What else is there?

I've been thinking a lot about the steps lately. I enjoy the principals of Alanon and especially the sharing - it makes me feel like I'm not crazy, or alone. But I have stopped on step 4 and haven't gone further in depth. Perhaps I'm wrong but it seems like the steps are all things a normal person learns at home from their parents and already incorporates into their daily life.

Maybe I use the term "normal" too casually. I grew up in a Christian family, so a lot of the steps that incorporate a higher power and taking responsibility for our actions seem like common sense to me.

I just got a reference to Smart Recovery from a friend who is an atheist and a therapist. I will definitely be checking that out.

Don't get me wrong, I get so much out of the Alanon daily devotional and literature. It's not that I don't think I have more to learn. But I am just very curious about these steps. Are these the missing components that an alcoholic doesn't get at home, that they must learn in AA?

I don't think the steps have ever been changed in all these years and AA seems to he the most successful program there is this far, or at least the one that is most widely used. I'm just curious what else is out there.

The other thing that has been troubling me for some time is the creator of AA, Bill Wilson. I read one of his biographies several months back, My Name is Bill by Susan Cheever. The fact that Mr. Wilson was begging for whiskey on his death bed does not sit well with me. That doesn't sound like any sort of recovery to me. I also found the way he treated his wife - throughout their marriage - to be despicable.