The 12 Steps of Narcotics Anonymous
How it works
If you want what we have
to offer, and are willing to make the effort to get it, then you are
ready to take certain steps. These are the principles that made our
recovery possible.
1. We admitted
that we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become
unmanageable.
2. We came
to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to
sanity.
3. We made
a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God
as we understood Him.
4. We made
a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. We admitted
to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature
of our wrongs.
6. We were
entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. We humbly
asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. We made
a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends
to them all.
9. We made
direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do
so would injure them or others.
10. We continued
to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted
it.
11. We 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 a result of these steps, we tried to
carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in
all our affairs.
This sounds
like a big order, and we can’t do it all at once. We didn’t become
addicted in one day, so remember—easy does it.
There is
one thing more than anything else that will defeat us in our recovery;
this is an attitude of indifference or intolerance toward spiritual
principles. Three of these that are indispensable are honesty, open-mindedness,
and willingness. With these we are well on our way.
We feel that
our approach to the disease of addiction is completely realistic,
for the therapeutic value of one addict helping another is without
parallel. We feel that our way is practical, for one addict can best
understand and help another addict. We believe that the sooner we
face our problems within our society, in everyday living, just that
much faster do we become acceptable, responsible, and productive members
of that society.
The only
way to keep from returning to active addiction is not to take that
first drug. If you are like us you know that one is too many and a
thousand never enough. We put great emphasis on this, for we know
that when we use drugs in any form, or substitute one for another,
we release our addiction all over again.
Thinking of
alcohol as different from other drugs has caused a great many addicts
to relapse. Before we came to NA, many of us viewed alcohol separately,
but we cannot afford to be confused about this. Alcohol is a drug.
We are people with the disease of addiction who must abstain from
all drugs in order to recover.
Twelve Steps
and Twelve Traditions
reprinted
for adaptation by permission of AA World Services, Inc.