The 12-step program was created and developed by Alcoholics Anonymous as guidelines for their members as they battled alcohol abuse and addiction. This model has now gained wide recognition and has been adapted by several support groups.
While the original steps focused on alcohol addiction, a basic understanding of the steps will enable anyone to adapt them to any kind of addiction. Therefore, in this article, we will examine the basics of the 12-step drug rehab program. This way, you can also benefit from this program that has helped so many lives. visit here
Table of Contents
1. Acknowledge Powerlessness
The first step requires you to admit that you no longer have control or power over how you use the addictive substance. Due to this loss of control, you have become defeated and hopeless because of the negative consequences you have encountered.
Your ability to acknowledge this sincerely even though you have tried your best to quit is what will lead you to seek help away from yourself. At this point, you are ready to do anything to overcome your addiction and get your life back on track.
2. Discover a Higher Power
Since the 12 steps were founded on Christian beliefs, the original creators made the Higher Power to be God. Nowadays, many non-Christian and nonreligious folks who have adopted these steps replace God with what they believe to be a higher power.
Irrespective of what you consider to be a higher power, this step is based on hope as well as faith. Hope tells you that tomorrow will be better, and you can overcome your addiction. While faith in the higher power of your choosing is to believe that you will be empowered with the resolve and strength to go through the recovery process.
3. Hand over your Will to the Higher Power
At this point, you are required to hand over your will and life to the higher power that you have chosen. This decision must be consciously done thereby allowing you to channel strength from a force that is greater than you.
With this step, you can receive the lessons along your path to recovery with humility without being angry or feeling judged. Read this article to learn how to overcome the fear of judgment. This is the point where you let go of yourself and all the frustration you have had and then begin to heal.
4. Take Moral Inventory of Yourself
This step requires you to be very honest and sincere with yourself. You must overcome the denial that will prevent you from seeing all that is wrong. During this stage, you must be very comprehensive.
You need to write all the wrong things you have done as a result of your addiction. The reason you can do this without fear is thanks to the action you took in step 3. Now, you no longer judge yourself or your past but work towards the future.
5. Acknowledge the Nature of your Wrongdoings
Since you have broken down the walls of shame and regrets in step 4, you have now received the ability to forgive yourself. Hence, you can shamelessly acknowledge the nature of your wrongdoings in the past. Furthermore, this acknowledgment is then shared with your higher power and a supporting individual. When you do this, you can move to the next step with honesty and open-mindedness.
6. Reflect and then Discover a Readiness to Change
This step involves reflection and then getting yourself ready for the change you are about to experience. You are now ready to hand over all your character defects to your higher power. It is at this phase you truly begin to get transformed spiritually as you move away from all the hurt you have faced or dished out.
7. Ask your Higher Power to Take Away your Weaknesses
Humility is required at this point where you submit to your higher power to help your weaknesses and take them away. While this will not happen instantly, nevertheless, it will surely happen.
As you submit in this manner, you begin to see your weaknesses for what they are; obstacles that are preventing you from being the best version of yourself. Visit to learn how to be the best version of yourself. The more you focus on healing and recovery, you gradually begin to move away from those shortcomings and more into who you ought to be.
Your hope, faith, and trust at this stage are what keep you growing spiritually as you allow your higher power to work in your heart.
8. List the Persons You Have Hurt
Addiction can make us hurt those around us even loved ones. Therefore, the road to healing requires that you mend those bridges that you have broken or burnt in the past. Hence, step 8 requires that you make a list of persons you hurt as well as record how you will make amends. This process allows you to forgive others who hurt you while you receive forgiveness from those persons you have hurt.
9. Make Amends
This step requires courage to stand up and admit to the face of someone that you hurt them, and you are sorry for it. Sometimes, words alone might not be enough to make amends which is why you should have recorded your course of action in step 8 before going to meet the person.
Doing this step will give you a clear conscience, enhance your overall self-esteem, and relieve you of pent-up stress.
10. Sustain your Recovery
With what you have achieved so far, you are expected to sustain the progress you have made up until this point. Hence, you need to constantly watch yourself daily. Ensure that your thoughts, as well as your actions, are examined daily to prevent you from slipping back to your old ways.
11. Deliberately Improve your Interaction with the Higher Power
Prayer and meditation are the integral factors of this step. Both activities enable you to stay connected with your higher power. This is fundamental since your road to recovery would not have been possible without your submission. Hence, by submitting once again, you sustain your recovery.
12. Tell Others
This step is all about spreading the word of hope to others that are still struggling with their addiction or just at the beginning of their recovery. At this stage, you should have completely turned your life around. Hence, you can stand boldly and encourage others to follow the path that you have already walked successfully.
Conclusion
The 12-step program has influenced, impacted, and helped a lot of people right from the time it was developed. You do not have to be an alcoholic or a Christian to benefit from it. All you need is a basic understanding of the steps and then apply them to suit your addiction and beliefs.
