Step 11 · Prayer and Meditation
On Awakening: the Step Eleven Morning Prayer
Step Eleven has a morning and an evening. At night the Book has us review the day, which is our Step Ten inventory. In the morning it has us do this, before the day starts running us.
It isn't a set prayer to recite. It's a short practice the Book describes, and many of us put it in our own words. These are the Book's.
On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems. We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only.
INTO ACTION · BIG BOOK, PP. 86–87
How many of us use it
A minute with coffee, before the phone: what's ahead today, and asking for direction in whatever words we have. That counts.
Through the day the Book suggests we pause when agitated or doubtful and ask for the right thought or action. At night, the five-question inventory closes the loop.