Recovery Ministries

12 Steps as Christian Disciplines

These steps have been adapted from the AA 12-Steps and provide a strong Christian foundation for the recovery process:

Step 1: Powerlessness - We admit we are powerless over our addictions and compulsive behavior - that our lives have become unmanageable. “For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” Rom. 7:18

Step 2: Hope - We come to believe that God, through Jesus Christ, can restore our sanity. “Indeed in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.” 2 Corinthians 1:9

Step 3: Faith - We make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to God through Jesus Christ. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6

Step 4: Moral Examination - We make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. “Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.” Lamentations 3:40

Step 5: Confession - We admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs. “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed.” James 5:16

Step 6: Conviction - We are entirely ready to have God remove patterns of sin from our lives. “Count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its evil desires.” Romans 6:11-12

Step 7: Repentance - We humbly ask God to renew our minds so that these patterns can be transformed into patterns of righteousness. “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.” James 4:10

Step 8: Amends - We make a list of all persons who have harmed us, and we choose to forgive them. We also make a list of all persons we have harmed, and we become willing to made amends to them all. “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Ephesians 4:32

Step 9: Forgiveness - We make direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when doing so would injure them or others. “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remembering that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother then come and offer your gift.” Matthew 5:23-24

Step 10: Continuance - We continue to take personal inventory and when we are wrong, promptly admit it. “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” Hebrews 12:11

Step 11: Prayer and Meditation - We seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying for wisdom and power to carry out His will. “Show me your ways, O’LORD, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are my God and my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.” Psalm 25:4-5

Step 12: Service - Having had a spiritual awakening, we try to carry the message of Christ’s grace and power to others, and to practice these principles in every aspect of our lives. “If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory and the power forever and ever. AMEN.” 1 Peter 4:11