12 Steps

12-Step Program Basics

Since the 1930s, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) has been the model of hundreds of other "self-help" groups throughout the world. Over 100 similar programs have adapted the to concepts to help people with every kind of drug abuse problem, addiction, compulsions, and a wide variety of dysfunctional behaviors. Today, millions of people attend 12-Step program meetings around the globe. 

12-Step programs enable individuals to gain freedom over addistions through a process of self-examination of their past, spiritual growth, reconciliation of damaged relationships and sharing burdens with others to provide peace and satisfaction with the present - one day at a time!

Cornerstone Concepts Include:

• Anonymity and confidentiality
• Success requires willingness to change
• Accepting that you cannot do it yourself.
• A "higher power" is required to overcome addictive behaviors making it a spiritual program.
• Groups are comprised of non-professionals who share your problem. They do not offer counseling but rather share experiences. 

The Steps

1. Admitted we were powerless over our addictive behaviors; our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves would restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our lives and our wills over to the care of God.
4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. We humbly asked Him to remove all our shortcomings.
8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. We made direct amends to those people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. We 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, praying only for knowledge of His will for us, and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual experience as the result of these steps, we try to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs.