A.A.’s Twelve Steps are a group of principles, spiritual in their nature, which, if practiced as a way of life, can expel the obsession to drink and enable the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole.
Reprinted from "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions" page 15 with permission, Copyright © 1952, 1953, 1981 by A.A. World Services ®, Inc. All rights reserved.
The Twelve Steps
1. We admitted that we were powerless over alcohol -- that ourlives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restoreus to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the careof 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 theexact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects ofcharacter.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all the persons we had harmed, and became willingto make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, exceptwhen to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrongpromptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our consciouscontact with God as we understood Him, praying only for the knowledgeof 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 principlesin all our affairs.
Reprinted from "Alcoholics Anonymous ®", pages 59, 60 with permission, Copyright © 1939, 1955, 1976, 2001 by A.A. World Services ®, Inc. All rights reserved.
Our Spiritual Way of Life
"...There are two or three things that flashed into my mind on which it would be fitting to lay a little emphasis. One is the simplicity of our program... Our Twelve Steps, when simmered down to the last, resolve themselves into the words ’love’ and ’service.’ We understand what love is, and we understand what service is. So let’s bear those two things in mind.
"Let us also remember to guard that erring member the tongue, and if we must use it, let’s use it with kindness and consideration and tolerance.
"...None of us would be here today if somebody hadn’t taken time to explain things to us, to give us a little pat on the back, to take us to a meeting or two, to do numerous little kind and thoughtful acts in our behalf. So let us never get such a degree of smug complacency that we’re not willing to extend, or attempt to extend, to our less fortunate brothers that help which has been so beneficial to us..."
Reprinted from "DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers", page 339 with permission, Copyright © 1980 by A.A. World Services ®, Inc. All rights reserved.
You can buy "DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers" at most meetings.
