Wisdom of the 12 Steps
God, grant me the Serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.
These words mark the beginning of each 12 Step meeting around the world. It embodies the very qualities that the Addict lacks and needs for Sanity and Sobriety.
Most addicts are trying to control themselves, their environment and everybody around them. Yet as our addiction progresses, our lives become more and more unmanageable. Addiction is often considered to be primarily a coping mechanism against feeling tough emotions like loneliness, anger, shame and fear. The quality of Serenity is perhaps unknown to the Addict. All he/she can manage is to be numb. For those struggling with Addictions, the Serenity Prayer brings forth an immense sense of relief, as well as presents an enormous if not impossible challenge.
It asks addicts to summon the courage to change their behaviors and their choices and to give up trying to control everyone and everything around them.
The Serenity Prayer challenges the Addict to Respond rather than React
Step One: We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable.
Step Two: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Step Three: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Step Four: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Step Five: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs.
Step Six: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Step Seven: Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Step Eight: Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Step Nine: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Step Ten: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Step Eleven: 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.
Step Twelve: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
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