Now that I’ve laid the foundation for the 12-Step Program AA, I’d like to explain the steps and what goes into living them.

1)We admitted we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.

The first thing any person who wants to change a habit has to do is admit that the habit needs breaking. We can’t work on turning our lives around if we don’t think there’s a problem. In this admission we are saying we can no longer control our behavior by just trying harder or by being a better person. We need help beyond ourselves. The second part of the first step is the admission that because we can’t control the behavior it’s negatively affecting our health, our relationships, our life. This is also the same first step that needs to occur before counseling is effective. We need to admit we need help outside ourselves because just trying harder won’t cut it. And we have more to learn from a therapist about managing life where we haven’t been able to do so. As an aside…I first started counseling with ACCFS over a program similar to Skype. When I went to their building for the first time for EMDR treatments, my first statement to the therapist was, “I don’t want to get better.” It wasn’t long before I saw how much the EMDR treatments were helping. Later I asked my therapist what their thought was when I said that, and they replied, I started praying really hard!

2)Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Once we’ve admitted we need help outside ourselves, we need to understand from where that help comes. We can have a great therapist, but as it says in Psalms, if God’s not in it, it will be in vain. Just like when we repent, we acknowledge that we can’t just keep trying harder, AND we need God to restore us to a spiritual mind.

3)Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over
to the care of God as we understood him.

We can believe that God can restore us; many believe in God. There’s more to it. We have to make a decision to turn our lives over to him. Again, just like in repentance, there is a decision point and a turning to God, because while the first two steps are about reflection, the third is about taking action. One website I looked at suggested that “turning over the will” includes actions like learning to pray and meditate, asking for help, and putting the serenity prayer into practice by working on what we can and accepting the rest.

4)Made a fearless and searching moral inventory of ourselves.

Look at the key words in this step – fearless, searching, moral, inventory, ourselves. The goal of this step is continue overcoming denial while looking fearlessly at the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it may be. It is to take time to be thorough in our endeavor, searching out all aspects of life for where we are in denial, where we need help, where we can make changes. It is about the morality of our life – if we are turning our lives over to God, then our moral standard will most likely change to be in line with the Word. And lastly, this is a focus on ourselves and not about others’ lives or what they’ve don’t to us.

5)Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

This is confession. Laying out on the table exactly where we have failed, such that God can see our genuineness, we can free our souls of the wrongs, and another person can vouch for us when we doubt ourselves in having taken the right steps.

6)Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

According to one of the websites I looked at, this is one of the most difficult steps because it may not just be about removing our defects of character, sometimes it is removing a whole way of life. When I first typed this in, I said, “ready for God to remove…” When I reread this step, I realized it’s ready to have God remove them. We can be ready for God to take the bad from us, but we have to willing to let go also. We have to be ready “to have God remove” our defects, to transform us. This is a call to sanctification.

7)Humbly ask Him to remover our shortcomings.

This confirms the step before it. If we’re entirely ready to be transformed, God will do his work in us. It hinges on us asking him for that. He’s not going to chase us down. He’s not going to start the process until we come to him. Notice also that this is done in humility. If we’re sincere in steps 5, 6, and 7, humility would have to be part of it, wouldn’t it? Humility shows us how deep these shortcomings are, how powerless we are, and how powerful God is.

8)Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

This has always been a part of our practice in repentance. By the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we figure out who we need to go back to and ask forgiveness. Again, we can make that list, but until we’re willing to actually make the amends, we can’t go into the next step.

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

Here we are moving forward to make restitution.

10)Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admit it.

This is the ongoing process of living a sanctified life. We are continually praying, listening to the Spirit within us to allow for guidance in living an overcoming life. We mess up, sin, fall, doubt, etc. we admit it. This is crucial because many as they start to heal, believe they are stronger than they really are. You’ve heard of people who stop taking meds when they start to feel better? Their mindset hasn’t fully set on needing that help from outside. Or some who after being sober for a time feel they can handle “just one drink”? Continually taking personal inventory and remembering where we came out of will help us to desire that overcoming.

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 it out.

