PREFACE
Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
I am powerless over alcohol and my life is unmanageable. If I could manage my life I wouldn’t have become an alcoholic. I was insane before I ever picked up a drink, therefore, I am insane when I stop drinking because the only change is I have put down the drink but everything else remains the same.
Step 2: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
This step does not promise sanity, nor is it about sanity. It instead asks us to believe that we will be restored to sanity. This step merely asks me to believe that someone else has been restored to sanity and for me to believe that it could happen to me. This is a step where I gain my faith through the experience of others by believing that a higher power has worked in their lives.
Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
This step and not the first is the spring board for recovery. The first step asks me to admit that of my own I am unable to make a successful go at life. To merely put down a drink will not give me emotional sobriety. To admit that my life has become unmanageable without taking action to correct the unmanageability by turning my will and my life over to a god will not change me as I am still using my same ineffective thinking and behaviors to run my life. If I am willing to turn my will and my life over to the care of God without first stopping drinking, I remain unchanged because I have not stopped the most blatantly insane behavior. The 2nd step asks me to believe that a Power greater than myself can create the sanity I lack in the first step and give me the power to lead a successful life. The 3rd step is the first action step aside from putting down the drink. The 3rd step asks me to surrender to that power so my life can become fulfilled. This step sets me up for steps 4-9 where I will undergo the transformation that will give me the sanity referenced in the 2nd step.
Step 4: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Step 5: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Step 6: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Step 7: Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Step 8: Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Step 9: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Steps 4-9 create the sanity. If I have turned my will and life over, I must then perform the remining steps as this is the dictate to change my insane behavior. I achieve this with thoroughness and rigorous honesty and by directly changing behaviors that are harmful to myself and other people. This sanity is referenced on pages 83-84 in the promises. The promises are the restoration to sanity.
Step 10: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Step 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.
Steps 10 und 11 allow me to continue the process of becoming correct with my Higher Power’s will for me.
Step 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.
Step 12 is the fulfillment of the previous 11 steps and has a dictate that I am to share my experience with other alcoholics and those about me. I am promised joy of living, that I and those about me will have emotional sobriety and that this is the type of love that has no price tag.