The 12-step program is based on the belief that the individual who is suffering from drug addiction actually has a “disease.” This type of treatment is based in the belief that the individual can never “recover” from their addiction and will continually have to attend meetings and have therapy for the duration of their life. The truth of the matter is that alcoholism and substance abuse are not diseases in the strictest of medical senses. Although for those who do consider addiction a disease, it is certainly one in which “the individual actively participates in its creation, and maintenance, if not the outcome.”
-
We admit we are powerless over our dependencies and that our lives have become unmanageable.
-
We came to believe that God could restore us to sanity.
-
We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God.
-
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
-
We admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
-
We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
-
Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
-
We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
-
Made direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
-
We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
-
We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as revealed through the person of Jesus Christ, praying only for the knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
-
Having had a Spiritual Awakening as a result of these steps, which is the revelation of Jesus Christ, we try to carry this message to others and to practice these Biblical principles in all our affairs.
