Editing Twelve-step program (section)

==Twelve Steps==
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{{redirect-several|text=ending in "step"|dab=off|Scale (music)|The Fifth Step|Eighth Step Coffee House|Ninth Step Station}}
{{Further|List of Twelve Step alternate wordings}}
<!-- Please do not add alternative wordings. This is the official AA-version, there is a [[List of Twelve Step alternate wordings]] linked. -->
The following are the twelve steps as published in 2001 by Alcoholics Anonymous:<ref name="BIGBOOKHOWITWORKS">{{cite book |title=Alcoholics Anonymous |publisher=Alcoholics Anonymous World Services |date=June 2001 |edition=4th |isbn=978-1-893007-16-1 |oclc=32014950 |chapter=Chapter 5: How It Works |chapter-url=http://www.aa.org/pages/en_US/alcoholics-anonymous |chapter-format=PDF |author=Bill W.|pages=59–60}}</ref>
# We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—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 Him''
# 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 [[Moral character|character]].
# Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
# Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make [[wikt:amends|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, praying only for knowledge of His 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 alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
<!-- Please do not add alternative wordings. This is the official AA-version, there is a [[List of Twelve Step alternate wordings]] linked. -->
Where other twelve-step groups have adapted the AA steps as guiding principles, step one is generally updated to reflect the focus of recovery. For example, in Overeaters Anonymous, the first step reads, "We admitted we were powerless over compulsive overeating—that our lives had become unmanageable." Variations in the languaging of the third step (which once spoke of making "a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand Him"<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Wilson
 |first1               = William Griffith
 |author-link1         = Bill W.
 |date                 = 4 September 2014
 |orig-date            = 10 April 1939
 |chapter              = How It Works
 |title                = Alcoholics Anonymous: The Original Text of the Life-Changing Landmark, Deluxe Edition
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=Q2ZVAwAAQBAJ
 |publication-place    = New York
 |publisher            = Penguin
 |isbn                 = 9780698176935
 |access-date          = 5 October 2024
 |quote                = Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand Him
}} 
</ref>)
sometimes occur<ref name="NABULLETIN13">{{cite web |publisher=Narcotics Anonymous World Services |title=World Service Board of Trustees Bulletin #13: Some thoughts regarding our relationship to Alcoholics Anonymous |date=February 23, 2007 |access-date=October 7, 2007 |url=http://www.na.org/bulletins/bull13-r.htm | quote = [...] Bill W. frequently wrote and spoke about [...] what he called the 'tenstrike' of AA - the wording of the Third and Eleventh Steps. The whole area of spirituality versus religion was as perplexing for [AA] as unity was for [Narcotics Anonymous]. Bill liked to recount that the simple addition of the words 'as we understand Him' after the word 'God' killed that controversy in one chop. An issue that had the potential to divide and destroy AA was converted into the cornerstone of the program by that simple turn of phrase.|archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20071006094719/http://www.na.org/bulletins/bull13-r.htm <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date=October 6, 2007}}</ref><ref name="NACHRONOLOGY">{{cite web |url=http://www.na-history.org/NA_History_Chronology.html |title=NA History Chronology |access-date=October 7, 2007 |date=January 13, 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090303172307/http://na-history.org/NA_History_Chronology.html |archive-date=March 3, 2009 |quote=1953:&nbsp;... this committee met regularly&nbsp;... From the beginning&nbsp;... 12 Steps&nbsp;... 12 Traditions&nbsp;... All Steps had ‘We’ }}</ref><ref name="CMASTEPS">{{cite web |url=http://www.crystalmeth.org/cma-documents/cma-twelve-steps.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121105053511/http://www.crystalmeth.org/cma-documents/cma-twelve-steps.html |archive-date=2012-11-05 |title=The 12 Steps of Recovery |access-date=August 28, 2010 | quote = The 12 Steps of Crystal Meth Anonymous[:] We [...] made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of a God of our understanding.}}</ref><ref name="MASTEPS">{{cite web |url=https://www.marijuana-anonymous.org/how-it-works/twelve-steps |title=The Twelve Steps of Marijuana Anonymous |access-date=September 28, 2012 | quote = The Twelve Steps of Marijuana Anonymous{:] We [...] made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood God.}}</ref>
to avoid gender-specific pronouns{{cn|date=October 2024}} or to accommodate non-theistic beliefs.<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Hornbacher
 |first1               = Marya
 |author-link1         = Marya Hornbacher
 |date                 = 21 April 2011
 |title                = Waiting: A Nonbeliever's Higher Power
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=4F7ce-4gvLIC
 |publication-place    = Center City, Minnesota
 |publisher            = Hazelden Publishing
 |page                 = 41
 |isbn                 = 9781592858255
 |access-date          = 5 October 2024
 |quote                = The upside of Step Three - Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God ''as we understand Him'' - is that the Step explicitly says that it is our own understanding of God that's required. The language does seem to assume a deity, a Him, of some kind, but if our understanding of spiritual sustenance is other than theistic, there is still room for us, and our beliefs, in this program.
}} 
</ref>
Some Twelve-steppers may adapt references to "God" to refer to a "higher power" or to "HP".<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Roos
 |first1               = Stephen
 |year                 = 1992
 |chapter              = Step 11
 |title                = A Young Person's Guide to the Twelve Steps
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=-12HgabkIWIC
 |publication-place    = Center City, Minnesota
 |publisher            = Hazelden Publishing
 |page                 = 101
 |isbn                 = 9780894868511
 |access-date          = 5 October 2024
 |quote                = Many people [...] consider prayer just a way of talking to their higher power - even if they're still not very comfortable with the higher power concept. [...] 'I tell my higher power how I'm feeling that day,' says Janine. 'I tell HP first how my body is feeling. [...] Then I ask HP to lift all the barriers that keep me from feeling really good, and then I ask HP to help me and everyone else. Sometimes, just before I meditate, I ask HP to let me see myself and others through Her eyes rather than my own. [...]' 
}} 
</ref>