The Twelve Steps are a program to help people achieve sobriety. Numerous groups have adopted these guidelines, including Alcoholic’s Anonymous (AA), Narcotic’s Anonymous, etc.
The Twelve Steps are:
- Admit powerlessness over the substance misuse.
- Believe that a Power greater than oneself could restore sanity.
- Make a decision to turn your will and your life over to the care of God, as you understand him.
- Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of self.
- Admit to God, yourself, and another human being the exact nature of your wrongs.
- Become willing to have God remove all these defects from your character.
- Humbly ask God to remove shortcomings.
- Make a list of all persons harmed by your wrongs and become willing to make amends to them all.
- Make direct amends to such people, whenever possible except when to do so would injure them or others.
- Continue to take personal inventory and promptly admit any future wrongdoings.
- Seek to improve contact with a God of the individual’s understanding through meditation and prayer.
- Carry the message of spiritual awakening to others and practice these principles in all your affairs.