Twelve Steps of Recovery
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Twelve Steps of Recovery
The phrase, twelve steps of recovery, refers to the process by which members of twelve-step groups, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, work to achieve and maintain their sobriety. Basically, the twelve steps are a set of guiding principles that seek to lay out a course of action for recovery from addiction, compulsion, or other behavioral problems that have become obsessive and are interfering with the individual’s life.
Twelve Steps Originated with Alcoholics Anonymous
The first twelve-step group, Alcoholics Anonymous, developed and refined the twelve steps to help members of the fellowship recover from their addiction to alcohol. The twelve steps of recovery is a spiritually-oriented program based on the principle of acknowledging one’s personal insufficiency and accepting help from a Higher Power, or God as He is known.
Other Groups Adopted Twelve Steps of Recovery
Over the years since the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous, many other twelve-step self-help groups were formed, each with the specific purpose of helping their members to overcome their specific addiction, compulsion, or other behavioral problems that were interfering with their lives.
These groups, in turn, adopted and revised the Alcoholics Anonymous Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions to better reflect the identifying characteristics of their members. In many cases, simple word substitutions were all that was needed to revise the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions for their purposes. In other instances, the steps and traditions were rephrased to better fit the group.
Groups utilizing the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions also adopted the principle and philosophy of the twelve steps of recovery. These groups include, but are not limited to, Narcotics Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, Crystal Meth Anonymous, Marijuana Anonymous, Sexaholics Anonymous, Debtors Anonymous, Spenders Anonymous, Workaholics Anonymous, and Overeaters Anonymous.
What the Twelve Steps of Recovery are Designed to Do
The twelve steps of recovery are specifically designed to help members stop using or drinking or behaving (depending on the particular addiction), maintain their recovery, prevent relapse, and improve the quality of their lives.
The language of the twelve steps of recovery – the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions – is intentionally ambiguous in certain respects. The reason for this is that the individual member is then free to find his or her own meaning while working the steps and following the traditions.
What is most important about the twelve steps of recovery is that they will only work if the individual member is honest, open-minded and willing to do what’s necessary in order to maintain recovery. The twelve steps of recovery is not an intellectual exercise. It requires action. No one can be in effective recovery without doing the work of the twelve steps.
A Guideline – Not a Treatment Plan
An important distinction of the twelve steps of recovery is that it is a guideline, not a treatment plan. No twelve-step self-help group provides treatment to its members, nor are they to be considered counseling services. Participation in twelve-step groups is, however, strongly recommended by treatment professionals as a means to provide further grounding in recovery for the person who has completed rehab.
--Suzannekane 13:07, 26 June 2011 (MDT)
