The Infinite vs. The Interpreter

A Fresh Look at the Steps That Saved My Life

This work isn’t about changing the Twelve Steps. That’s not my lane. The Steps are sacred ground for me, life-saving coordinates on a map that’s guided countless alcoholics, me included, out of the wreckage of addiction. What I’m doing here is something a little different: I’m exploring these principles from where I stand today, hoping that maybe, just maybe, a fresh perspective might offer a deeper clarity about the hidden roadblocks that keep some of you stuck without even realizing it.

For those new to the Fellowship of the Spirit or this series, I call Beyond the Basics, let me say this: my story is rooted in the experience of Alcoholics Anonymous. My compass is the Big Book. But my view has been widened over the years, nudged open by the teachings of Non-Duality and A Course in Miracles, not as a replacement, but as a kind of spiritual magnifying glass to help me see what was already there in the Steps, hiding in plain sight.

I want to talk about trust, not in the romantic or religious sense, but in the rubber-meets-the-road way. Specifically, the kind of trust we place in the finite self. The mind. The interpreter. The part of us that we often mistake as “us.”

Let me say it plainly: for any alcoholic or addict trusting the finite self, relying on the interpretations and reasoning of the mind, will eventually fail. Not because the mind is evil or broken, but because it’s limited. It can’t touch the real pulse of life. It only knows how to interpret it, and those interpretations often get skewed by fear, shame, or the desperate hunger for control. We end up living from a filtered reality, chasing relief from the very system producing our discomfort.

Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous and author of the Big Book, touched on something profound back on page 54: “Reason isn’t everything. Neither is reason, as most of us use it, entirely dependable…” Now, that’s not just a poetic line; it’s a prophecy. Because let’s be honest: most of what we call “us” is just recycled, conditioned thinking looping in on itself. And here’s the twist: the so-called solutions that thinking offers? They’re usually coming from the same place where the problem came from.

So, what we’re left with is something that looks like faith in God… but really, it’s just more faith in the finite self trying to have faith in God, by playing God. It’s a loop. Self trying to get out of self. It’s the oldest riddle in recovery, and it keeps many of us spinning in circles without even realizing we never left the trap.

So, what’s the way out?

The Big Book provides a hint, discreetly placed on page 68, penned by Bill himself: “Perhaps there is a better way—we think so. For we are now on a different basis: the basis of trusting and relying upon God.” In plain terms? It’s a call to shift our trust from the limited, controlling finite self to something infinite, something beyond the mind’s interpretation we’ve been leaning on (and getting defeated by) for far too long.

But here’s the trap I was living in: I was trying to trust God while still being completely identified as the self that was playing God. That identity, the one calling the shots, trying to manage and interpret life, was still in charge, even while claiming to surrender. I didn’t see it then, but trying to quit playing God is just more self-playing God. It’s the same old loop wearing a new mask.

That’s why it didn’t work. Not because I didn’t try hard enough. Not because I wasn’t sincere. But because the one doing the trying, the one still clinging to the wheel, was the very thing that needed to be let go of.

The Book says on page 62: “First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn’t work.” And now I understand why. It’s not about trying harder; it’s about seeing that the one doing the trying isn’t the solution. It’s the problem, dressed up as the savior.

In my journey, that realization didn’t hit all at once. It unfolded, especially during my Fourth and Fifth Steps. I sincerely looked for my mistakes, saw various patterns, and took responsibility. But something deeper came into focus when I shared that inventory: I was shown that much of what I had chalked up to “my mistakes” wasn’t mine. I hadn’t consciously chosen a lot of that behavior. I was being driven, used, by something that had hijacked my inner operating system. Something had its hands on the controls, and it was wearing my face.

That’s when it clicked: self-centeredness wasn’t just about being selfish or egotistical behavior. It was about being unknowingly identified with something foreign that pretends to be me. And once I could see that, I could stop defending it.

Back on page 18 of the Big Book, Bill Wilson described alcoholism as an illness, one that impacts those around us in a way no other human sickness can. And he wasn’t exaggerating. This thing isn’t just about any substance. It’s about bondage, the kind we don’t even realize we’re in. The “bondage of self” isn’t just a poetic phrase; it’s a living, breathing prison disguised as us.

For me, real change didn’t begin with more willpower or even more spirituality. It started when I stopped trying to think my way out. When I hit Steps Six and Seven, something cracked open. I stopped trying to interpret my way to freedom and started letting something deeper, something not me, begin to do what I could never pull off on my own. That’s when the shift started.

And the result? A new attitude and outlook upon life. Not a concept, an actual shift. I’ve experienced those “effects” the Big Book promises. I’ve been placed in a position of neutrality around drinking and using. The problem does not exist, not because I solved it, but because I stopped identifying as the thing that had it.

That’s the miracle. That’s the shift.

And that’s what I hope to keep exploring with you here, because this isn’t about altering the Twelve Steps. It’s about seeing them with new eyes, so we can truly live them from the inside out.

Keep the Faith