I realized that the core of 12-Step programs aligned with something familiar to me from my religious upbringing—a higher power helping me become a better person. This higher power encompassed faith, self-reflection, personal growth, and support from others. Although I had encountered similar ideas in my spiritual journey, I questioned the importance of revisiting them within the context of 12-Step programs. Previous knowledge alone hadn’t freed me from addiction, so why would exploring these principles again in the context of the 12 steps make any difference? However, I’ve found an answer, and I want to share it with you.
One big difference was in the meetings themselves. The inherent safety and anonymity of these meetings permitted a level of honesty, humility, and faith in God sufficient to allow the repentance process to start working within me. The meetings are safe because everyone there suffers from the same addictions that I do. Therefore, I can have confidence that they will not gossip, backbite, judge, or condemn in the same way people might in other settings.
Attendance at these meetings changed me from the inside out – slowly but surely – in significant ways that I will describe below. It wasn’t necessarily the content of the meetings but the safe environment that allowed my heart to open and my faith to increase to the point that I could finally start to be healed and be set free from the chains that had bound me for over twenty years – one small step at a time. Faith, combined with the opportunity to come out of isolation and connect with others, was and continues to be a critical part of my recovery. There are many other essential aspects of the 12-Step programs besides meetings themselves that are crucial to recovery, but I found that without going to the meetings, it just didn’t work for me.
The 12 steps are progressive in nature. Each one builds on the foundation prepared by the step before it. So if I’m having trouble with step 3 (Surrendering my will), for example, I work on the steps before it (Steps 0-2) to strengthen my ability to work step 3 effectively. All the steps are based on a foundation of what’s called “Step 0,” which is an unwritten step of going to meetings and being a part of the fellowship. I have written specific articles about each one of the steps rather than covering them all here. I just wanted to give an overview for now.
I learned that it was essential to work the 12 steps, or lasting progress would continue to elude me. For me, the steps are just the Gospel of Jesus Christ (my higher power) broken down into manageable, practical pieces. I have found that it is essential to work the steps thoroughly and in order from 0 through 12. One step per week is probably too fast, and one step per year is probably too slow. It’s good to do them slowly enough to be thorough but quickly enough not to procrastinate getting them done. I’ll give an extremely brief overview here. I cover these in more detail in other articles on this website.
Step 0 is attending and participating in the meetings – helping and connecting (becoming friends) with those in the meeting. I mainly worked on steps 1 and 2 (humility and faith) by going to the meetings and making phone calls – building a tightly knit fabric of connections between myself and others in those meetings. I think of Step 3 as repentance – surrendering my will to God’s will in all things, not just the surface addiction. Step 3 relies on the foundation of humility and faith continually built by working steps 0, 1, and 2. Steps 4-9 deal with clearing out the junk from my past. This junk gets me feeling unhappy and depressed and therefore tempts me to cover it all up with my addiction. It also stands between God and me. Getting rid of it helps me not to have as much of a need for the addiction to cover up those adverse effects of the past. It also enables me to have a purer relationship with God and Christ. The character defects I found in steps 4-9 got worked on in step 10 rather than in the steps in which they were identified. Steps 10 through 12 deal with preventing more junk from building up, positively seeking out God’s will for me, and sharing what I have found with others suffering from these addictions – enduring to the end.
Through working these steps, I have become a little more patient, kind, and approachable; to give a few examples of how I’ve been changing once the progress-halting addiction was out of the way. I still have a long way to go, but the joy and freedom I see now amaze me and motivate me to continue working hard on my character weaknesses after I set the addiction aside. If I choose to stop working on these things and progressing toward becoming a better and more mature human being, the addiction awaits me. If I continue doing what helped me to let Christ in to gain victory over the addiction, I will remain free from the addiction one day at a time.
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