Alcoholics Anonymous – Most Famous & Successful of Them All

Alcoholics Anonymous is without question the most well known self help group. They blazed the trail and others followed. They have two million members around the globe. Almost half of them live in the United States. They have over 100,000 meetings taking place at different times and places. They’re an abstinence based program. So moderation isn’t something they accept as a possibility for an alcoholic. They follow a 12 Step Program.

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.

Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory or ourselves.

Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

Made direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

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.

Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry the knowledge to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

AA blazed the trail. The rest of us just followed along. I didn’t like AA, it wasn’t for me. On the other hand, I have two uncles that swear it helped them. There is no question about their having helped more alcoholics than any other program. Possibly, the have saved more alcoholics than all the other alcoholism treatment programs put together. There is no denying their contribution to alcohol treatment. To make this a bit more heroic, Alcoholics Anonymous does it for free.

www.aa.org

212-870-3400