Excellent reading!:The Principles of Recovery

Excellent reading!:The Principles of Recovery

Very well written!! Very good and easy to apply if you let yourself! 

It's all in God's word too! 

12 Simple Steps from God to apply to our lives... One day at a time- Just for Today!!

Enjoy! 

Donna. :-)

The  Principles of the 12 steps can be difficult or very simple to understand.

This is an effort to simplify the meaning of the principles of the 12 steps  for those who may be having difficulty. These are the principles that are  incorporated into our daily lives as ‘we walk the walk’. Employing each of these  behaviors will help to rebuild a life of increased self esteem and self  confidence. So, in my never ending quest to keep it simple, here are the action  principles behind the twelve steps: 

1. Honesty - The operative principle behind step 1 is honesty. If you  cannot get honest about the scope of your problem, and honest about a sincere  effort to resolve it you will not succeed. How about a definition of honesty as  the absence of the intention to deceive? Who do we try to fool? Ourselves 

2. Hope – In order to engage in a course of addiction recovery, we  must have hope of success. If there is no hope, why try? Perhaps we have failed  on our own, how about enlisting some help? A way to instill hope is to realize  recovery is not a question of ability; after all there are millions in recovery,  but rather persistence and application. 

3. Faith – This stage of action is to begin to employ the recovery  skills being learned. You can seek out help, but it is also necessary to utilize  it. Our job is to become willing to do the right thing. A simple way to view the  ‘next right thing’ is don’t engage in your behavior. Have faith it will work. 

4. Courage - This step is really about courage to honestly (see step  1) look at ourselves. Take a look at how our behavior has become warped to  justify our continued behavior. We are here to take an honest assessment of  ourselves. 

5. Integrity - If we have truly done a thorough job of introspection  and evaluation of our assets and shortcomings do we have the integrity to own up  to it? It can be very difficult to be open and honest about our past behaviors.  We accept the need for a dose of humility. 

6. Willingness – Now that we have accomplished an inventory of the  good and no so good aspects of our character and behavior, are we willing to  change them? All of them? The important part in this 12 step principle is the  willingness to let go of old behaviors. 

7. Humility – Here we move further into action, in step 6 we became  willing to as let go of our old behaviors, now we ask for help in actually  letting go. Can we learn to forgive ourselves? 

8. Discipline and Action – We are continuing to remove the barriers  that can block forward sober growth. We are getting ready to sweep our side of  the street clean. Make a list of all those people we have harmed both through  actions and not being present to live up to obligations. 

9. Forgiveness – Asking for the forgiveness of those we have  intentionally or unintentionally injured is the order of the day. A key point  here is to try to correct those injuries through action, not just words. It is  highly recommended that guidance and help is utilized here. Asking forgiveness  is not a gift to the other person, but rather an act of kindness to you. 

10. Acceptance - To be human is to make mistakes. Hopefully our  journey has led us to the point where we can readily admit mistakes and accept  ourselves for being imperfect. We must also learn not to judge others but accept  them for who they are, not our vision of who they should be. 

11. Knowledge and Awareness – Here we search and become aware of  following our path being aware of our purpose in life and actively pursuing it.  I view this principle as just being aware, not being got up in the rush of life,  making conscious effort to do the right thing and to be at peace. 

12. Service and Gratitude - Having brought about a personality change  sufficient to remain in recovery; we are empowered to demonstrate the new  principles by which we live, in our daily life through example. We seek out and  are available to help others in need. 

There you have it. Simple actions you can practice each and every day to  improve the quality of your life in addiction recovery and those people you come  in contact with. These are the simple one word action principles of the 12  steps.