Step By Step

When you hear about the twelve-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous, you figure it's made up of very distinct, how-to steps.  Everyone (who watches TV or movies) knows certain parts, like admitting you have a problem, and apologizing to everyone you harmed, so they sound like real, practical moves.  And then, when you're done with twelve, boom, you're cured.

So when I finally read them I was surprised to discover how much they have to do with spirituality, and how little they have to do with, well, actually doing stuff.  Here they are:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. 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.

12. 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.

I was disappointed how little can-do there was in this, and how much help-me.  I realize if you're not religious, you can see these steps as being "inner" steps that you yourself actually do, but if you believe that, why not just say it.

Rule one starts with admitting you can't solve your own problem, so I guess they give up the game there. (I'd prefer just admitting you have a problem.) Two and three deal with a power outside ourselves.  Four seems a better idea--making a moral inventory.  Once again, you're doing something.  Five, six and seven have a lot of stuff about asking a Supreme Being for help (I bet we could cut one of these and no one would notice), though they also have you dealing with another human.  Eight and nine is the apology phase.  Ten is more inventory--couldn't we cut this one as well and have a ten-step program?  Eleven is more praying and twelve is goodbye, keep it up.

I have no idea how effective this is, but there are a lot of doubts. 

One measurement problem is do you count the people who leave early, or only those who stay through all the steps?  In any case, I think a fair measurement would compare this against a program that says you have to solve your own problems, and no program at all, just an individual who wants to change--after all, the AA sample is presumably motivated people.

I'm sure AA has helped millions, as probably would any program that's had so many pass through its doors.  Whatever works is fine with me, but if proper research suggested AA's program doesn't help that much, would they consider changing it?