Exploring the Twelve Steps, Non-Duality, and A Course in Miracles (ACIM)

Spiritual Insights for Life in Recovery

What if the real problem isn’t the thoughts themselves but how we claim ownership of them? That’s the question I want to explore with you here. In this Recovery Newsletter, I share how AA’s Big Book, Non-Duality, and A Course in Miracles all point toward the same simple truth: real freedom begins when we stop mistaking the voice in our head for who we are.

From where I stand in my recovery, I want to be clear: I’m not here to change the Twelve Steps. They remain exactly what they’ve always been: time-tested, spiritual principles that save lives. What I’m offering instead is a re-visioning, a way of looking at them through a fresh lens, one that sometimes uncovers deeper truths about the very obstacles that keep alcoholics like me from moving forward.

Over the years, my journey has been shaped not only by Alcoholics Anonymous and the Big Book, but also, somewhat unexpectedly, by insights from Non-Duality and A Course in Miracles. These influences have come together to shift how I view the Twelve Steps. Not as something to change or alter but a lens to look through more clearly, revealing depths I couldn’t see before.

Not long ago, someone emailed me a question that hit the heart of recovery: “Are all thoughts selfing?” By selfing, they meant the bondage of self, the endless loop of identification that keeps us trapped. That question stirred something in me because it connects directly to a key passage in the Big Book, right before the Fourth Step inventory, where the premise of our defeat is laid bare:

“Being convinced that self, manifested in various ways, is what had defeated us.” (Big Book, p. 64)

That single statement is, consider it, the root of the whole recovery process.

The Premise: Self as the Defeat

The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous doesn’t say alcohol was what defeated us; it points to self. Not the bottle, but the mental activity behind it: the self that shows up as fear, resentment, dishonesty, and the harm we cause others. That same self builds images and identities, pieced together from memory and projected into the future, convincing us it’s who we are.

I sometimes describe alcoholism as a kind of mental pathogen, something foreign that sneaks in, sets up camp, and slowly takes over. Its most convincing trick is making me believe that it is me. Every thought, every perception, every memory seems to feed that illusion, reinforcing the image of “me” until I’m completely wrapped up in it, enslaved without even realizing it.

A Course in Miracles puts it this way:

“The ego’s plan is always to make you mindless, for if you listen to it, you will not hear your true Self.” (ACIM, T-9. VIII.3)

Non-Duality teachers echo the same truth in different language: the problem isn’t the thoughts themselves, it’s the belief that we are the one thinking them.

Are All Thoughts Selfing?

So, back to the question: are all thoughts selfing?

Not exactly. Thoughts are just thoughts, like clouds passing. The problem isn’t in their appearance; it’s in the ownership. It’s when I attach ‘my’ to them: my fear, my resentment, my plan, my story.

That small word ‘my’ adds incredible weight. There’s a world of difference between walking through a day of thoughts and trudging through a day of my thoughts.

This is what the Big Book calls the bondage of self. It’s not the random stream of thoughts that enslaves me; it’s the sense that those thoughts belong to and define me, and I must obey them.

I still remember being a teenager, completely lost in the haze of drugs and booze, slouched in a friend’s dingy bedroom while tripping on acid. Out of nowhere, a voice in my head whispered, “Why not take four or five downers on top of that?”

Looking back, I realize that voice had nothing to do with survival or caring about me. It wasn’t a concern whether I lived or died. What it wanted was simple: to keep itself going. That glimpse revealed a hard truth: the so-called “self” didn’t care about me. It only wanted to perpetuate itself.

Of course, that recognition didn’t stick right away. It wasn’t until I found recovery, when my ears and heart were finally open, that I could see it. Recovery showed me that the mental narrator, that selfing machine constantly running in my head, wasn’t who I was. It isn’t who I am.

Beyond the Myth of the Thinker

Non-Duality frames it beautifully: there’s no “thinker,” only thinking. The sense of being the owner of thought is just another thought hiding in plain sight.

In recovery, this becomes practical wisdom. I can’t stop thoughts from coming; anyone who’s woken up at 2 AM worrying knows that. But we don’t have to live under their dictatorship.

As ACIM says:

“You are much too tolerant of mind-wandering and are passively condoning your mind’s miscreation’s.” (ACIM, T-2.VI.4)

The Course isn’t asking us to control thoughts; it’s inviting us to dis-identify from them. Same with the Steps: the goal isn’t to have “better thoughts” but to live in conscious contact with something greater than self.

Living in Freedom from Self

What recovery keeps teaching me is that the self’s so-called ownership is nothing more than a bogus regime. When that false ruler is finally toppled, when a Higher Power is allowed to take its place, something remarkable happens—life shifts. Misery gives way to joy, isolation turns into connection, and the chaos that once ruled is replaced with a quiet kind of peace.

ACIM puts it in words that always stop me in my tracks:

“Salvation is nothing more than ‘right-mindedness.’ It is not something you have to obtain; it is something you need to accept.” (ACIM, T-4.IV.1)

Recovery, for me, is exactly that: the acceptance of a new way of seeing.

The Invitation

So no, not every thought is selfing. But every thought becomes dangerous when I claim it as mine.

That’s why the Steps matter, why the Fellowship matters, and why teachings like Non-Duality and ACIM harmonize so beautifully with AA. They all point to the same truth: We are not the voice in our head. We are not the bondage of self. We are, and always have been, a spiritual condition.

Until next time, may we stay awake, surrendered, and free.

—Terry

Keep the Faith