The 12 Steps

Let's say that I am addicted. The first giant step toward recovery is to admit to myself that I have an addiction, that I am powerless over it, and that it is making my life unmanageable. Denial is the powerful force that will repeatedly thwart my efforts to make and accept this critical admission.

If, however, I am successful, I need to believe that there is a power greater than myself that can restore my sanity (insanity--in this context--is the misguided belief that I can persist in negative behavior with the false hope that it will for some inexplicable reason have a different outcome).

When I come to such a realization, the third step is to make the decision to turn my life--my will--over to that Higher Power.

The authenticity of such a decision will be revealed by my ability--my willingness--to conduct a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself. If I am unable to do this openly and honestly it means that I have not really completed the first three steps and that I need to revisit them as often as is necessary to empower me to look at myself as I really am.

The proof of truly knowing myself will be in my admission to the Higher Power, to myself, and to another human being, the exact nature of my wrongs.

Next, I need to be entirely ready to allow that Higher Power to remove these defects in my character.

The sign of that willingness, of course, is to humbly submit my shortcomings to the Higher Power with the unequivocal belief that It is perfectly capable of removing them.

At this point the process will lead me to make a list of all the persons I have harmed, accompanied by a willingness to make amends to them all.

This will mean making such amends directly to those I have wronged, whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

To maintain my recovery from addiction will require that I continue to take an ongoing personal inventory of myself, and to promptly admit whenever I am wrong.

It will also require that I seek to improve my conscious contact with the Higher Power through prayer and meditation, praying only for knowledge of the Higher Power's will and the ability to make it mine.

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, I will be moved to carry this message to other addicts, and to practice these principles in all of my affairs.

"America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology." -- George W. Bush, 2006 State of the Union

Bush is, as they say in Texas, full of shit.