Alcoholics Anonymous, Fourth Edition

CHAPTER 5 - HOW IT WORKS

fling, powerful! Without help it is too much for us.
But there is One who has all power—that One is God.
May you find Him now!

Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the
turning point. We asked His protection and care with
complete abandon.

Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as
a program of recovery:

  1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—
      that our lives had become unmanageable.

  2. Came to believe that a Power greater than our­-
      selves could restore us to sanity.

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

  4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory
      of ourselves.

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

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

  7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

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

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

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

 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to im-
       prove our conscious contact with God as we un­-
       derstood Him, praying only for knowledge of
       His will for us and the power to carry that out.