12 step recovery is a program for people suffering with alcohol and drug addiction.
It originates from Alcoholics Anonymous and provides 12 steps towards recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction. Nowadays, many organisations and even professional treatment centers connected with all kinds of addictive behaviours now use this program. The program is based on a form of self-help.
What are the stages of 12 step recovery?
The 12 step recovery process may be altered with regard to the type of addiction being treated and may be influenced by the treatment centers that you attend.
The wording of the program can also be adjusted as some organisations try to eliminate the religious language in it making it more diverse for people who do not believe in the existence of God or a particular approach to God.
The 12 steps originally published by Alcoholics Anonymous are:
Step 1- We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable.
Step 2- Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Step 3- Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Step 4- A searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Step 5- Admitted to God to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Step 6- We’re entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Step 7- Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Step 8- Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Step 9- Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Step 10- Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Step 11- 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 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.