Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions A review
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
In The Big Book we read the original text of how AAers managed Alcohol Use Disorder back in the before times. Also, how millions of people have fought these battles successfully since that book was written.
The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (12&12) was written years after they had learned a thing or two, so it gets much deeper into each step with a better explanation of each part of the AA program.
AA definitely doesn’t throw out the words that are in the Big Book with this, in fact, they sort of doubling down on it. In much more detail, it elaborates on the steps with insights from A.A.’s founders and the knowledge they gained through years of working with others.
Being around as long as it has, A.A. has an insane amount of approved literature, but this coupled with The Big Book are the basics. As was said in the write-up of The Big Book, I wouldn’t recommend people go on these books alone. It is strongly encouraged to find a good sponsor who knows a thing or two, to help walk someone through this stuff. It’s easy to read it and miss the majority of the important takeaways.
We are leaving two links here. AA Grapevine is a non-profit. The money goes to AA. PLEASE buy this book directly from AA or your local AA meeting. If you must… we are providing an affiliate link to Amazon. Amazon always takes a huge cut from all products. If you use our affiliate link then Amazon gives a small amount back to Recovery RAWKstars, but we always prefer that the entire retail cut go directly to SMART by buying it from them directly.
The 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
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 make amends 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 to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
