The Little Book: A Collection of Alternative 12 Steps

By Roger C.

"A celebration of the varieties of recovery experience" -William L. White
"A beautiful testimony to AA's living history." -Ernest Kurtz

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9780991717422

Book preview

The Little Book

A Collection of

Alternative 12 Steps

By Roger C.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Acknowledgments

Foreword by William L. White

Introduction

Part One: Alternatives

Introduction: 12 Step Alternatives

Gabe’s 12 Steps

Beyond Belief Agnostics

Agnostic AA 12 Steps

We Agnostics

Humanist Twelve Steps

The 12 Steps of Realistic Recovery

12 Statements

A Nontheistic Translation

White Bison

Single-Word

A Buddhist’s Non-Theist 12 Steps

Buddhist 12 Steps

Islamic Twelve Steps to Recovery

Native American 12 Steps

A Personalized Template

Gabe’s Therapist’s Version

The Twelve Step Journal

The Twelve Steps of Self-Confirmation

My 12 Steps

Part Two: Interpretations

Introduction: 12 Step Interpretations

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

Step 7

Step 8

Step 9

Step 10

Step 11

Step 12

Appendices

Appendix One: The Original 12 Steps

Appendix Two: The Origins of the 12 Steps

About AA Agnostica

Links

The Little Book:

A Collection of Alternative 12 Steps

Copyright © 2012 Roger C.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Published in Canada by AA Agnostica

E-book version formatted and compiled by Chris G. with Jutoh 1.70.6

http://aaagnostica.org

ISBN 978-0-9917174-2-2

The Twelve Steps are reprinted in Appendix One with permission from Alcoholics Anonymous World Services. Inc. (AAWS) Permission to reprint these excerpts does not mean that AAWS has reviewed or approved the contents of this publication, or that AAWS necessarily agrees with the views expressed herein. AA is a program of recovery from alcoholism only - use of the Twelve Steps in connection with programs and activities which are patterned after AA, but which address other problems, or in any other non-AA context, does not imply otherwise.

Acknowledgments

I want to thank the members and founders of my home group, Beyond Belief, an agnostic AA group in Toronto. I felt a new hope and confidence when I found this group. Over the last few years it has been an invaluable source of inspiration and support.

It turns out it takes at least a room full of people to write a book, especially one of this kind.

I want to thank the women, men and groups that put together the alternative versions of the Steps which appear in the first section of The Little Book. Their work provides recovering alcoholics with the liberty to go forward with a 12-Step program of recovery without the stumbling block of having to adhere to a religious conviction.

I am especially grateful to Gabor Maté, Stephanie Covington, Allen Berger, and Thérèsa Jacobs-Stewart for allowing me to include their interpretations of each of the 12 steps. These are people who have shown a firm commitment to the wellbeing – if not the very salvation – of the recovering alcoholic and addict.

Without the encouragement of William L. White and Ernest Kurtz, I might never have completed A History of Agnostic Groups in AA, which led to other essays and ultimately to this book. I want to thank them for their support.

Finally, a personal thank you to Karen and to my brother Ron.

Foreword

Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery. (Alcoholics Anonymous, 1939, p. 71)

The worldwide growth of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and the adaptation of AA's Twelve Steps to innumerable problems of living stand as living proof of the catalytic power of this framework for personal transformation. The growth of secular, spiritual, and religious alternatives to AA also confirms AA co-founder Bill Wilson's 1944 declaration. the roads to recovery are many (Wilson, 1944/1988). In 2006, Ernest Kurtz, author of Not-God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous, and l published an essay entitled The Varieties of Recovery Experience. In that essay, we contended that these growing varieties within and beyond AA constitute one of the most important milestones in the history of addiction recovery. Roger C. has provided a valuable service in illustrating such varieties through this collection of how AA’s Twelve Steps have been adapted and interpreted across diverse philosophical, professional, religious, and cultural traditions.

While some grateful AA members perusing this book will think it heresy to change the wording of AA's Twelve Steps, others will recognize that such tolerance and even celebration of the varieties of recovery experience are deeply rooted with the historical culture of AA. Consider the following from AA co-founder Bill Wilson:

Alcoholics Anonymous does not demand that you believe in anything. All of its Twelve Steps are but suggestions. (Alcoholics Anonymous, 1952/1981, p. 26)

It is a tradition among us that the individual has the unlimited right to his