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The
relative success of the A.A. programme seems to be due
to the fact that an alcoholic who no longer drinks has
an exceptional faculty for "reaching" and helping an
uncontrolled drinker.
In simplest form, the A.A. programme operates when a
recovered alcoholic passes along the story of his or
her own problem drinking, describes the sobriety he
or she has found in A.A., and invites the newcomer to
join the informal Fellowship.
The heart of the suggested programme of personal recovery
is contained in Twelve Steps
describing the experience of the earliest members
of the Society:
- We
admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our
lives had become unmanageable.
-
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves
could restore us to sanity.
-
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over
to the care of God as we understood Him.
-
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of
ourselves.
-
Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human
being the exact nature of our wrongs.
-
Were entirely ready to have God remove all these
defects of character.
-
Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
-
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became
willing to make amends to them all.
-
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible,
except when to do so would injure them or others.
-
Continued to take personal inventory and when we
were wrong promptly admitted it.
-
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.
-
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.
Newcomers
are not asked to accept or follow these Twelve Steps
in their entirety if they feel unwilling or unable
to do so.
They will usually be asked to keep an open mind, to
attend meetings at which recovered alcoholics describe
their personal experiences in achieving sobriety,
and to read A.A. literature describing and interpreting
the A.A. programme.
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