12 Steps & 12 Traditions
12 Steps
- We admitted we were powerless over our codependency – 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 God.
- 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 God 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 God, praying only for knowledge of God’s 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 those suffering from codependency and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
*The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous have been adapted with the permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (“A.A.W.S.”). Permission to adapt the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions does not mean that Alcoholics Anonymous is affiliated with this program. A.A. is a program of recovery from alcoholism only – use of A.A.’s Steps or an adapted version in connection with programs and activities which are patterned after A.A., but which address other problems, or use in any other non-A.A. context, does not imply otherwise.
12 Traditions
- Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon Recovered Codependents unity.
- For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority – a loving Higher Power as expressed to our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
- The only requirement for membership in Recovered Codependents is a desire to stop engaging in codependent thinking and behavior.
- Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or Recovered Codependents as a whole.
- Each group has but one primary purpose – to carry its message to other codependents who still suffer.
- A Recovered Codependents group ought never endorse, finance or lend the Recovered Codependents name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary spiritual aim.
- Every Recovered Codependents group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
- Recovered Codependents should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
- Recovered Codependents as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
- Recovered Codependents has no opinion on outside issues; hence the Recovered Codependents name ought never 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, films, television, and all other forms of public communication.
- Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.
*The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous have been adapted with the permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (“A.A.W.S.”). Permission to adapt the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions does not mean that Alcoholics Anonymous is affiliated with this program. A.A. is a program of recovery from alcoholism only – use of A.A.’s Steps or an adapted version in connection with programs and activities which are patterned after A.A., but which address other problems, or use in any other non-A.A. context, does not imply otherwise.