The 12-Step program is a set of rules and guidelines, proposed by the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), which are followed in order to recover oneself from alcohol addiction in an effective and systematic way. These 12 steps were first seen in the book “Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism” in 1939.

Following are the 12 steps through which hundreds of alcoholics gave up drinking and became sober for life:

1. “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol-that our lives had become unmanageable.”
Admitting this fact acts as a subjective exercise to admit that your life has become useless, unmanageable and dependent on this addiction.

2. “We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”
The tendency to fall at once is not as easy as it sounds. Following this step does not mean that you have to be Christian in order to complete the recovery program. This spiritual motivation can be taken from the teachings of any religion.

3. “We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”
Following this step enables one to see the beauties of life, which he never even imagined when he was not sober.

4. “We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”
The step compels one to do self actualization and to discover the positive character traits and mistakes in oneself.

5. “We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”
Putting aside the ego and accepting past mistakes is nothing less than a courageous task.

6. “We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.”
This is another spiritual act, where we believe that God has total control over the happenings around us and that He will surely help us.

7. “We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.”
It means realizing a better way of life and seeking help from God to follow it.

8. “We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.”
Clearing the wreckage of the past lifts a heavy burden off your chest.

9. “We made direct amends to such 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, we promptly admitted it.”

11. “We 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.”

The crux of these golden rules is that the addict admits that he has no control over his obsession of drinking and that only God who is the higher power can help him out of this evil. He can learn from his past errors and mistakes with the co-operation of an experienced sponsor to start a new sober life and stop others who have the same addiction but have no one to help them out.

 

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