This article is about why the freedom room introduces you to the 12 steps of alcoholic’s anonymous. I first saw the 12 steps on a banner on the wall in an AA meeting back in 2003. I went to 1 AA meeting and listened to all the differences. I went to that meeting because I had misbehaved the night before while drunk, and I honestly thought my husband would leave me. I heard lots of things in that meeting that made me believe I was in the wrong place, but I heard someone say the answers were in the 12 steps, and so, I brought the book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions and didn’t return to AA for another nine years.
When I got home, I told my husband that I was not an alcoholic and I was in no way as severe as the people I had seen sitting around the table in the church hall. I did, however, have a look at the book when I was alone. I can do this by myself. It is just 12 steps; how hard can it be? So this is how it went. Step One, “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol that our lives had become unmanageable” Well, obviously, I can admit that why else would I go to AA. Why else would I be googling questions like Am I an alcoholic? How much alcohol should I drink? How to stop drinking? My life is not unmanageable.
I work, have a house and a husband, but I can see why some of those sitting around the table in that church hall would have unmanageable lives. OK, that’s step one done.
Next Step Two, “Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity” well, My Dad had died a couple of years before, and he was my power of strength. I’m not insane, but I can see how some of those sitting around the table in that church hall could have mental health issues. Oh, I am getting this now. Only some of the steps apply to me. Step Three “made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him” I can see how some of those sitting around the table in that church hall would believe in God.
Why else would they be in a church hall? Next Step Four “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves” mmmm Not quite sure what that means. I’ll come back to that one. Step Five “Admitted to God, to Ourselves and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs” OH MY GOD, I CAN’T TELL MY HUSBAND ALL THE THINGS I HAVE DONE WHEN I HAVE BEEN DRUNK. HE WILL KILL ME. OK, these are only for people in safe marriages. I better try something else. Close the book and hide it.
My following introduction to the 12 steps was when I was in a private paid rehab in 2012. They also took us to AA meetings. I would be lying if I told you that I fitted right in and I felt at home, I had no idea what everyone was talking about, but I could 1000% relate to the story’s being told. I had been behaving precisely in the same fashion. My relationship with alcohol was toxic, like these people were describing. I never completed all my steps in rehab, and I don’t remember which number I got up to, but I didn’t feel I knew what I was doing. I remember asking other housemates what I was expected to write, and they would ask me specific questions which would help me understand what the step was asking.
At some point in 2013, I found myself back at AA’s door, looking to do the steps. I was a dry drunk. I had only stopped drinking, not done any work on myself or my recovery. This time I was offered to do the 12 steps in a way that would change my life forever. It is with the help of these steps that I have stayed clean and sober.
I owe my life as it is right now to AA, and I will be eternally grateful. Since doing my professional training in Alcohol and Other Drugs, I have been required to look at other options. Now I don’t know if the other options work personally as I have never tried them, but I have seen them help keep many others alcohol-free, and I am happy to assist my clients with these options. However, what I do feel, though, and this is just my personal opinion.
The 12 steps work. I am living evidence of this, and they set me free from the hell I was living; they gave me the freedom from alcohol that I was looking for. AA (alcoholics anonymous) is not for everyone, so many different ideas keep the suffering from the doors of AA; I could see numerous judgments why AA doesn’t sit well with everyone. But let me tell you, the fellowship of AA and the 12 steps of AA are two completely different entities; why should someone miss out on the solution because they feel for whatever reason, to them, that AA is not for them.
Old-timers will say if they are desperate enough, they will walk through the doors. We have different mindsets these days. At the freedom room, the first suggestion to new clients is, have you tried AA? Would you be willing to try AA? As long as we support the suffering stay clean and sober, it is not a competition for the best formula or platform. It doesn’t matter how we get sober, as long as we do it. It’s always your journey, your recovery.