The 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol--that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
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.
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.

Overview of the 12 Step Program
The 12 Step program has its origin in the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) in the 1930s. The major text for A.A. is called "Alcoholics Anonymous", also known as "The Big Book". The Big Book has gone through four editions, with the latest version available from the Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.. The Big Book is an account of Bill Wilson (Bill W.), Dr. Bob and friends and how the formation of A.A. came about and how it worked for them. The book is primarily biographical in nature and lays out the 12 steps in the context of the lives of those in A.A. There are other books that lay out the steps in a more methodical manner, such as the book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, (known as the "12 and 12") also from Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc..

Since the 12 Step program has been the most successful overall recovery program to date for alcoholism and has been applied to other addictions as well, then there are of course a myriad of other books and websites that cover the 12 step program in a variety of contexts and from different angles (for example, you can browse at Barnes and Noble or Amazon.com for various 12 Step and recovery books).

Since the Big Book is the classic book on the 12 step program, we make reference to and have excerpts from that book on all of our pages dealing with a given step (You can also read the entire Big Book, second edition, online in our references section).

The pages for any given individual step can be reached from the top menu items under The Steps. You can read through the original text of the Big Book that relates to a given step by clicking the "More about Step..." link on the web page for that step. We also have comments about the step from other authors. The summaries on these pages for individual steps should give you an overview of what the step is about. For further details, you can read the aforementioned texts, visit some of the other websites, or read one of the books that deals with 12 step programs in greater detail.

The 12 step program as it has been propagated since the days of A.A. is about finding freedom from the pull of addictive behaviors. That may sound like a simple thing to some people, but anyone who has battled addictive behaviors knows that in practice it can be anything but simple. It can be difficult, frustrating, confusing and sometimes life-threatening or lethal as one tries to battle the sly ways of their addiction. Hopefully at this 12Step.org site you will find some information and tools that will help you to better understand how 12 Step programs work and decide if they are applicable to your life or the life of someone you care about. The 12 Step program, worked well, can bring order, simplicity and clarity to the recovery process and make it easier to experience the serenity and strength that comes from true recovery.

As mentioned, the 12 Step program has proven successful in dealing with alcoholism and has been applied to many other addictive behaviors. In dealing with other addictive behaviors besides alcoholism, however, comments from the book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (p. 64-65) about Step 6 are quite relevant. It brings up the relevant question of how much an addictive behavior is based on natural, God-given instincts versus how much an addictive behavior is contrary to our natural instinct to survive and so can more simply be done away with entirely.

The 12 Promises
The 12 promises are from pps. 83-84 of the Big Book.

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through . . .

1. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
2. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
3. We will comprehend the word serenity.
4. We will know peace.
5. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
6. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
7. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
8. Self-seeking will slip away.
9. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
10. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
11. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
12. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fullfilled among us - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.