What is a 12 step program?

Wikipedia defines a 12 step program as a set of guiding principles outlining a course of action for recovery from addiction, compulsion, or other behavioral problems.

When people refer to a 12 step program, they are usually referring to the 12 steps originally published for members of Alcoholics Anonymous. The Twelve Steps were first found in the book, Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered From Alcoholism in 1939.

Alanon uses the same 12 steps, traditions and basic principles you find in the Alcoholic Anonymous recovery program. You will find variations of these steps used for other 12 step groups such as Narcotics Anonymous, Over-eaters Anonymous and Gambling Anonymous. There are really too many 12 step programs to mention them all.

The 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and Alanon as written in Courage to Change One Day At A Time In Alanon II:

Step 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

Step 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

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

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

photo credit: Svadilfari

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

1. Step 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
2. Step 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
3. Step 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

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

Step 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Step 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.

Step 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.

If you are new to the concept of a 12 step program, or Alanon, I would encourage you to focus on the first three steps.

To boil these down to their most basic meaning; I can’t, God can - and I’ll let him!

By applying the first three steps to the way I view my loved one’s alcoholism, it allows me to give up  responsibility for my wife’s sobriety. The first three steps set me free to focus on myself.

 As I will leave each post; If you, or someone you know, loves an alcoholic or addict, I would encourage you to find a local Alanon 12 step meeting to attend. This is your first step towards healing.

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In the Alanon 12 step program you learn that you didn’t cause your loved one’s alcoholism, you can’t control it and you can’t cure it. This is also known as the three C’s. It was slogans like these that use to drive me crazy.

I could grasp that I didn’t cause my wife’s alcoholism, but I can’t control it? I can’t cure it? What do you mean  I can’t control it or cure it? I can fix anything!

In my mind, part of being an adult was taking responsibility for yourself and your family. I felt it was my job to get my wife back on the right path, after all, she wasn’t doing a very good job of it on her own. It was my job to take control of the situation.

As I work the 12 step program that Alanon offers me, some concepts come to me faster than others. Some I find easy to apply to my attitude towards my wife’s alcoholism and some I struggle with applying to my everyday life. Accepting the idea that I couldn’t control my wife’s drinking or cure her alcoholism came slow.

photo credit: wilttipöö

It really wasn’t until my wife hit her bottom, lying in the ICU, that I was able to detach and give up the idea that I had any power over this disease. I finally felt as if I had no control over her actions, therefore I wasn’t responsible. This was liberating but it was the case all along, I just couldn’t see it.

This journey was hers and hers alone. She would have to find her bottom and she, with the grace of God, would have to find her way back.

Today, I know that I don’t have any control over my wife’s drinking. I feel blessed that her Higher Power and the support she receives in Alcoholics Anonymous have kept her sober for 3 years. Although my wife has not relapsed, I can’t say the same.

I look back to my behavior while my wife was an active alcoholic and I’m not always proud of the decisions I made or the actions I took. When I say that I have relapsed, what I mean is that from time to time I slip back into my own destructive patterns. I look to control others, to lash out when I feel vulnerable, to indulge my codependent tendencies.

Today I am cognizant of my relapses. When I began this journey I would not have been. Through the Alanon 12 step program I have the tools, through meetings and literature, to identify my shortcomings and try to grow from my mistakes.

The beuty of a 12 step program, like you will find in Alanon or your loved one will find in Alcoholics Anonymous, is that it is truely “One Day At A Time”. I may have slipped today, but tomorrow I am given a new start.

As long as I learn from the mistakes I made today, I know I will be a better, healthier person.

As I will leave each post; If you, or someone you know, loves an alcoholic or addict, I would encourage you to find a local Alanon 12 step meeting to attend. This is your first step towards healing.

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 Step 4 in the Alanon & Alcoholics Anonymous 12 step program asks us to make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

What a scary thought!

If someone where to ask me what kind of a person I am, and I were to answer honestly, I would say that I am a good person. I was raised to take other’s needs into consideration, to go out of my way to help others, to sacrifice if necessary.

These traits, which I feel make me a good person, also lead to many of my resentments.

If I take a searching and fearless moral inventory, I realize that by putting others needs in front of my own has led me into a pattern of codependency.

Isn’t it amazing how alcoholics and addicts are able to find us so easily?

photo credit: jhartney

My codependent traits led me to believe that if I put all of my focus and energy into getting my wife sober - presto - she’d be sober. What thinking like this did was drain me emotionally and spiritually as my wife relapsed time and time again. It also prevented her from hitting her bottom as I was constantly there to help her fix the messes she was making along the way.

How true is this?

Today I have a better understanding of my patterns and traits that can get in the way of my serenity. One of which is expectations. As I find myself getting frustrated by a situation, I ask myself what my expectations were and whether or not I had the right to put my expectations on someone else.

I practice not having expectations and my life has become much more serene. Today I have an easier time letting life happen on life’s terms. I am not perfect and I do take steps backwards but I now have the tools to understand my character defects and the affects they have on me and my loved ones. I also have the tools to understand that my 12 step program in Alanon is about progress and not perfection.

As I will leave each post; If you, or someone you know, loves an alcoholic or addict, I would encourage you to find a local Alanon 12 step meeting to attend. This is your first step towards healing.

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