Zencat

Step 1:

There is a big gap between what I do and how I want to be. My life is spinning out of control.

Step 2:

To get a grip, I need to find a gentle and open way to be with myself.

To find myself, moment by moment, I take a mindful pause.
Step 4:

I look at my life systematically, to see patterns in how I have been relating to people and situations.
Step 5:

I look at my behavior patterns with compassion, to understand the emotional logic behind them.

Step 6:

I see how my behavior patterns have been ways of coping with what feels overwhelming.

Step 7:

I learn to accept the sense of vulnerability that comes from facing what feels overwhelming.

Step 8:

I explore alternative behaviors and rehearse them in safe settings.

Step 9:

I apply these new mindful behaviors in my everyday life.

Step 10:

I keep paying attention to the causes and effects of my actions, and act accordingly

Step 11:

I keep facing reality mindfully, moment by moment, with a mindful pause.

Step 12:

My life reflects a growing sense of respect and compassion for myself and others.

Zencat

More to come. Feel free to add some too.

Zencat

Buddism 12 Steps.
https://bffct.org/bff/our-buddhist-12-steps/

First Principle: Acceptance. We admitted we were powerless–that our lives had become unmanageable.

Second Principle: Confidence. We came to believe that a power other than our ego could restore us to sanity.

Third Principle: Surrender. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of a power other than our ego.

Fourth Principle: Self Examination. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Fifth Principle: Self Honesty: We admitted to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Sixth Principle: Willingness. We were entirely ready to have the power other than our ego remove foolish aspects of our character.

Seventh Principle: Humility. We humbly asked the power other than our ego to shed the foolishness within ourselves

Eighth Principle: Forgiveness. We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

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

Tenth Principle: Admission. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Eleventh Principle: Seeking. We sought through deep hearing, prayer, and meditation to be transformed by a power other than our ego and to realize our inner potential of faith, wisdom, and compassion.

Twelfth Principle: Unconditional Love. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others that suffer, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Zencat

Testing and oops missing 3th step with bad font size formatting.

Zencat

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe and accept that we needed strengths beyond our awareness and resources to restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to entrust our will and our lives to the care of the collective wisdom and resources of those who have searched before us.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to ourselves, without reservation, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were ready to accept help in letting go of all our defects of character.
7. With humility and openness sought to eliminate 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 meditation to improve our spiritual awareness and our understanding of the AA way of life and to discover the power to carry out that way of life.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Zencat

This version of secularized steps was created by the renowned behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner and first published in “The Humanist”.

1. We accept the fact that all our efforts to stop drinking have failed.

2. We believe that we must turn elsewhere for help.

3. We turn to our fellow men and women, particularly those who have struggled with the same problem.

4. We have made a list of the situations in which we are most likely to drink.

5. We ask our friends to help us avoid those situations.

6. We are ready to accept the help they give us.

7. We honestly hope they will help.

8. We have made a list of the persons we have harmed and to whom we hope to make amends.

9. We shall do all we can to make amends, in any way that will not cause further harm.

10. We will continue to make such lists and revise them as needed.

11. We appreciate what our friends have done and are doing to help us.

12. We, in turn, are ready to help others who may come to us in the same way.

Zencat

https://12wisdomsteps.com/taoism/index.html

The Tao Itself

The Tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.
The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.
Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Zencat

Hinduism and the 12 Steps
https://www.12wisdomsteps.com/hinduism/index.html

Vik88

I don't believe in hinduism nor am i very religious but i do believe in the cross helping me some, i hope it's okay being here.

Dee74

Hi Vik
You are always welcome here, but this is a forum for discussion of secular 12 step approaches ...although I concede Buddhism Taoism, Hinduism etc are not really secular approaches either, I guess they fit here than anywhere else right now.

We do have a general 12 step forum as well as a Spiritualism and a Christians in Recovery forum, if you're interested in those
https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...-step-support/
https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...ians-recovery/
https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/spirituality/

D

Zencat

As Dee noted: secular forum.

I would encourage you,Vic, to explore every avenue in addiction recovery. Be it religious or not, find what will work with you. I suggest you find supportive people in your life that will encourage you to grow beyond addiction. One kind of that support system is here at SR.

