health

Founded in Akron, Ohio, in 1935, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)
is a self-help group with a 12-step program that addicts work
through to become free of their addiction. AA had grown to
nearly 2 million members in more than 99,000 groups worldwide as
of 2009. Not surprisingly, dozens of other self-help groups have copied
its model.
A generic version of the 12 steps follows.

1. We admitted we were powerless over our addiction—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 God.

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 God 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 God, praying only for knowledge
of God’s 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 other addicts, and to practice these principles
in all our affairs.