today, our 22nd step, closes out on reflections on Step 10 with a selection from hazelden, https://www.hazeldenbettyford.org/articles/step-10

the key, the essential in this selection? the idea, the concept at the end of the passage, daily work

‘These daily practices are the subject of Step 10 of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous: “Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.”

Here the word “inventory” means taking stock of our emotional disturbances, especially those that can return us to drinking or other drug use. Step 10 suggests that we watch for these disturbances every day and make an immediate response. Taking a daily inventory is important to all people, but especially to those in recovery.

“After several years of recovery and doing vigorous work in completing Steps One to Nine, I felt I had arrived, that my work was done,” says one long-time practitioner of the Twelve Steps. “I stopped talking regularly to a sponsor. I stopped going to as many meetings. I started going it alone in the fellowship. I was shocked when, after three years of recovery, I used one day. That led to two decades of repeated relapses.”

This woman’s desperation led her to reread “Alcoholics Anonymous” (often called the “Big Book” of AA). While studying the suggestions for Step Ten, she recalls, “I realized something that I had been missing: daily work.”’

Daily work