What Are the 12 Steps Anyway?
What Are the 12 Steps Anyway?
Now that you have determined your first line of defense in this recovery process and made the decision to check out 12 step groups obviously the next step is learning about these “12 steps”. You hear it all the time, “Wow step 4 is some serious business! Don’t be 13th stepping now.” For a newcomer it’s definitely foreign language. Not only is it a foreign language but a feeling of being an outcast in some ways because it is like everyone knows this secret and you have no idea what they are sharing with each other. However, do not despair everyone started somewhere.
So what are the 12 steps anyway that everyone talks so much about? Well let’s take a look!
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol/addictive behaviors/substances—that our lives had become unmanageable.
Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God/Higher Power as we understood Him.
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Admitted to God/Higher Power, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
We’re entirely ready to have God/Higher Power remove all these defects of character.
Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God/Higher Power as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics/addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Now that you are aware of what the steps are next week we will begin to discuss how you work the steps on a daily basis and incorporate it into your life.
