The 12 Steps are a formula to produce change and transformation.

“Then they outlined the spiritual answer and PROGRAM of ACTION which a hundred of them had followed successfully.” ~pg 42, Alcoholics Anonymous.

If you’ve tried AA, NA, OA, GA, or some other Anonymous Organization with the hopes of solving your problem — and it hasn’t worked the way you thought it should — perhaps you tried to focus on changing the thinking with thinking. It’s the ACTIONS that produce the change.

It’s not about what I think. It’s about what I do. It’s about the way that I live. The way that I treat others. It’s about the actions I take.

If I’m suffering from some addiction or obsessive compulsive disorder — the problem centers in my thinking!  Therefore, my thinking — can not solve my thinking problem — because my thinking has a problem!

I can’t think myself into the right actions to recover, to get well, or to get better — but I can take right-actions that will cause me to recover, to get well and to get better.

It’s the actions that produce the transformation in my personality and in the way I think — that keeps me away from the next drink or the next obsession.

Some people have concluded: “Okay.  I get it!  I’ll practice the 12 Steps!”  Then, they practice and practice and practice… and they become frustrated because, if you ask them, they’ll say “It didn’t work!”

Most often — what they’ve done is tried to practice something that they have never done before!  They tried to PRACTICE before they TOOK the 12 Steps!

What does that mean?  If you’ll read page 58, of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, it states: “If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it-then you are ready to TAKE certain steps.”

It does NOT say PRACTICE certain Steps!  It DOES say TAKE certain Steps!

There is a difference!  Imagine trying to practice swimming — before you ever learned to swim and went for your first swim?  Imagine practicing riding a bicycle — before you’ve ever been on a bicycle!  You can’t do it.  You might be practicing — in your mind — but, you never physically went for a swim or rode a bicycle!

It works the same way with the 12 Steps.  For the 12 Steps to be effective and for them to work — you have to TAKE the 12 Steps — BEFORE you start practicing them.

TAKE the Steps!  Then, AFTER you have TAKEN the 12 Steps… you can begin to practice them!

~Dallas B.

Note: If you need help now for an alcohol problem, drinking, addiction, or alcoholism — please go to www.step12.com

Welcome to 12 Step Groups.

Principles always produce the same results…. IF they are applied the same way. That’s what it means, when, at the end of some A.A. meetings, they say “It works if you work it.” If you work the principles they will produce the same results for you… that they produced for me and countless thousands of others…… “A happy, useful, peaceful, contented, satisfying, purposeful, and successful life… without alcohol”!

I have heard people say “A.A.’s method is too shallow to solve all my problems.” Those people are often the same people who think that A.A.’s “solution” is meetings and the fellowship. While meetings and the fellowship are important elements in recovery… they are not “the solution” and they are not “the recovery program of A.A.”

The solution is the 12 Steps. The Recovery Program of A.A. is the application of the 12 Steps as described in the Big Book.

The meetings and the fellowship is to remind us of two things: 1. What the problem is (Powerless). and, 2. What the solution is (the 12 Steps).

~Dallas B.

12 Step Groups

Note: If you need help now and you are searching for help with an alcohol problem or alcoholism — please go to www.step12.com

Thank you — And, please check back soon!