12-Step Integration Offers Global Support
When clients leave treatment, they need the resources and skills to stay sober and find long-term recovery. 12-step support groups have been around over 80 years providing valuable support to all those in recovery. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is the program that started it all. Today, AA is available in 175 countries. At BriteLife Recovery at Hanover, our objective is seamless integration of state-of-the-art, evidence-based medical, and clinical services with the traditional 12-Step standard. We recognize that quality addiction treatment focuses on the whole person, including spirituality. The 12-steps are a spiritual blueprint of action that can change our experiences and bring new (or renewed) purpose into everyday life.
When a person adheres to a 12-Step program, including getting a sponsor and helping others, recovery becomes more than just not drinking or using – it is a tactical road to a life that is happy, cheerful, and free from substance addiction. A 12-Step program provides a well-planned path to long-term recovery. By engaging the clients quickly with the 12-step program, we position our clients to succeed in recovery after finishing treatment.
12-Step programs are spiritual (not religous)
The 12-Steps are a spiritual program of acceptance, change and accountability. We guide our clients to connect with a higher power of their understanding. This necessitates learning to be guided by spiritual principles such as honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness. At the same time, we also encourage our clients to join in spiritual practices like meditation and mindfulness guidance, that are basic tenets of 12-step recovery. Although many clients are skeptical about the concept of a higher power when they first arrive, they quickly become captivated when they see their treatment peers making practical use of it in their recovery. The idea is that clients don’t need to be religious to join a 12-step program.
Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experiences, strength, and hope with each other. They do this to solve their common problem and help others recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. The same would apply to Narcotics Anonymous or other related 12-step programs.
Anyone who believes they have a drinking or drug abuse problem can join. It is open to all ages, genders, education levels, races, and religions. 12-steppers come from all walks of life. They are the recently sober, those coming back after relapse, the old-timers, and so forth. One thing they all have in common is that they want to stop drinking or using and stay stopped. They support others with the same goal. No one will inquire about your personal life, and members only share first names with each other. This rule is why 12-step treatment groups have the word “Anonymous” in their names, Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Marijuana Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous, and so forth.
The 12-Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous
The 12-steps are excerpted from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. AA’s 12-Step approach follows a set of guidelines designed as “steps” toward recovery. For the most part, all 12-step programs adhere to the same principles but with addiction-specific language. For example, an AA 12-step meeting might only talk about problems related to alcohol.
The 12 Steps
- We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
- Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
- Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
- Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
- Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
- Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
- Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.
- Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
- Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
- Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
- 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.
- 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 12 Traditions
The 12 Traditions communicate to the members of Alcoholics Anonymous as a group, the traditions are the core governing literature of Alcoholics Anonymous. Most 12-Step meeting groups have also tailored the 12 traditions for their own.
- Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon AA unity.
- 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.
- The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.
- Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole.
- Each group has but one primary purpose–to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.
- 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.
- Every AA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
- Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
- AA, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
- Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
- 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.
- Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities
Most addiction professionals agree that an evidence-based treatment program, personalized to the individual’s needs, is the most productive approach to get sober and stay that way. However, there is also a large consensus that 12-step program integration during alcohol and drug rehab is key. Bottom-line, 12-step programs offer support that is available 365 days per year, without cost, in every populous community around the world. Call us today at 866-470-1464 to learn more about our Pennsylvania rehab program.