Steps 6 and 7: The Whole Doughnut Hole

“If I keep on turning my life and my will over to the care of Something or Somebody else, what will become of me ?  I’ll look like the hole in the doughnut” (P. 36 in the Twelve and Twelve).

I think I understand what the authors were saying here. By pondering this passage over time, a deeper revelation has come to me, giving the hole in the doughnut a more significant role than the original message may have conveyed.

The doughnut and the hole of the doughnut depend upon each other in order to remain complete –for without a hole, by definition, it would no longer be a doughnut. The hole is what makes a doughnut a doughnut!  The hole makes it whole.

We all can relate to the feelings we had when we first came to A.A., with an aching hole inside us that we couldn’t fill.  I know I didn't feel whole.  I tried booze but that didn’t work.


By working the Steps, the aching hole was eventually replaced.  No, I stand corrected… God’s love or one’s True Nature (What do you call it?) has always been there deep inside, but when drinking I was incapable of noticing, since all Icould think about was myself.

Our “doughnut hole” is our spirit.  Our practice is to notice it, bringing it to the forefront of our lives.  It’s that place before any thoughts appear, for that's how we live life to the fullest by embracing every moment.

In Step 6 we prepare ourselves and in Step 7 we humbly  ask God to remove our shortcomings. The act of turning things over and letting things go are pretty much integral to all of the Steps.  In my prior post I highlighted koan as spirit.  In this case it’s called doughnut hole spirit. In letting go we are tapping into our true self – who we really are -- our Universal Spirit.

Bill K.

Bill K