At Real Recovery, we believe that following a 12-Step program is necessary for your recovery from alcohol and substance use disorders. Joining a 12-Step program can sometimes be intimidating. You are a new face in a new community environment, made up of people facing the same problem – a progressive disease.
Learning to overcome the hump of initial discomfort and making the most of your time in a 12-Step program can prove beneficial. Joining a support group might be the missing piece that finally enables you to stay clean and sober. While you don’t need to know every detail about a 12-Step program to begin to benefit from one, it can help to start on the right foot by learning about how they work.
The Success of 12-Step Programs
There are two sides to the coin regarding the belief in the success of 12-Step programs. On one side of it, some try but turn away or refuse altogether. These outcomes usually result due to the supposed religious aspect of the program. The idea of acknowledging God and admitting to Him your wrongdoings as part of your susceptibility to alcohol or substance use disorder is thought by some to be unnecessary and part of an agenda. Though this idea has a strong rationale behind it, the idea that God refers to one singular entity is not accurate regarding 12-Step programs.
12-Step programs refer to God in the way that you understand Him. As 12-Step programs developed over time, they became more inviting to newcomers of different backgrounds, distancing themselves from the religious aspect. They began focusing more on the concept of a higher power, along with spirituality, and how to use them to pursue and capture sobriety.
This side of the coin is important to mention due to its effect on the success that individuals see when managing their 12-Step program. Participants who find difficulty embracing the concepts of the program are more likely to experience relapse than remain sober, if without any other recovery strategies.
How 12-Step Programs Work
The variability in the success of 12-Step programs depends upon how you work the program. At first glance, the program may look unstructured and without real accountability. However, over the course of attending meetings, you often learn small nuances that were not apparent before.
One example is the idea of 90 meetings in 90 days. For people in the earliest stages of recovery from alcohol or substance use disorder, this method of attending meetings provides them with transparency regarding what meetings are all about. It can also be effective as it quickly familiarizes them with the community of other recovering individuals.
How, then, do 12-Step programs work largely as a whole? The mechanisms of 12-Step programs include:
- Fellowship as a shift of your social network to focus and surround yourself with people also battling alcohol or substance use disorder
- The subsequent decreased exposure to drinking-related activities and cues that induce craving
- The increase in non-drinking activities, social abstinence self-efficacy, and rewarding social relationships
- The provision of structure in your recovery, meaning you gain a sense of goal directness
- Behavioral norms about and role models for how to work toward abstinence
- The development of more effective coping skills
- (For youth) The group’s general therapeutic aspects, such as universality, support from others, and installation of hope
How to Join a 12-Step Program
Finding treatment through a 12-Step program should never be difficult. According to the BBC, 12-step programs and meetings span worldwide at 115,326 Alcoholics Anonymous groups and growing in 175 different countries. Additionally, now more than ever, meetings are hosted online and remote due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, for some, and especially for newcomers, the effectiveness of meeting online is less than meeting in person.
Whether you seek help for alcohol use disorder or a type of substance use disorder, there is a group and meeting for you. Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-Step programs provide on their websites search menus for finding a meeting in your area. Here are a few of those search menus:
- Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)
- Narcotics Anonymous (NA)
- Cocaine Anonymous (CA)
- Al-Anon (For family and friends)
- Nar-Anon (For family and friends)
- Heroin Anonymous (HA)
- Crystal Meth Anonymous (CMA)
Everyone battles their own demons, and such an important part of 12-Step programs is their inclusivity. Your struggle is never too small to confront.
How to Successfully Navigate a 12-Step Program
How you successfully navigate a 12-Step program depends on what aspects of the program you consider most important. Are you more interested in the spiritual aspects of the program or the community side of it?
Key factors and basics of a 12-Step program include:
- Embracing the group setting
- Sharing your story, especially if you are a newcomer
- Gaining sponsorship
- Relying on your sponsor to help you navigate the 12 steps
- Reaching out to your sponsor or other members when you need help
Finding a sponsor that is right for you is reflected in your personality and theirs. Not everyone is made for each other. The same goes for sponsorship. If you are reserved and want to avoid excessive confrontation, perhaps avoid an outspoken and assertive sponsor. If you need strict direction in your life, perhaps that sponsor is right for you.
However, try not to be too quick to judge a person in general, and more importantly, in 12-Step programs. You never know the backgrounds of individuals – where they came from, what they experienced, how they got to where they are now. So many individuals share similar stories. Openness while hearing their stories encourages the adoption of 12-Step program-related concepts, resources, and tools for fighting your alcohol or substance use disorder.
The 12-Steps
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) founded the idea of 12-Step programs; thus, we take directly from their website the short-form version of the 12-Steps. Alcoholics Anonymous(AA), Narcotics Anonymous (NA), and other 12-Step programs function differently with no operational ties to one another except through the organization as a whole. 12-Step programs follow a common structure and format for meetings, which newcomers will become most familiar with. In these meetings, the 12-Steps are recited and a few other AA-related historical texts, including the 12 traditions, which we will get into in the next section. For now, here are the 12 steps as published by Alcoholics Anonymous:
- We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
- Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
- Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
- Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
- Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
- Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
- Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
- Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
- Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
- Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
- 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.
- Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
The 12 Traditions
A large part of 12-Step programs as a whole is the idea of accountability through the community. This, of course, is reflected by Real Recovery Sober Living’s program. Why? This program helped our founders and friends find long-lasting sobriety. However, this is only possible with the help of a strict program structure and the accountability community that we surround ourselves with. A community that reflects old behaviors and habits does not make it easy for a person recovering from alcohol or substance use disorder to experience healthy recovery. Accountability, thus, is only possible when at least a few people in the program are on board with the idea of recovery.
We discuss this now because when Alcoholics Anonymous was founded, they needed a way to show accountability, to show that those attending these new types of meetings were serious about their efforts to get sober. As taken from Alcoholics Anonymous, here are the 12 traditions in short-form:
- Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity.
- For our group purpose, there is but one ultimate authority – a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
- The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.
- Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole.
- Each group has but one primary purpose – to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.
- An A.A. group ought never to endorse, finance, or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or outside the enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
- Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
- Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
- A.A., as such, ought never to be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible for those they serve.
- Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never to be drawn into public controversy.
- Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.
- Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.
Real Recovery Sober Living has witnessed the 12-Step program work for individuals time and again. Incorporating the program into our lives, structure and format become inseparable, making accountability and community stronger. As Florida’s largest provider of sober living home beds, we help people in the early and transitional stages of their recovery from alcohol or substance use disorder. With strict policies in place to ensure your sobriety can be long-lasting, we implore you to seek treatment as soon as possible. It is never too early to turn your life around.
Embrace sobriety in a safe and stable recovery environment. Our homes are designed for men of every background, so long as you prove to be committed to recovery. Our staff is handpicked, recovered members of similar structure-oriented programs who are willing and wanting to help you live a happier, healthier life. Call us today at (727) 290-9156 to learn more.
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Successfully navigating a 12-Step program requires accountability, structure, and embracing what the community has to offer. Call (727) 290-9156 to learn more.