Vik88

Thank you both, i apologize for my intrusion. I wish you all the best

DriGuy

I've seen a few secular 12 steps along the way. When I started in AA, I felt kind of obligated to adopt something from the program, but I'm not a believer, so I just rewrote the steps by removing the higher power or any reference to anything supernatural from each step. This was before I ever heard of any secular variations. It just seemed like common sense to write them in a way that was relatable for me.

If you ignore Wilson's need to attribute sobriety or personal growth to something outside yourself, you can make a case that each step has some fundamental value that can improve your life, although sometimes it's a stretch, but the steps reduced to the nitty gritty are pretty basic, and I see the steps as mostly a primer for a beginner. Society is complicated with combinations of interpersonal relationships that are infinite and infinitely complex. You are not going to sort that all out with 12 steps, or even 42 steps, but it's a start, and many alcoholics may need a place to start if they have little to bring to the process of recovery on their own. But I believe many of us come to recovery with many useful life skills already in place.

Granted that when you start coming out of the alcoholic fog, you realize there's a lot of tweaking to do and new things to incorporate into your skill set. Alcoholics are addicted people. This does not make us shallow or dumb. Although, I have to admit a slobbering drunk doesn't appear to have many useful skills to work with, but when you sober one up, you will often be surprised.

LoneJedi

Thank you so much for these! I believe in God....but I have issues with the AA 12 steps. They are to, I don't know how to describe it. I'm really happy for the people they work for, don't get me wrong. I know it is a great program for a lot of people. I just don't think it would be for me. Some of these look like they could be of help though.

DriGuy

Why do there have to be 12 Steps in a recovery program? A couple of times there are steps that seem like one step broken apart, as if they were broken apart to arrive at 12. There are also 12 traditions. I always assumed it was a Biblical device possibly in reference to the 12 Apostles, but the number 12 is also symbolically important to the Christian and Hebrew texts in many other ways. And what I did not know until looking it up is that 12 has religious significance well beyond Judaism and Christian religions. There may be 12 Steps for the same reason there were 12 Apostles, specifically because of the magical qualities attributed to 12 in religion and mythology.

As for secular 12 step programs, I assume they use that format to indicate secular value in the original 12 steps or maybe to ride on the coattails of AA. As newer approaches to recovery gain strength, I would expect the emphasis on the properties of 12 to be less significant.

DriGuy

I have no doubt that many believers may be interested in something beyond the AA 12 step program. Recovery is a very personal thing, and some may feel it as a point of personal responsibility to fix it. I was in AA for years, and I am indebted to the people in AA who offered me help and support when I needed it. The steps, with or without a higher power in them, offer a primer on self improvement, but were not my focus. I wanted to break the cycle of addiction, and I felt a personal responsibility to do that.

And it is indeed our responsibility. We must think it through, educate ourselves on addiction, rise to the challenge of quitting during of those first few days of obsessive cravings, and then finally become aware of those teasing attempts from our AV to encourage us to have just one little "harmless drink."

If someone wants to invite a higher power to help, I have no problem with that, but we must never forget that we are the ones doing the actual work. There is a phrase ringing in my head right now: "God helps those who help themselves," and I think this perception could not apply more than it does in breaking our addiction to alcohol.

There are other programs out there, and I think all have value. We can glean from them those parts which are most helpful, and tweak them to make them applicable to our needs, just as I gleaned what I could from AA. From that, we can come to an understanding of our addiction and find our personal solutions to solve it, and we can make good on our personal responsibility to ourselves.

I don't know how many steps there are in my personal program. My recovery is too fluid to have a number. Often when a problem arises, I invent a "step" to deal with it or tweak something I used before, and then that step recedes into the background of my mind. I think the big unalterable ones in breaking my cycle of addiction are 1.accepting that I can never drink again, 2. making a commitment to never drink again, 3. recognizing my alcoholic voice when it tries to influence me, and 4. rejecting it when I recognize it.

I have other steps that involve my personal growth, but I see those as mostly separate from my addiction issue with alcohol. I realize they are vital to my well being, but different from my drinking. But sobriety makes it clearer to me how I need to approach those problems. So yes, the two things are connected if you want to look at it that way.

Zencat

That's how I'm staying sober now. A personalized addiction/wellness plan of action that excludes Gods/HPs.

​​​​​​

AA works for some. For me, AA became irrelevant along with HP and such. Leaving AA was the most healthy thing I could do at the time.

😉 Different strokes for different folks that's all.