12 Steps of Recovery: Rewritten & Simplified
- Garbage Rules will prod you to face the self-defeating thinking that’s keeping you addicted.
- Ego will help you to understand and overcome the underlying problem of your addiction.
12 Steps of Recovery are rewritten & simplified so that more people can take advantage of them for health and sanity. Acceptance is key to coping.
“It is easier for the will to cut off certain things utterly than to use them with restraint.” —Seneca
- Read and discover how your thinking is trapping and defeating you.
12 Steps of Recovery Simplified for Greater Acceptance
- AA’s 12 Steps have helped countless. Perhaps this version can help some people that AA has not reached.
12 Steps of Recovery Simplified
Step One: I am not power.
- This is the recognition that trying to fix yourself, others, and your life with your thinking, feeling, and behaving has not worked. You do not have and are not the power that you need.
12 Steps of Recovery Simplified
Step Two: Power does exist.
- This is the recognition that the power you need to fix your life does exist, but it is not you.
12 Steps of Recovery Simplified
Step Three: I will rely on Power, not self.
- This is the decision to rely on Power (Energy, Spirit, God) to take charge of your life instead of yourself, self-esteem, or the ego.
12 Steps of Recovery Simplified
Step Four: I cause most of my problems.
- This is the recognition that you cause more problems when you try to fix problems on your own.
12 Steps of Recovery Simplified
Step Five: I falsely claim power and try.
- This is the recognition that you are not truthful when you claim to have the ability and power to fix yourself and your life.
- You do not and cannot have this power because there is only one God, and you are not God.
12 Steps of Recovery Simplified
Step Six: I will stop claiming and trying.
- This is the decision to stop trying to fix yourself and your life by yourself.
12 Steps of Recovery Simplified
Step Seven: Power, please guide me.
- This is the humble request for God, Spirit, Energy, or Power to take charge of your life.
12 Steps of Recovery Simplified
Step Eight: I will stop controlling others.
- This is the recognition that not only do you need to stop trying to change and control yourself.
- You also need to stop trying to change and control others.
12 Steps of Recovery Simplified
Step Nine: I will show more forgiveness.
- This is the recognition that you need forgiveness; therefore, you must show forgiveness to receive forgiveness.
12 Steps of Recovery Simplified
Step Ten: I’ll do good more and bad less.
- This is the commitment to serve virtue more and yourself less, to show more kindness and less meanness.
12 Steps of Recovery Simplified
Step Eleven: I pray to be under God’s will.
- This is the right approach to God because you do not know His will for you.
- Also, you pray for others to be under God’s will, not yours or their own.
12 Steps of Recovery Simplified
Step Twelve: I will confess and share this.
- You find peace and serenity by practicing these steps.
- You admit these steps are helping you and share them with others.
- Read and master the life skill of acceptance using the best combination of CBT, REBT, & Stoicism.
12 Steps of Recovery Simplified Version
- Click for pages of information on coping.
- Read and master the life skill of acceptance using the best combination of CBT, REBT, & Stoicism.
12 Steps of Recovery Simplified
Quotations Various Sources
Listed Alphabetically
“And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on.” —Luke 12:22
“Believe in recovery, redemption, and rehabilitation especially when the world wants to punish you instead of to help you.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“Correct it or accept it.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“Detach with love.” —Al-Anon
“Even though a number of people have tried, no one has yet found a way to drink for a living.” —Jean Kerr
“Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing.” —Chuang-Tzu
“God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it’s me.” —Anonymous
“Guilt is really the reverse side of the coin of pride. Guilt aims at self-destruction, and pride aims at the destruction of others.” —Bill W., As Bill Sees It, p. 140
“I didn’t cause it. I can’t change it. I can’t control it.” —Al-Anon
“I’ve developed a new philosophy–I only dread one day at a time.” —Charlie Brown
“Recovery does not take care of itself no matter how old it is.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“Recovery is the process of recovering who you were as a child.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“Recovery requires conquering the seven-headed dragon: physical, mental, emotional, social, motivational, renewal, spiritual.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“Resolve to be thyself; and know that he who finds himself, loses his misery.” —Matthew Arnold
“Suffering isn’t ennobling, recovery is.” —Christian Barnard
“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” —Matthew 6:34
“The AA program can be summed up in two words: acceptance and surrender.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“The attitude of unconditional self-acceptance is probably the most important variable in their long-term recovery.” —Albert Ellis, Rational-Emotive Therapy with Alcoholics and Substance Abusers, p. 71
“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer somebody else up.” —Mark Twain
“Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?” —Matthew 6:25
“Those who are free of resentful thoughts surely find peace.” —Buddha
“You have to accept whatever comes, and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give.” —Eleanor Roosevelt
- Read and master the life skill of acceptance using the best combination of CBT, REBT, & Stoicism.
12 Steps of Recovery Simplified
Related Pages of Free Information
- 7 Pillars of Recovery
- Alcoholics Anonymous (AA): The 12 Steps of
- Cause of Addictions
- Choose Higher when Tempted by Lower
- Coping Skills: List Pages
- Do the Good More & Do the Bad Less
- How to Quit in 5 Steps
- Quotations & Slogans from AA
- Recovery Issues: Free Help
- Read for the best understanding of how crazy your thinking makes you and the world.
- Read and master the life skill of acceptance using the best combination of CBT, REBT, & Stoicism.
12 Steps of Recovery Simplified
6 Groups of Topics Menu
- 1. Pages by Topic
- 2. Fast-Facts by Topic
- 3. Quotations by Topic
- 4. Poems by Topic
- 5. Scripture by Topic
- 6. Websites by Topic
- Read and master the life skill of acceptance using the best combination of CBT, REBT, & Stoicism.
- Read for the best understanding of how crazy your thinking makes you and the world.
12 Steps of Recovery Simplified
9 Skills & Topics Menu
- 1. Anger Skills & Topics
- 2. Blame Skills & Topics
- 3. Communication Skills & Topics
- 4. Coping Skills & Topics
- 5. Counseling Skills & Topics
- 6. Praying Skills & Topics
- 7. Recovery Skills & Topics
- 8. Responsibility Skills & Topics
- 9. Thinking Skills & Topics
- Read and master the life skill of acceptance using the best combination of CBT, REBT, & Stoicism.
- Read for the best understanding of how crazy your thinking makes you and the world.