Twelve Step Programs

The Twelve Steps were written in the 1930s by Bill Wilson for the first edition of Alcoholics Anonymous, affectionately known as "The Big Book" to those who are active in AA. The steps have been cloned hundreds of times for other twelve-step groups, most notably Al-Anon, simply by changing one word in the first step.

The spirituality of the Twelve Steps is completely consistent with the Christian tradition, but it is designed to be used by anyone with any concept of a "higher power that could restore us to sanity" (second step). The steps are a most remarkable achievement in ecumenical synthesis and are well worth consideration by anyone who struggles with chronic difficulties in their own lives or among their family and friends.

AA's Twelve Suggested Steps for Recovery

Step	Related passages
1. We admitted we were powerless over [alcohol], that our lives had become unmanageable.	"I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Cor 12:).
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.	"Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners" (Mk 2:17).
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 others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Serenity Prayer

As prayed most often

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

The original prayer

God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference,

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace;

Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it;

Trusting that He will make all things right
If I surrender to His will;

That I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with Him forever in the next.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Short form

[Bless] it!