Former White House adviser Steve Bannon has credited St Ignatius of Loyola with helping him to quit drinking and stay sober for 19 years. Mr Bannon, the combative Breitbart News chief, has practised St Ignatius’s examen every day since 1998, according to a new biography. The examen is recommended by St Ignatius in his Spiritual Exercises. It is a way of reviewing the day and God’s presence in it. Mr Bannon told America magazine that it had helped him to lead a “better, more fulfilled life”. He said: “The daily exercise has helped to ground me by understanding my failures in the previous day before turning to the day ahead.” Keith Koffler, in his biography Bannon: Always the Rebel, described Mr Bannon as “not quite an alcoholic”, saying he stopped drinking when he realised it was “definitely having an impact on me, on just my ability to perform … I didn’t have a drinking problem, but I didn’t have a drinking solution.” The examen has similarities to the Alcoholics Anonymous Twelve Steps programme. Fr Thomas Weston SJ told America magazine: “[The Twelve Steps] stresses how sobriety is a gift from God, and how gratitude and service flow naturally from that. Also, Step Ten in the Twelve Steps is where one reviews his or her day, and, when wrong, promptly admits it. This is very much like the examen.” Mr Koffler quoted Mr Bannon as saying: “It’s a five-step programme to, essentially, become aware of the presence of God in your life, the presence of God as you review the day at the end of the day. You also then review the day with gratitude. “You pay attention to what emotions you had at certain things. You choose, each day, what was the chief feature of that day – was that anger? Was it jealousy? It’s just a way to settle yourself. To read religious texts in a certain way. Basically, you pray.” Mr Koffler said that Mr Bannon had undertaken the full Spiritual Exercises, which usually involve a 30-day silent retreat, “probably 10 times”, although always on his own, as he had “never felt comfortable with a spiritual director”. Mr Bannon has had fierce clashes with America’s bishops. In September he said the bishops had an “economic interest in unlimited immigration” and needed “illegal aliens to fill the churches”. Cardinal Timothy Dolan called the comments “insulting”.