Alcoholics Anonymous & Narcotics Anonymous

Most are familiar with or at least have heard of AA or NA. Alcoholics Anonymous is the best-known and largest self-help program. It has been the model for other 12-Step programs. Alcoholics Anonymous began in 1935 in Akron, Ohio, with the meeting of two alcoholics. One was Bill W. who had a spiritual experience, that was a major precipitating event and the beginning his abstinence to alcohol. After Bill W. had been sober for about a year he was on a business trip and was hit with a strong desire or compulsion to drink; he hit upon an idea of seeking out and talking with another suffering alcoholic as an alternative to that first drink. He reached out for help, made contact with some people and they led him to Dr. Bob (another alcoholic). Bill W. and Dr. Bob met and started a fellowship which is now know as their first meeting. In the years that followed a simple structure to follow was written down as a guide, it is referred as the 12 Steps:

12 Steps of AA

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol 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 understand 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 these shortcomings.
8. We made a list of all the 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 understand him, praying only for knowledge of His will 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 others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Since inception in 1935 the 12-Step program has had a lot of popularity and in 1999 there where an estimated 1,900,000 active members worldwide. In fact the 12-Step approach has gained so much popularity that anytime society runs into a problem and there isn't an immediate solution a new 12-Step program is born. The 12-Step approach is a great program (support group) for the arena it was created in, and could serve as a support group in an addicts/alcoholics aftercare plan. It would not be the preferred choice in initial treatment or an immediate solution for someone currently using in the dependency stage of his or her addiction.

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