The 12 Steps

What is CA's 12 Steps?

In short, the 12 Step Program can be described as follows: The first step towards solving any problem is admitting that there is a problem. We need to realize that we are powerless to drugs and alcohol and understand that we have lost control.

We lack the power to solve our own problem, therefore we need the help from a Power stronger than our own. When we are willing to receive that help, we begin to look at the root causes of our problems. We look at our thought patterns, feelings and behaviors. We are gradually replacing our old ideas with new ones.

Then we try to correct the harm we have caused other people through our behaviors. We continue to work with ourselves every day by using the new tools we have been given. We use our experiences, our hope and our new strength to try to help other addicts who are still suffering from their use or drinking. By reaching out and helping others, we retain the freedom we ourselves have gained through the program.

When we fully comit to the 12 Step Program, we become free of our obsession with using drugs and alcohol. Life becomes manageable and often better than we could have imagined. The program works for anyone willing to do it.

CA's 12 Steps are taken from the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and are based on the solution as described in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

CA's 12 Steps

1. We admitted we were powerless over cocaine and all other mind-altering substances — that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves 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 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 the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.