How it Works.

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that
our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves
could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over
to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of
ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human
being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these
defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became
willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible,
except when to do so would injure them or
others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we
were wrong promptly admitted it.
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.
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.

From the book Alcoholics Anonymous.
Pages 59-60, Third Edition.