Step 11 Questions: Building a Prayer Life in Recovery
These Step 11 questions help you build a real daily practice of prayer and meditation, not an ideal one you never keep. There are five: your mornings, how you pray, what you read, when you paused today, and your church. Answer them honestly, then pick one small change to make this week.
Write your answers down or work them in the app with your sponsor. Come back to them after two weeks and see what has shifted.
1. What does your morning look like right now?
Describe an ordinary morning, honestly. Phone first? Coffee and news? Rushing out the door? There is no wrong answer. You are just seeing where you start.
Guidance: Look for five minutes you could give to God before the day takes over. That is enough to begin. The Big Book’s morning pattern (pages 86 to 87, 4th edition) is a good model: think about the day, ask for direction, ask to be kept from self-pity and dishonest motives.
2. How do you pray? What gets in the way?
Do you pray out loud, silently, written down, on your knees, in the car? What stops you: tiredness, distraction, feeling like it doesn’t work, not knowing what to say?
Guidance: If you don’t know what to say, use a written prayer like the 11th step prayer or the Lord’s Prayer. Borrowed words are fine. They teach you how to pray.
3. What are you reading in Scripture this week?
Name the book or passage. If the honest answer is nothing, pick something small. A psalm a day. One chapter of a Gospel.
Guidance: Meditation means reading slowly and thinking it over, not racing through. One verse taken in deeply is better than five chapters skimmed.
4. When did you pause today when you were agitated or doubtful?
Think of one moment today when you got tense, angry or unsure. Did you stop and ask God for the right thought or action? Or did you push ahead on your own?
Guidance: This is the middle-of-the-day part of Step 11, and it is the easiest to forget. Try a cue: every time you get in the car, or every time you open your email, take one breath and pray one sentence.
5. Are you going to church? Which one?
Name it. If you don’t have one, write down two or three you could visit this month.
Guidance: The Big Book encourages people with a religious connection to use it. A church gives what a meeting can’t: preaching, worship, the sacraments, a pastor, and a body of believers. If church has hurt you in the past, say so to your sponsor or a trusted pastor, and start slowly.
Before you call Step 11 done
The checks asked before the step is marked complete:
- Have you kept a morning and evening practice for a couple of weeks?
- Are you connected to a church, or working on it?
A verse to start with
“O LORD, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.”
More verses are on the Step 11 verses page, and the full step is on the Step 11 page. The last step’s questions are on the Step 12 questions page.
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