If you go to a Face to Face Al Anon meeting, or if your loved one has gone into treatment... you will hear people talk about working a program of recovery. Just like the alcoholics who attend AA or the addicts who attend NA, members of Al Anon have their own program. In Al Anon, you learn about the 12 steps (taken from Alcoholics Anonymous), the slogans, the serenity prayer, getting a sponsor. All of these things are highly recommended if you want to find the recovery and serenity that other members of Al Anon have found. The fundamental issue is that WE work our OWN program, and the Addict or Alcoholic works theirs.
The 12 steps:
Step 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.
Step 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity
Step 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over the care of God as we understood Him
Step 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves
Step 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs
Step 6. Were entirely to have God remove all of these defects of character
Step 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings
Step 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all
Step 9. Made direct amends to such people where ever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others
Step 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it
Step 11. Sought thru 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
Step 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.