The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous

       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 the persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

       9.  Made direct amends to such people whenever 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 contract 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.

The Twelve Steps are taken from Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed. (New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, 2001), 59–60. In the same book, the “The Doctor’s Opinion” and the first seven chapters provide the complete directions for the Steps as described here.