Steps and Traditions

12 Steps
Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery:

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. Step 5~ Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Step Six~ Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Step 7~ Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
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 thru 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.


*I believe a very important part of every AA meeting, is the reading of the 12 Steps, as it IS the Program of recovery. So, I will refer you to Page 164 in our beloved Big Book where all 12 Steps are listed in a single paragraph:
"Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. (Steps 1, 2 & 3). Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. (Steps 4, 5, 6 & 7) Clear away the wreckage of your past. (Steps 8 & 9)Give freely of what you find and join us. (Steps 10, 11 & 12) We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny."

12 Traditions


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 Alcoholics Anonymous, Pages 562 with permission of A.A. World Services, Inc. Copyright ~ 1939, 1955, 1976, 2001

Prayers and Promises

The Serenity 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 hardships 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. Amen.
Reinhold Niebuhr - 1926

.THE LORD'S PRAYER

Our Father, who art in Heaven,

Hallowed be thy Name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done,

On earth as it is in Heaven.

Give us this day,
our daily bread.

Forgive us our trespasses,

As we forgive those who trespass against us.

Lead us not into temptation,

But deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom, the power, and the

glory, are yours now and forever. Amen

           Seventh Step Prayer

"My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character, which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows.
Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen."

The Eleventh Step Prayer
("Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions," Page, 99)
Lord, make me a channel of thy peace;
that where there is hatred, I may bring love;
that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;
that where there is discord, I may bring harmony;
that where there is error, I may bring truth;
that where there is doubt, I may bring faith;
that where there is despair, I may bring hope;
that where there are shadows, I may bring light;
that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;
to understand, than to be understood;
to love, than to be loved.
For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.
Amen

Third Step Prayer

God, I offer myself to Thee- to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt.
Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties,
that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of
Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life.
May I do Thy will always! Amen

.....If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through.

1. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness,

2. We will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it,

3. We will comprehend the word serenity,

4. And we will know peace.

5. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.

6. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.

7. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain insight into our fellows.

8. Self-seeking will slip away.

9. Our whole attitude and outlook will change.

10. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us.

11. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.

12. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us--sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.....