I am a member of SA Iran and have been sober for 17 years and 11 months. I want to share with you my experience of Step Eleven. Conscious contact with my Higher Power has helped me so much to stabilize and deepen my recovery.

My journey to achieve a mature relationship with my Higher Power began at Step Two. The initial work took me back to the God of my childhood. When I was about seven or eight years old, I dreamed of a Higher Power while I was asleep. It was a very vivid dream, this dream of a Higher Power, of God. In that dream I saw what must have been a holy man; he was dressed in the style of a traditional Persian holy man—such people are revered in Iran; anyone who would kill or injure such a person would be cursed by society. In this dream I saw the holy man walking hand-in-hand in heaven with the man who had murdered him. And I asked myself, “How could that possibly be?” It occurred to me then that, of course, the holy man had forgiven his murderer.

When I first talked about this dream to my mother, she cut me short, telling me to “Shut up,” that it was impossible for anyone to claim to have God appear in his dreams. But after a time she grew curious and asked what the dream was about. When I told her, she started crying. Seeing this, I realized the awesome power of forgiveness.

In Step Two I was suggested to try to visualize the Higher Power of my understanding. I tried to recapture the picture that I had had in my dream. I felt there was something very profound in it.

The inventory in the chapter on Step Two in Step into Action asks us to list the people who held authority in our lives over the years. For me, it was my parents, but there were also teachers on the list, politicians, clerics, etc. I listed the behaviors of all these authority figures and I found that the behavior of these people consistently fell short of their own standards, not to mention anyone else’s.

There was no Higher Power of my liking or understanding anywhere on that list. So, I went back to that dream I had as a kid to sharpen my impression

of a Higher Power I could relate to. Then I went on the internet, searching for pictures of God. I entered the word “God” in different languages and 1,200 images of “God” came up.

It was important for me to create in my mind a visual image of the Higher Power with whom I would build a trusting relationship. Around this time too I saw that I was not going to deepen my relationship with my Higher Power by books or internet research but by removing the blockages—my defects—which stood between us.

When I reached my seventh anniversary of sobriety, I celebrated – because I like the number seven—by sending an email to Roy K. In my email I said, “Roy, I am sober seven years today. It is seven years since I last acted out.” I expected a hearty congratulations, but his reply was short and caught me by surprise. He said, “Seven years sober, Masoud? That’s good. Welcome to SA.” He told me that, from now on, I should work as hard as I could to improve my conscious contact with my Higher Power so that I could practice Step Twelve and become a tool in God’s hands.

One of the best explanations of improving conscious contact with God came from my sponsor. He said that in Step Eleven I need to be so transparent, so clear, so free of wanting things for myself that my Higher Power can easily talk to me, telling me what He wants me to do for Him—to be so well prepared by the previous ten Steps that I am not praying for myself any more, only praying to do God’s will.

So, in the first ten Steps I ask for things for myself. Sure, they can be of a spiritual nature, my spiritual needs and wants; but by the time I get to Step Eleven, I had better be in a place where I am not asking for things for myself. If, by Step Eleven, I am still full of fear, stressed and worried; if I am still falling back on my defects of character to get by; if I have not practiced the virtues counter to my defects—the assets—or if I haven’t yet trusted God enough to turn my life over to Him; if this is how I am by Step Eleven, I can see my Higher Power smiling at me and saying, “Back you go and practice the previous Steps until you are ready for this one.”

This has happened to me as a sponsor and sponsee. Sometimes when a sponsee comes to me and talks about a specific problem and asks me what to do, I might suggest—even if he is sober for many years—I might suggest that he go back through the Steps again. It’s no different for me. If I am blocked by the same problem again and again, then I need to go through the whole process again so I can learn from those challenges that keep coming up for me.

I believe that I achieve peak conscious contact with God in Steps Eleven and Twelve. At this stage, I should be so rid of self-will that when I kneel down, I can comfortably ask, “OK, God. What do you want me to do for you now?” And so I move on to Step Twelve when I can be of service.

I see now that in my Step Two I attributed to my Higher Power many of the attributes that I had seen in the people on my “Authorities” list. In the case of my parents for example, I thought that because my father was strong and impressive, then so was God; and that because my mother was forgiving and compassionate, then God was too. But then, I attributed to God some of my parents’ defects, like for example when they were short-tempered and beat me.

I saw then that I needed to continue working my Step Two until I achieved an understanding of a Higher Power to whom I could relate and trust. The best way to do this was by working through the columns of the Step Two inventory, seeing what attributes I had given to my Higher Power from my parents and from the other people on my “Authorities” list.

I have a place in my home which is my own little chapel, my designated place for prayer. Just as every room in a house has a designated purpose— kitchen, toilet, etc., I installed this place for worship where I can feed my Soul and get rid of the things in my Soul that no longer serve me. The first thing I need to do every morning is connect with my Higher Power. Every morning, on my knees, I ask Him to reveal His will for me and I commit to doing His will until I go to bed.

Just to say in conclusion, it’s interesting to consider when we read in “The Problem,” that the problem is physical, emotional and spiritual; well, in Step One, we deal with the physical and the emotional parts. But from Step Two on to Step Twelve, the focus is on the spiritual part of the problem. This tells me that the emphasis in my recovery needs to be on my spiritual condition.

I have seen so many times in this program people who struggle to stay sober and others who are sober many years but are not enjoying their sobriety; by digging into it I found that they hadn’t worked that much on the spiritual side of their recovery.

I don’t claim to have excellent conscious contact with my Higher Power. If I had, I wouldn’t make any mistakes in my day-to-day life, and this is not the case. But just this little connection that I do have enables me to see the good in others.

For example, not so long ago my father was passing away. I was there, standing beside him, praying for him as he lay dying. And I experienced a deep sense of gratitude for my father because, when I did my Step Two inventory, I had realized that some of the good traits I attributed to my Higher Power, were traits that I recognized in the first instance in my father. One of these was his emphasis on the importance of doing good deeds every day of his life.

Here’s an example from his life. My father used to go to work very early, opening his shop at five o’clock in the morning. I used to always ask him why he opened so early. One day I accompanied him, the two of us cycling to his shop and when we got there, I saw that a young man who was a spiritual seeker had come to the shop. The young man bought just one egg and left. My father said then, “Now you understand why I come to work at 5 o’clock in the morning.” I realized then that some acts might seem small, but good deeds, no matter how small, can have a huge impact.

I heard once, “Every human being should have at least 20 minutes of meditation time per day, unless that person has a lot of things to do in which case he should meditate for an hour a day.” This holds true for me because my connection with my Higher Power gets broken when I have a lot of things to do, when I have a lot of mental obsessions. The busier I am, the more I need to have that prayer and meditation time—instead of giving less time to my Higher Power at those moments. The Big Book says it well: “He provided what we needed if we kept close to Him and performed His work well.” (AA 63)

Whenever I feel disconnected I try to go back to the idea and the image that I have of my Higher Power. If I still don’t have the connection after doing so, I call my sponsor and do whatever he tells me in order to establish that connection again.