The purpose of the 12 steps is to recover from compulsive, out-of-control behaviors and restore manageability and order into our lives. It's a way of seeing that your behavior is only a symptom, a sort of "check engine" light to discovering what's really going on under the hood.
No. While it's true that the 12 Steps were originally based on the principles of a spiritual organization, the world isn't the same as it was in 1935 when AA and the 12 Step program was founded. The word "God" was eventually replaced with "Higher Power" to be more accessible to everyone, regardless of faith traditions or beliefs.
A Higher Power doesn't have to be God; it could be nature, the universe, fate, karma, your support system, the recovery group itself, medical professionals or whatever you feel is outside of and greater than yourself/your ego. What you believe to be a Higher Power is a very personal thing.
According to Alcoholics Anonymous, and the behavior change the 12 steps are as follows:2
1. We admitted we were powerless over drugs alcohol and behaviors—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. We Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to back sanity.
3. Make a decision to turn your will and your lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admit to God, and to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Be entirely ready to have God remove all your Character defects
7. Humbly asked the universe to remove your shortcomings.
8. Make a list of persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all When its safe
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continue to take a personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11.Sought through prayer and meditation to improve your conscious contact with God as you understand 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 all and to practice these principles in all our affairs throughout life.
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