AA's Twelve Steps

The notorious '12 steps' of 'Alcoholics Anonymous' (often simply referred to as 'AA') have been the life line for incalculable thousands of people who have gained control over their obsession for alcohol and have discovered recovery in their lives.

The commencement for AA, and what sets apart their methods from the sort of treatment supplied in many clinics, is the belief that alcoholism is esentially a disease of the personality. People become addicts because they have addictive personalities. To manage alcoholism as a result requires an completely different approach than would be given to a normal disease of the body.

The 12 steps of AA are a moral and spiritual response to the personality . The steps are as follows:

1. We admitted we were-powerless over alcohol - that our lives had developed into was unmanageable.

2. We came to believe that a Power exceeding ourselves could reintroduce us to regain our mental health.

3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand Him.

4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. We confessed to God, to ourselves and to another human being the specific nature of our .

6. We were thoroughly ready to have God abolish all these defects of character.

7. We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

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 promptly .

11. We seek through prayer and meditation to raise our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to .

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the eventuality of these steps, we look to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

(ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, NEW YORK CITY, 1955)

The birth of the 12 steps are obviously Christian in nature, following the fundamental evangelical pattern of sin, confession, forgiveness and restoration. As in Christian theology too, the sinner always remains a sinner. No alcoholic is ever 'cured' of alcoholism. They will exist as an alcoholic till the day they die. The goal achieved through the 12 steps is simply to become a 'non-drinking alcoholic'.

AA has long lost touched with its Evangelical Christian . Indeed, most AA groups tend to be self-consiously distant from the church. One can only assume that this is because of the depressing history of judgementalism and neglect that has been shown to many alcoholic persons by Christian congregations.

As mentioned above, not every alcohol treatment program recomends the 12 steps. Some in the medical profession are unconvinced to a spiritual approach to treatment, while some more spiritual rehabilitation programs dismiss one or two of the steps, as some reject the idea that the alcoholic can never be cured of alcoholism.

Even so, one is tempted to say, 'a million non-drinking alcoholics can't be wrong'. The sheer number of persons who have found healing and hope through the 12 steps certainly testifies to their significance.