What Is AAs 12-Step Program?
Alcoholics Anonymous has a supportive 12-step program to help people overcome alcoholism. Since its founding in 1935, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) has provided help to millions of men and women who once drank to excess, were finally able to acknowledge they could not handle alcohol, and, through the support of AA’s Fellowship, found a new, healthier way of life that excluded drinking. Simply put, the AA program operates by having recovered alcoholics share the stories of their own problem drinking, describe the sobriety they have found in AA, and then invite the newcomer to join the peer-based supportive Fellowship. The heart of the suggested program of personal recovery is contained in Twelve Steps describing the experience of the earliest members of the Society: • 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 th
