How It Works

[Michelle 2010]

For those who are wondering, or never entered a 12 step meeting before... this is how hundreds of thousands of people have overcome their addictions to substances, be it drugs, food or alcohol. It works if you work it. But the program cannot be done alone.

The 12 Steps of NA

How it works

If you want what we have to offer, and are willing to make the effort to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps. These are the principles that made our recovery possible.

1. We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. We 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 a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

This sounds like a big order, and we can't do it all at once. We didn't become addicted in one day, so remember—easy does it.

There is one thing more than anything else that will defeat us in our recovery; this is an attitude of indifference or intolerance toward spiritual principles. Three of these that are indispensable are honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness. With these we are well on our way.

We feel that our approach to the disease of addiction is completely realistic, for the therapeutic value of one addict helping another is without parallel. We feel that our way is practical, for one addict can best understand and help another addict. We believe that the sooner we face our problems within our society, in everyday living, just that much faster do we become acceptable, responsible, and productive members of that society.

The only way to keep from returning to active addiction is not to take that first drug. If you are like us you know that one is too many and a thousand never enough. We put great emphasis on this, for we know that when we use drugs in any form, or substitute one for another, we release our addiction all over again.

Thinking of alcohol as different from other drugs has caused a great many addicts to relapse. Before we came to NA, many of us viewed alcohol separately, but we cannot afford to be confused about this. Alcohol is a drug. We are people with the disease of addiction who must abstain from all drugs in order to recover.

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

reprinted for adaptation by permission of AA World Services, Inc.

If you have a problem with the "god issue" it can be set aside, for most entering recovery have either been angry with god or didn't believe in him/her. Those feelings do not prevent success if the mind is left open to YOUR idea of god.

I hope this is useful to someone this holiday season

Huggs

Michelle

[Guest Pellinore]

Sometimes you just need a good friend to watch over you instead of a higher power. i don't like NA and AA... my addiction got only helped because of putting me in a toxicomanic section of a psychiatry were drug abuse was heavily punished..i eventually got clear enough in my head to realise all this just wasn't worth it. but everyone is different . It is probably true that many addicts are so desperate they just need something to cling onto..to believe in, i wish i could believe in something..i have just seen too much to believe in anything anymore.