How AA Works
The Recovery Program
The relative success of the A.A. program seems to be
due to the fact that an alcoholic who no longer drinks has an exceptional
faculty for “reaching ” and helping an uncontrolled drinker.
In simplest form, the A.A. program operates when a recovered alcoholic passes along the story of his or her own problem
drinking, describes the sobriety he or she
has found in A.A., and invites the
newcomer to join the informal Fellowship.
The heart of the suggested program of
personal recovery is contained in Twelve
Steps describing the experience of the earliest members of the Society:
Copyright 1956 A.A. Publishing, Inc.
How It Works
Suggested Program of Recovery
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.
Copyright 1956 A.A. Publishing, Inc.
By following the Twelve Steps, attending meetings and helping other alcoholics, about 2 million have achieved sobriety.