Today and next week, our “12 Steps” series takes a hiatus to acknowledge Christmas and New Year’s. In a nod to the “12” in “12 Steps” (and to the “Twelve Days of Christmas”), the holiday posts will consist of Top 12 lists instead of the standard Top 10.  Today, you don’t have to worry about […]

Step Five of the 12 Steps: We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Some religious traditions still practice formal “confession,” where a parishioner unburdens his or her conscience before a spiritual director who then assures the person of God’s forgiveness and recommends action to make up […]

Step Four of the 12 Steps: We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves The use of the qualifier “fearless” acknowledges that Step Four of the 12 Steps is frequently approached with sweaty palms and trembling legs. Not only because of what we dread finding, but because this is the transition point, the place […]

Step Three of the 12 Steps: We made a decision to turn our will and lives over to the care of God, as we understood him. Step Three of the 12 Steps is the natural follow-up to Steps One and Two. First, we admit that we’ve lost control (Step 1). Then we acknowledge belief in […]

Continuing our series on the 12 Steps. with Step Two of the 12 Steps Step Two of the 12 Steps: We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Although Alcoholics Anonymous first popularized the term “Higher Power” in the 1930s, few people then could have foreseen the exponential multiplication […]

Following up last week’s post on The 12 Steps, this week begins a series of posts that examine each of the steps in more detail. Step One of the 12 Steps: We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction–that our lives had become unmanageable. “I can handle it” is one of humanity’s favorite phrases; most of […]