View Single Post
Old 01-21-2009, 07:08 PM
  # 9 (permalink)  
freya
Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Upstate New York
Posts: 1,636
This is a really old thread......but interesting nonetheless.....

A few years ago, someone who was chairing my homegroup researched this because she wanted to use "the principles" as meeting topics for the quarter she was chairing. As indicated by the posts above, she found several different lists that matched various spiritual principles with corresponding steps but no indication that any of then was in any sense "official" or AA "approved."

Below is the one we decided to use for our group. Personally, I really, really like the association of the the principle "Atonement" with the 9th Step because of the way it stresses the idea that amends/reparation/sacrifice is being made in order to effect reconciliation, not only with one's fellows, but also with HP/God.

The AA Principles and Virtues

Acceptance
Step 1. We admitted that we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.

Hope
Step 2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

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

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

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

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

Humility
Step 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

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

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

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

Connection
Step 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.

Service
Step 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.

freya
freya is offline