12 STEP PROGRAM for CHEMICAL ABUSE

The 12-step program is a set of principles for recovery from addictive, compulsive, or behavioral problems, originally used in Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) in the 1930s. The 12 Step approach is now used to deal with a wide variety of issues including not only alcoholism, but drug abuse and also various other addictive or dysfunctional behaviors.

Step 1 - We admitted we were powerless over drug and that our lives had become unmanageable.

That's what's meant by the admission of powerlessness - the total, unrestricted acceptance that, by ourselves, we cannot behave in a normal manner. It's 'hitting bottom' and it's the place of humility that allows us to accept the help a 12 Step Program offers.

Step 2 - Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Coming to believe is most often recognized as starting to believe in, or accept the notion of a Higher Power. While it is certainly that, it is also the beginning of faith in the Program, the Steps and ourselves - the assurance that, however small our trust, we really can recover.

Step 3 - Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Willingness is, of course, what this step is all about. It's simply a willingness to believe and let go. We don't need the answers about how it will work out. We don't need a definition of our Higher Power. We just need to be willing.

For me, and for many, control was the issue. Even though I had well accepted my lack of control when it came to drugs, I hated the idea that I had to give up having power over the rest of my life. Of course, today I recognize that I never had the ability to manage my life the way I thought I did - I never was in control; it was illusion.

Step 4 - Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves

We need to be willing to look at how we've wronged ourselves and other - both as a result of our addiction, and as a result of the 'stinking thinking' that went along with our compulsion.Step 5 - Admitted to God, to ourselves, and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Step 5 is where we stop hiding and begin to take responsibility for our actions. When you wrote your 4th Step you were, in a sense, admitting to God and yourself, the wrongs you did to yourself and others while you were practicing your addiction.Step 6 - Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

What I discovered is that I was far from entirely ready to let go of any of my problems, let alone all of them. I was delighted not to be drinking and thought that should be the end of it. Life, I felt, owed me feeling better or something. I dug a little deeper and realized that I didn't believe God would help me. I was totally comfortable with God helping everyone else, but not me! Talk about poor self-worth and that horrid inverted pride that makes some of us sure we are worse than anyone else!

Step 7 - Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings. Once we have become truly willing for the God of our understanding to remove our 'defects of character' (or shortcomings or whatever you want to call them), we simply need to ask... that's what Step 7 says. In some ways it really is that simple. Of course, it doesn't always feel that simple! The 7th Step is the letting go step. Letting go is a big subject for us. It often seems as if we should be able to let something go, but it feels stuck.Step 8 - Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

The first part of Step 8 is easy to accomplish - we simply need take pen and paper and make a list of the people we've wronged and make amends to them all, it does not matter whether the person accepts it or not.

Step 9 - Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

With Step 9, the goal is to apologize, sincerely, to every one we've hurt. It's a way of continuing to take responsibility for our actions. Taking full responsibility for the damage we've done it is a necessary step if we are truly to let go of the past and move on to our new, empowered future. Step 10 - Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Step 10 is the first of the so-called maintenance steps. Once we've worked Steps 1 through 9, our recovery should be on firm footing and we can truly begin getting on with life free of our addiction and truly empowered. But lasting and empowering recovery requires ongoing growth, and the 10th Step is one of the best ways to ensure we continue to develop.Step 11 - Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God. Praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out.If we've gotten this far it's safe to assume that we've made a pretty good effort at turning our will and our lives over to the care of some sort of Creative Intelligence. Now, as the second in the so-called maintenance Steps, we have the opportunity to deepen that connection and begin to live our lives on a spiritual plane.

Step 12 - Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

When talk turns to Step 12, it usually is about carrying the message. Not surprising, since one recovered addict talking to another practicing addict is how the 12 Step programs have grown and how most of us came to recovery.

Step 12 is the major promise of the Program - a spiritual awakening as a result of practicing the Steps - simple (not easy) and straightforward. But notice - it requires allthe steps - that's what as a result of these steps means. There's nothing in this step (or any other, for that matter, that allows for delay - nothing about getting ready for an inventory or hedging on amends. In the strict sense the promised spiritual awakening is the result of all the Steps.