns, undoing everything we’ve worked so hard to gain.
Step 10 ensures we stay on track. It reminds us to be mindful of our thoughts, feelings, and actions. When necessary, we discuss them with a trusted confidant and quickly make amends if we’ve harmed someone. As the Big Book says, “This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime.” Step 10 is like a regular check-up, ensuring we continue living by the principles that restored our sanity. By staying self-aware, we can correct course when needed and maintain the progress we’ve achieved. We stay on the path of becoming the person who God wants us to be.
This ongoing practice is well illustrated by a scene in Rain Man (1988). In the movie, Raymond (Dustin Hoffman), an autistic savant, is obsessed with watching The People’s Court with Judge Wapner. When his brother Charlie (Tom Cruise) realizes Raymond is on the verge of a meltdown, he devises a plan to get them into a nearby farmhouse to watch the show. The catch? Raymond must act normal – no talking, no fidgeting, no drawing attention to himself. Charlie looks him over and says, “Just stand there and be quiet.” It’s 1 minute to Wapner, and Raymond is so close to getting what he wants!
But, as feared, the plan falls apart because Raymond can’t do this simple thing. Charlie, exasperated, says, “You blew it! You were in there. You had it all!” Raymond’s inability to simply be normal costs him everything he wanted.
This scene mirrors our experience with Step 10. By the time we’ve worked through Steps 4 to 9, we’re on the verge of something great—a life of stability, freedom, and peace. We’re so close to having it all. But without Step 10 (and remaining steps), we risk losing everything. If we stop taking personal inventory and correcting our mistakes, we fall back into self-centeredness and old habits of selfishness, resentment, dishonesty, and fear. The normalcy we’ve worked so hard to achieve slips away, and we regress back into insanity. The obsession with alcohol and drugs returns.
Therefore, as we go about our daily lives, we face many inflection points, just like Raymond. We can choose to be mindful, considerate, and self-aware, or we can revert to selfishness and chaos. Step 10 isn’t complicated or burdensome. It’s a reminder we carry in our heads and hearts to avoid becoming the person we used to be. When we live with this frame of mind, the obsession with alcohol remains gone, and life becomes not only manageable but very meaningful.