Monday, September 17, 2007
The 12 Steps of Recovery
A Twelve-step program is a set of guiding principles for recovery from addictive, compulsive, or other behavioral problems, originally developed by the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous ("A.A.") to guide recovery from alcoholism. The "twelve steps" were first published in the 1st edition of Alcoholics Anonymous ("The Big Book") in 1939; more than 25 million copies have been printed in many languages. This method has been adapted as the foundation of other twelve-step programs such as Narcotics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Marijuana Anonymous, Crystal Meth Anonymous, Co-Dependents Anonymous and Emotions Anonymous. Mandated court involvement with 12-step fellowships is a controversial practice of some governments; as stated in the Twelve Traditions, Twelve-step fellowships have no opinion as a group on issues other than personal recovery. As summarized by the American Psychological Association, working the Twelve Steps involves the following:
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1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His Will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
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