Alcohol Addiction Treatment In 12 Steps
A twelve-step treatment program is a time-honored treatment for alcohol addiction. Alcoholics Anonymous recommends these twelve steps, and the Alcoholics Anonymous program is just as effective today as it was in 1941 when the movement was launched in the March 1 edition of the Saturday Evening Post.
The Dawn of Alcoholics Anonymous
Before Alcoholics Anonymous became well known, little was understood about the disease of alcoholism. Most alcoholics died young, never knowing that their drinking was self destructive or that their drinking behavior was any different from social drinkers who did not need alcohol addiction treatment. Alcoholics who lived into middle age and beyond did not live normal lives; instead, they were cloistered away in sanitariums where their alcohol intake was controlled in a clinical setting.
One Day At A Time
With the advent of Alcoholics Anonymous, alcohol addiction treatment was available to virtually everyone, at no cost. This alcohol addiction treatment was simple: by working out through the 12 steps and talking about the process, alcoholics could stop drinking for short periods of time. The Alcoholics Anonymous treatment for alcohol addiction strung these short periods together, as the saying goes, "one day at a time," with support meetings in between.
Besides the 12 steps toward recovery, the alcohol addiction treatment espoused by Alcoholics Anonymous also relies heavily on sponsorship. Each new alcoholic seeking alcohol addiction treatment is assigned a sponsor whom the recovering alcoholic can call at any time of the night or day when the addict feels the urge to drink, or just needs to talk about the inherent unfairness of the fact that some people can drink all they want and others can't take even one drink without slipping into the abyss of alcoholism.
Bill W.
The famous alcohol addiction treatment program Alcoholics Anonymous was co-founded by Bill Wilson, or "Bill W." as he was known under his anonymous moniker. The Alcoholics Anonymous alcohol addiction treatment program was so remarkably successful and so revolutionary, Wilson was named one of Time Magazine's most important people of the 20th century.
12 Steps
The 12 steps of recovery are reprinted here as an aid to anyone reading this who thinks they might benefit from alcohol addiction treatment.
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.
