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The
Twelve Steps of AA - Alcoholics Anonymous
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.
The
Twelve Traditions of AA - Alcoholics
Anonymous
1.
Our common welfare should come first; personal
recovery depends upon A.A. unity.
2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate
authority - a loving God as He may express Himself
in our group conscience. Our leaders are but
trusted servants; they do not govern.
3. The only requirement for A.A. membership is a
desire to stop drinking.
4. Each group should be autonomous except in
matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole.
5. Each group has but one primary purpose-to carry
its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.
6. An A.A. group ought never endorse, finance
or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or
outside enterprise, lest problems of money,
property and prestige divert us from our primary
purpose.
7. Every A.A. group ought to be fully
self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
8. Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever
nonprofessional, but our service centers may
employ special workers.
9. A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we
may create service boards or committees directly
responsible to those they serve.
10. Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside
issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn
into public controversy.
11. Our public relations policy is based on
attraction rather than promotion; we need always
maintain personal anonymity at the level of press,
radio and films.
12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all
our traditions, ever reminding us to place
principles before personalities.
Reprinted
from the book Alcoholics Anonymous (The Big Book)
with permission of A.A. World Services, Inc.
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