What Are the 10 Steps of AA?

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is a fellowship of people who are trying to recover from alcoholism and help others in their group recover. In a setting similar to group therapy, individuals share their stories and experiences to provide strength to themselves and others. AA is free, and the only requirement to attend meetings is the desire to stop drinking. AA is not affiliated with any political group, denomination or institution. Their only purpose is to help people stay sober. AA has 12 steps, but the following are the first ten steps of AA.

Step 1

• We admitted we were powerless over alcohol---that our lives had become unmanageable.

Step 2

• We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Step 3

• We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Step 4

• We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Step 5

• We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human beings the exact nature of our wrongs.

Step 6

• We're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Step 7

• We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

Step 8

• We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

Step 9

• We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Step 10

• We continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

Other Two Steps

• The other two steps are:

  11. We sought though 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.