The Twelve Steps

The Twelve Steps are a set of guiding principles used by Alcoholics Anonymous to help individuals recover from alcoholism. They offer a path toward personal growth, healing, and lasting sobriety—one day at a time.

Rooted in honesty, self-reflection, and connection, the Steps encourage people to take responsibility for their actions, seek support, and build a new way of life. While they include spiritual language, they’re open to interpretation and can be adapted to fit any belief system—or none at all.

Many have found that working the Twelve Steps not only helped them stop drinking, but also led to deeper self-awareness, stronger relationships, and a renewed sense of purpose.

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.