- 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
others.
- Continued to take personal
inventory, 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.
Many of us exclaimed, "What an order! I
can't go through with it." Do not be discouraged. No one among
us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence
to these principles. We are not saints. The point is that we
are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we
have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual
progress rather than spiritual perfection.
Our description of the alcoholic, the
chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before
and after make clear three pertinent ideas:
a. That we were alcoholic and could not
manage our own lives.
b.That probably no
human power could have relieved our
alcoholism.
c. That God could and
would if He were sought.
