The 12 Steps are a cornerstone of many peoples recovery. I think of them more as a code of good behavior and a recipe for an enriched recovery. In my case they did not get me sober, but they sure have kept me sober. Without further ado, here they are:
Step One: We admited we were powerless over alcohol that our livess had become unmanageable.
Step Two: Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Step Three: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.
Step Four: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Step Five: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Step Six: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Step Seven: Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.
Step Eight: Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
Step Nine: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Step Ten: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it
Step Eleven: 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 Twelve: 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.
I believe the single best thing I have done in recovery is to adhere to and apply the principles of the 12 steps.
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