These steps are meant to be suggestive only. Suggestive as if you were jumping out of an airplane, it is suggestive you have a parachut. These are the words my sponsor told me and now I share them with you. The following 12 steps saved my life and I know they will save yours.

The essence of the recovery program rests upon the 12 traditions and 12 steps, the latter being the road map for experiencing a "spiritual awakening" and building a new life on the foundation of spiritual principles. The principles are spiritual in nature, rather than religious. Twelve step program members gradually acquire a thorough understanding of the steps and work on implementing the principles in their daily lives. Research has shown that spiritual transformation may encourage changes in behavior that encourage abstinence. Psychologist Carl Jung describes this spiritual transformation in the “Big Book” of Alcoholic’s Anonymous, “…alcoholics have had what are called vital spiritual experiences. They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Ideas, emotions and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them.” The 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, which all other twelve step programs are based upon, are as follows:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had becomeunmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us tosanity.
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 mak eamends 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 tocarry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

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WhiskeyLullaby