Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

by Alcoholics Anonymous

Variety of ways to faith.

Self-determination in your recovery path.

Definitely a great challenge for me but getting better the more I practice the steps.

A.A.’s Twelve Steps are a group of principles, spiritual in their nature, which, if practiced as a way of life, can expel the obsession to drink and enable the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole.

Foundation of practice these principles meeting.

Then we had been told that so far as alcohol is concerned, self-confidence was no good whatever; in fact, it was a total liability.

the beginning of the end of his old life, and the beginning of his emergence into a new one.

my attitude regarding these had been anything but scientific. It wasn’t A.A. that had the closed mind, it was me.

defiance is the outstanding characteristic of many an alcoholic.

take a look at the results normal people are getting from self-sufficiency. Everywhere he sees people filled with anger and fear, society breaking up into warring fragments. Each fragment says to the others, “We are right and you are wrong.” Every such pressure group, if it is strong enough, self-righteously imposes its will upon the rest.

it is by circumstance rather than by any virtue that we have been driven to A.A.,

Nearly every serious emotional problem can be seen as a case of misdirected instinct.

often getting a misshapen and painful pleasure out of it.

This has been one of my main modes both when drinking and in recovery.

we have lost all perspective, and therefore all genuine humility. For this is pride in reverse.

The sponsor probably points out that the newcomer has some assets which can be noted along with his liabilities. This tends to clear away morbidity and encourage balance. As soon as he begins to be more objective, the newcomer can fearlessly, rather than fearfully, look at his own defects.

It never occurred to us that we needed to change ourselves to meet conditions, whatever they were.

with genuine alarm at the prospect of work, we stay lazy. We loaf and procrastinate, or at best work grudgingly and under half steam.

did I insist that I was the pursued and not the pursuer, and thus absolve myself?

The most common symptoms of emotional insecurity are worry, anger, self-pity, and depression.

thoroughness ought to be the watchword when taking inventory. In this connection, it is wise to write out our questions and answers. It will be an aid to clear thinking and honest appraisal.

ego deflation,

we shall get rid of that terrible sense of isolation we’ve always had.

It is worth noting that people of very high spiritual development almost always insist on checking with friends or spiritual advisers the guidance they feel they have received from God.

Only Step One, where we made the 100 percent admission we were powerless over alcohol, can be practiced with absolute perfection. The remaining eleven Steps state perfect ideals. They are goals toward which we look, and the measuring sticks by which we estimate our progress.

When we seemed to be succeeding, we drank to dream still greater dreams. When we were frustrated, even in part, we drank for oblivion.

We never thought of making honesty, tolerance, and true love of man and God the daily basis of living.

It will become more and more evident as we go forward that it is pointless to become angry, or to get hurt by people who,

The idea that we can be possessively loving of a few, can ignore the many, and can continue to fear or hate anybody, has to be abandoned, if only a little at a time.

meditation is like that, too; it helps to envision our spiritual objective before we try to move toward it.

Great suffering and great love are A.A.’s disciplinarians; we need no others.

Jack Alexander’s famous Saturday Evening Post piece made A.A. a national institution.

Find this!