Twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous for healing

Using your word processor

The twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous are proven steps for sobriety. They are also useful for healing our selves, substituting for the word alcohol whatever at this moment "controls" you or has you in its grasp:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol--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 God .
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 God 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 God, 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 those steps we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

For discussion of each of these steps you may visit an Alcoholics Anonymous open meeting or read the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, which can be found in book stores and most libraries. This book is referred to by AAs as "The Big Book."

I recommend the chapter that deals with step 4 as particularly helpful in dealing with whatever "controls" or "has" you.