Again, this is part of sanctification. We are continually praying for God’s direction and spending time meditating on his Word. We also are asking for grace to carry out his will when we understand it. I think the phrase “improve our conscious contact with God” is interesting. We are always striving to grow closer to him, and this takes deliberate decisions to be in contact with him through reading and prayer.

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

Here we see, just like in II Cor 1:3-4, the benefit of using our trials and hardships to help someone else. Verses 3 and 4 say, “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort; who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.” Again, this can apply rather broadly, not just to those overcoming addiction.

The 12-Step Program many of you know as AA or Alcoholics Anonymous was a main component of the therapy options at Timberline. Each resident was required to go to two meetings a week. These were always in the evenings and often off campus at a church or community center.

AA was started in 1935. At that time, anyone with an addiction to alcohol or other substances was set to a hospital to “dry out”, especially during the prohibition period of the 1920s. Bill Wilson was a business man on Wall Street whose career was cut short due to his alcoholism. After several hospital stays he sought help from the Oxford Group, attending their meetings, and participating in their accountability. After a spiritual awakening, he attended regularly. Many in this Oxford Group had Christian principles and leaned on them as an answer to their substance abuse problem.

On a business trip, Bill met Dr. Bob Smith. As long as Dr. Bob stayed busy enough in medical school and in his medical practice, he was able to manage his addiction. Eventually, he wasn’t able to overcome it just by sheer will. The two of them decided there had to be more to the necessity of Christian principles in fighting addiction.  They cofounded Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935, concentrating only on alcoholism as opposed to all substance abuse as the Oxford Group did.

In 1939, they wrote the AA manual called The Big Book; The Big Book is still used today at AA meetings. It outlined the 12-Steps, gave examples of how to carry them out, and had discussion questions meeting leaders could use. We also used The Big Book at Timberline.

AA eventually spread worldwide, with many many chapters. Most major cities have quite a few meeting spots and one can attend different meetings until they find a comfortable group in which to participate.

Narcotics Anonymous started in 1953, following the same principles and adapting The Big Book to work for drug addiction. The program hinges on attending meetings for support and accountability. The 12-Steps include building spiritual health and putting positive aspects in place so as to not leave a vacuum once the addictive behavior is stopped. Many times a sponsor is assigned for extra personalized accountability, and most often these sponsors are people who have gone through the program themselves.

Over time, there has been some push back to the inclusion of Christian principles as part of the AA program, and some places have adapted The Big Book to use “higher power” or “God as you understand him” instead of just referencing God Himself. Some have even wondered in AA is a cult because of the strong spiritual aspect. AA in itself is nondenominational and teaches spirituality as believing in God and his ability to help us overcome. Because they are nondenominal and open to all, the meeting leaders strive to avoid religion and politics. Celebrate Recovery is a deeply Christian 12-Step program, and I’ll write about that in it’s own post.

AA has been very successful as evidenced by it’s worldwide spread and long time use. Sometimes, if there is also mental illness present, AA is combined with other therapies. This was why it was a main component at Timberline, but not the focus of treatment.

It’s amazing how we as people latch onto something and run with it. Since NA started in 1953, many other groups focusing on other specific problems have formed. Here is a partial list that I found…

1. AA – Alcohol
2. ACA – Adult Children of Alcoholics
3. Al-Anon – Friends and family of alcoholics
4. CA – Cocaine
5. CLA – Clutterers
6. CMA – Crystal Meth
7. CoDA – Co-dependents
8. DA – Debtors
9. EA – Emotions
10. FAA – Food Addicts
11. GA – Gamblers
12. HA – Heroin
13. MA – Marijuana
14. NA – Narcotics
15. N/A – Neurotics
16. NicA – Nicotine
17. OA – Overeaters
18. PA – Pills
19. SAA – Sex Addicts
20. WA – Workaholics

When I was at TK, I went to EA – Emotions Anonymous and CoDA – Codependents Anonymous for the first couple of weeks. Then I started attending Celebrate Recovery, once I had privileges to move about campus. At the end of each Anonymous meeting we recited both of these…