THE TWELVE STEPS
STEP ONE. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol–that our lives had become unmanageable.
STEP TWO. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
STEP THREE. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
STEP FOUR. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
STEP FIVE. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
STEP SIX. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
STEP SEVEN. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
STEP EIGHT. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
STEP NINE. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
STEP TEN. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
STEP ELEVEN. 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.
STEP TWELVE. 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.
STEP ONE
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol–that our lives had become unmanageable.
Men and women who are allergic to alcohol and who compulsively persist in drinking eventually become sick from a unique illness. This illness is known to medicine as alcoholism; it is unique in that it adversely affects us physically, mentally, and spiritually.
Step One briefly portrays the pathetic enigma of uncontrolled drinkers who have acquired this illness over which they are entirely powerless.
Drinkers of this type consider alcohol a physical requirement; they gradually increase its consumption at the expense of proper intake of nutritious foods. This practice induces physical and nervous disorders decidedly detrimental to their comfort and health.
The study of Step One will be largely devoted to the physical illness of alcoholism.
Few alcoholics have given their drinking problem much intelligent study. They reluctantly agree they must quit but keep right on drinking.
Severe hangovers make them realize that physical illness plays a part in their discomfort, but they resort to a little “hair off the dog that bit them” and continue into a new binge or finally taper off, suffering much physical and mental anguish.
The alcoholic lives in compulsive slavery. Alcohol is the only means that makes life bearable and quiets the alcoholic’s jittery nerves. Existence under such circumstances soon makes the alcoholic’s life unmanageable.
Correction of this condition is a serious problem of immediate concern. Recovery is possible for alcoholics who honestly want to stop drinking. “Unmanageable lives” and the physical illness induced by compulsive drinking can be arrested. We must have only a conscious need and desire for help.
The founders of Alcoholics Anonymous identified the physical factor as a part of their powerlessness over alcohol. This physical factor was given first consideration in their new recovery program. In twelve simple Steps they outlined a way of life for daily practice that restored them to physical health and contented sobriety. Daily practice was the key to their success.
By trial and error they designed a simple philosophy to arrest alcoholism. It embraced knowledge of many vital facts. Recovery is possible, but a cure cannot be effected. The man or woman who has become an alcoholic cannot become a controlled drinker. They have developed a serious illness, and their lowered physical and mental resistance is powerless. Control over alcohol is gone. Continued drinking now brings only physical illness and insane behavior. They are truly sick people.
Experience has proved that recovery from alcoholism is contingent on:
1 Having a sincere desire to stop drinking.
2 Admitting and believing in our innermost hearts that we are powerless over alcohol.
3 Looking upon alcoholism as a fatal and incurable illness involving the body, mind, and spirit.
4 Considering ourselves as patients in A.A. for treatment.
5 Identifying alcohol as a poison rather than a beverage for us.
6 Making it our business to understand how alcohol affects us.
7 Realizing we are alcoholics.
8 Learning, practicing, and having faith in the Twelve Steps of the A.A. Program.
9 Believing we can arrest our alcoholism, but we can never drink normally again.
10 Gaining a lay person’s knowledge of how alcoholism affects our health and well-being.
11 Using this knowledge and understanding of our illness not only to gain sobriety but to guard against the danger of a return to drinking.
12 Doing this partially by keeping in our minds a mental picture of the unmanageable life alcohol demands from us and our powerlessness over it.
The layperson’s view and understanding of alcoholism are simple ones based on known facts and backed up with his or her experiences and the knowledge gained from other alcoholics. The following discussion of alcoholism briefly covers the facts necessary to a beginner; the beginner’s understanding will naturally increase as he or she makes the Alcoholics Anonymous program a way or life.
Nature has provided each normal man and woman with a physical body designed to withstand the rigors of a strenuous daily life.
A healthy person can endure great hardships under most unfavorable circumstances as long as he or she receives oxygen, water, balanced nutrition, regular elimination, proper rest, and relaxation. The human tenacity to retain that spark of life is persistent as long as we follow these standards.
When one of these factors is permanently neglected, deficiencies will eventually occur, such as physical problems, nervous tension, and neurotic conditions. Our nervous systems will upset mental balance, and we will eventually die from lack of rest and nourishment.
Alcoholism stimulates such a condition and further complicates it by a daily intake of toxic poison–alcohol.
The blood stream and body cells are first affected, then the brain, as we compulsively substitute the poison alcohol for the nutrition necessary to normal health.
This poison irritates the brain and finally breaks down nature’s defensive barriers. Physical deterioration is sometimes rapid, but, in most alcoholics, addiction is acquired over a period of years, so it is only in the later stages of the illness that acute physical breakdown is apparent.
This breakdown is not apparent to the alcoholic, who is unable to visualize the hazards of his or her mental or physical condition. Alcoholism has gradually inhibited the alcoholic’s power to discern between social and pathological drinking. A marked personality change, influenced chiefly by negative thinking, now drives the alcoholic to heavier drinking.
Friends and relatives become concerned over this change in personality. But, the alcoholic precludes self-criticism and becomes at odds with a normal environment.
Recovery from alcoholism, the