Alcoholics Anonymous Twelve Step Program – most common Alcohol Addiction Rehabilitation

The original Twelve Steps of AA’s Alcohol Addiction Rehabilitation Program:

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.

The first recognized alcohol addiction rehabilitation is Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) which was founded in by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith in 1935. They established the “anonymous” tradition of only first names.The Twelve Steps were first published in the book, Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered From Alcoholism in 1939.

A twelve-step program is a set of guiding principles outlining a course of action for recovery from addiction, compulsion, or other behavioral problems.  Members are suggested to regularly attend meetings with other members who share their particular recovery problems. Members often identify themselves along with an admission of their problem, “Hi, I’m Wendy and I’m an alcoholic.” Al-Anon is the group that assists family members of alcoholics. One of the biggest problems with 12 step programs is that they require a person to claim helplessness over their addiction.

Effectiveness of AA’s 12 Step Alcohol Addiction Rehabilitation:

The overall success rate of 12 step programs is approximately 5%. Shocking but true.

“The two randomized studies in which AA treatment was assigned found AA to yield worse outcomes than other forms of treatment — or no treatment at all.” (See Brandsma et al., The Outpatient Treatment of Alcoholism: A Review and Comparative Study, Baltimore: University Park Press, 1980;

A study by R. G. Smart has shown that between 3 and 5 percent of alcoholics and drug users go into a ‘spontaneous remission’ (or quit using), which skews AA’s numbers.  AA’s own survey’s of it’s membership discovered they have a 95% drop-out rate of new members, within their first year.

The AA 12 step process involves:

  • learning to live a new life with a new code of behavior;
  • helping others that suffer from the same addictions or compulsions;
  • recognizing a greater power that can give strength;
  • examining past errors with the help of a sponsor (experienced member);
  • making amends for these errors;
  • admitting that one cannot control one’s addiction or compulsion.

The Twelve Traditions are part of the alcohol addiction rehabilitation process and accompany the Twelve Steps.They were developed in AA in order to help resolve conflicts in the areas of publicity, religion and finances.

The Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous:

1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon AA unity.

2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority—a loving God as He may express

himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.

3. The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.

4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole.

5. Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.

6. An AA group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the AA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.

7. Every AA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.

8. Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.

9. AA, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.

10. Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.

11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.

12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

    The AA twelve-step alcohol addiction rehabilitation program addresses three areas of the alcohol abuser:

  • Physical- For alcoholics the physical dimension is best described by the allergy-like bodily reaction resulting in the compulsion to continue drinking.
  • Mental- The illness of the spiritual dimension, or “spiritual malady,” is considered in all twelve-step groups to be self-centeredness.
  • Spiritual- The mental obsession is described as the cognitive processes that causes the individual to repeat the compulsive behavior after some period of abstinence, realizing the result will be an inability to stop or lying to themselves that this time it will be different.

One key aspect of AA’s alcohol addiction rehabilitation process is that each newcomer is assigned a sponsor. A sponsor is an alcohol abuser, more experienced person in recovery who guides the less-experienced aspirant (“sponsee” or variously, “sponsoree”) through the program.

A study of sponsorship as practiced in Alcoholics Anonymous found that providing direction and support to other alcoholics and addicts correlates with sustained abstinence for the sponsor, but that there were few short-term benefits for the sponsee. Sponsors share their experience, strength, journey through the Twelve Steps and hope with their sponsees.

Confidentiality

There are no legal consequences to prevent those attending twelve-step groups from revealing anything said during meetings. Statutes on group therapy do not include associations that lack a professional therapist or clergyman. Attendees of AA meetings should know that, at any time, their statements made in meetings may be disclosed by other attendees to anyone.