Teen-Anon 12 Steps

The Twelve Steps of Teen-Anon

If you want what we have to offer, and are willing to make the effort to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps. These are the principles that made our recovery possible.

1. We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction or our addict or alcoholic and that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. We 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.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts and, and those who love them and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

This sounds like a big order, and we can't do it all at once. We didn't become addicted to substances or to an addict or alcoholic in one day, so remember—easy does it.

There is one thing more than anything else that will defeat us in our recovery; this is an attitude of indifference or intolerance toward spiritual principles. Three of these that are indispensable are honesty, open-mindedness and willingness. We must also increase our Faith in a Higher Power, a force bigger than ourselves, which is capable of healing we could never do all by ourselves. With these steps toward changing ourselves first, we can begin again.

Addiction is a disease, as is co-dependency, being addicted way beyond love toward the unacceptable behavior of the addict or alcoholic. The sooner we face our problems within society, in everyday living, just that much faster do we become acceptable, responsible, and productive members of that society.

The only way to keep from returning to active addiction is not to take that first drug; to help the addict or ourselves by not accepting unacceptable behavior.

Thinking of alcohol as different from other drugs or substituting any drug for another has caused a great many addicts to relapse. Before we came to the program, many of us viewed alcohol or marijuana separately, but we cannot afford to be confused about this. Alcohol and marijuana are drugs, every bit as much as cocaine, crank (speed) or heroin. We are people with the disease of addiction who must either abstain from all drugs or from the willful actions of active addicts and alcoholics in order to recover.

(The above steps are adapted from Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and Al-Anon and
Nar-Anon for friends/family of those with the disease of addiction to drugs)

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