There are many people in this world who actively suffer from various addictions, compulsive behaviors, and mental health issues. Unfortunately, a large majority of them don’t ever find the healing for those things because they never give the 12 Step method of recovery a chance.
What originally began in 1939 as a tool to help those suffering from alcoholism, the 12 Steps have evolved beyond this by continuously being adapted through fellowships of people trying to recover from just about everything. For the longest time, I was one of those who never gave this tool a chance. I knew about it and I understood that it had helped many others, but I had decided it wasn’t for me. That was solely because I knew the 12 Steps were based around developing a closer relationship with God and upon hearing the word “God”, my first thoughts were of religion and cult-like behavior.
The word “God” has been used as a judgmental tool towards many people throughout history to oppress them. And being a gay male, I’ve been one of those. Many churches and religious people have used God’s name to tell me that it’s a sin to be homosexual. This became one of the primary reasons why I steered clear of all 12 Step recovery programs. What I never understood though was that this tool can help a person find a Higher Power of their understanding and not of someone else’s. It took me quite awhile to wrap my head around this fact and the idea that the 12 Steps could guide me to finding a Higher Power who not only loved and accepted me for my sexuality, but also who created me to be this way. But once I did, I began to see the benefits that 12 Step recovery gave me for my alcohol and drug addiction, sex and love addiction, codependency behaviors, and various other things I’ve been afflicted with throughout my life. Thankfully, I’ve come to see today how I can apply the 12 Steps to just about anything I ever feel powerless over.
Here are the 12 Steps as they are laid out in most recovery programs, where ______ represents the malady one is suffering from:
1. We admitted we were powerless over ______ and 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. Humbling asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all person 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 His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to ______, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
It is usually the goal of every person who follows a 12 Step recovery program to eventually reach the twelve step itself. There, a recovered person can begin to spread their message of experience, strength, and hope to those still suffering from the malady they once suffered from themselves. But even more importantly, if one follows the 12 Steps diligently, they will experience a spiritual awakening where their life becomes filled with a lot more love and light. That’s when they can the begin to practice what they’ve learned in those 12 Steps throughout their entire life. This means demonstrating that love and light in things such as at work, at home, or out and about in social gatherings. In fact, this is the main reason why I write what I do in this blog each and every day.
The 12 Steps have greatly changed my life. Without them, there’s a good chance I would have never grown closer to my Higher Power. My relationship with God today is much in part due to following this invaluable tool. I can assure you that if you are suffering from any type of malady that you are feeling powerless over, whether it be an addiction or something else, that the 12 Steps can help you. There’s a good chance as well, that a program already exists out there which uses them. There you will find others just like you who have found healing from your malady by working these 12 Steps. And in case you were wondering, a current list of all those available groups can be found at the following link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_twelve-step_groups.
The important thing to remember though in all of this is that there is always hope out there, and one avenue that I know that works is the 12 Steps.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson