How not to recover

The Twelve Steps of How Not to Recover

These are the steps we took, which are suggested as a Program of Misery:

1. We admitted we were powerless over nothing, that we could manage our lives perfectly, and those of anyone who would allow us to.
2. We came to believe there was no power greater than ourselves, and the rest of the world was insane.
3. We made a decision to have our loved ones and friends turn their will and lives over to our care, even thought they wouldn’t understand us at all.
4. We made a searching and fearless moral and immoral inventory of everybody we knew.
5. We admitted to the whole world at large the exact nature of everybody else’s wrongs.
6. We were entirely ready to make them straighten up and do right.
7. We demanded others to either shape up or ship out.
8. We made a list of all persons who had harmed us, and became willing to get even with all of them.
9. We got direct revenge to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would cost our lives, or at least a jail sentence.
10. We continued to take the inventory of others, and when they were wrong, promptly and repeatedly told them about it.
11. We sought through bitching and nagging to improve our relations with others as we couldn’t understand them at all, asking only that they knuckle down and do things our way.
12. Having had a complete physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual breakdown as the result of these steps, we tried to blame it on others and get sympathy and pity in all our affairs.

The Early Promises of Sobriety

• You will know your full name and address.
• You will be able to shave yourself.
• You will be able to dress and undress yourself at the appropriate time and places.
• You will at all times know the city, state and country you are in.
• You will routinely be able to find matching socks.
• You will be able to smoke if you wish without burning holes in your clothes or the furniture.
• You will lose the fear of food.
• You will spend less time in the bathroom.
• You will be able to walk a straight line, and pass the balloon test.
• You will lose the fear of police cars in your rear view mirror.
• You will be able to answer the doorbell without looking through the keyhole first.
• You will realize what a mess you have been, and thank God for AA and Al-anon.

The Real Rewards of the AA Program

• Faith instead of Despair.
• Courage instead of Fear.
• Hope instead of Desperation.
• Peace of Mind instead of confusion.
• Real friendships instead of loneliness.
• Self respect instead of self-contempt.
• Self-confidence instead of helplessness.
• A clean conscience instead of a sense of guilt.
• The respect of others instead of their pity and contempt.
• A clean pattern of living instead of a purposeless existence.
• The love and understanding of our families instead of their doubts and fears.
• The freedom of a happy life instead of the bondage of an alcoholic obsession.