What Is AA's 12-Step Program?

Alcoholics Anonymous has a supportive 12-step program to help people overcome alcoholism.  Since its founding in 1935, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) has provided help to millions of men and women who once drank to excess, were finally able to acknowledge they could not handle alcohol, and, through the support of AA's Fellowship, found a new, healthier way of life that excluded drinking.
Simply put, the AA program operates by having recovered alcoholics share the stories of their own problem drinking, describe the sobriety they have found in AA, and then invite the newcomer to join the peer-based supportive Fellowship. The heart of the suggested program of personal recovery is contained in Twelve Steps describing the experience of the earliest members of the Society:

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.

Newcomers to AA are not asked to accept or follow the 12-Steps in their entirety if they feel unwilling or unable to do so. They are, however, encouraged to keep an open mind, to attend meetings at which recovered alcoholics share their personal experiences in achieving sobriety, and to read AA literature describing and interpreting the program.

AA emphasizes that all available medical evidence indicates that alcoholism is a progressive disease, that it cannot be cured in the ordinary sense of the term, but that it can be arrested through total abstinence from alcohol in any form. All of AA's efforts, including the 12-Steps, are focused on helping its members achieve and maintain sobriety.

To find a treatment center near you that incorporates the 12-Step principles, please call: 888.223.3893.