The 12 steps are used by AA NA OVA GA EA CA SALSA AL-ANON and other anonymous 12 step recovery groups. Before anyone starts using the twelve steps. They have to admit defeat. Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, Al-anon, Cocaine Anonymous are the biggest 12 step groups. This article sets out the key 12 steps to help you gain a better understanding of what these steps involve.


Steps

1. Understand step one. Start with the admission. The initial admission is to admit that we were powerless over "insert challenge" and that our lives had become unmanageable. It is about admitting the problem has beaten us.
2. Understand step two. It is about believing that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity of normal living. That power is up to you - this power can be God or whatever higher power you choose.
3. Understand step three. Here we make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. It is about following a higher power of your choice.
4. Understand step 4. Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Look at the modes of our character that cause us or other people pain, whether that be guilt, fear, shame, anger and so on.
5. Understand step 5. Admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Share with a person and your higher power your defects.
6. Understand step 6. Be entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Be ready to let go of guilt, anger and whatever other defects you have that are causing pain.
7. Understand step 7. Humbly ask God to remove our shortcomings. Get in touch with the higher power of your choice and learn to practice opposites.
8. Understand step 8. Make a list of all persons we have harmed, and become willing to make amends to them all. List all the people we have harmed.
9. Understand step 9. Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Get rid of guilt and fear by making amends.
10. Understand step 10. Continue to take personal inventory and when we are wrong, promptly admit it. Do not go back to the old behavior that leads us to our ways of suffering.
11. Understand step 11. Through prayer and meditation, improve our conscious contact with God as we understand Him, praying only for knowledge of His Will for us and the power to carry that out. Grow in a spiritual manner. In short, work on peace of mind whether that be prayer, meditation or just working on wisdom.
12. Understand step 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we try to carry this message to  ? (other sufferers), and to practice these principles in all our affairs. This step is about coming to our senses! We practice what we have learned in all modes of our life, and then go out and help other sufferers.

Tips

• People shy away from the steps when they see the word God! God can just mean "Good Orderly Direction" if you so wish.
• The steps are not about religion but about spirituality. Don't think you have to run for a copy of the Bible. The steps work for all religious and non-religious beliefs.

Warnings

• Avoid 12 steppers who say "There is only one way".