It is very easy to make our prayer ritual in nature. All spiritual movements are prone to ritualize their practices, and 12-Step programs are no exception. In my part of the world, we give out tokens for periods of recovery, we say "Keep coming back" when we hold hands at the end of the meeting, and now many people add, "It works," or even "It works if you work it."

We like these rituals because they make us feel safe, certain and secure. We like ritual in our prayer life too, and all too often that's because we still harbor a fear that if we say our prayers "wrong" something awful will happen to us. Prayer is really only a form of talking to God, but somehow we're reluctant to do that. It rarely occurs to us to talk to God as to a friend, and if it does occur to us we still don't like to do it.

Some people in Program pray in just this way. They talk to God first, just as if God were another person in Program, and then they are quiet and meditate, listening to what God has to say -- a spontaneous and meaningful way to approach Step 11.