Wine, beer liquor, all shares the same properties. That is when consumed do something magical to a person.
Alcohol makes situations more comfortable and fun. Ancient myths and folklore depict alcohol in their stories. Some depict alcohol as having wonderful healing assets. While some like the bible states many warnings against the misuses of alcohol. For the contemporary drinker alcohol when misused potentially can have devastating effects on his or her life.
Not only his or her life but also their family, friends, co-workers lives as well. Although this is the case, there is means of arresting the disease.Before rehabilitation programs individuals were places in sanitariums with the mentally insane. One program changed all that. The program titled Alcoholics Anonymous (A.
A. ) was the first of its kind. Alcoholics Anonymous is a 12-step program. To the common person A. A.
may seem mystical. Except for the millions of individual who have gotten clean through A. A the steps are no magic fairy dusts. This paper will examine the first four of the 12 Steps in order to understand the content of each step with the goal of developing a spiritual awaking, and the process of a continuum for the recovering individual.
The 12 steps represent a beginning of a continuum for a recovering individual, and the acculturation of upright principles and ethics. There is no way an individual must complete the steps to state they have completed it, however there are suggestions and common methods. For instance, one common custom involves acquiring a fellow individual within the group to walk a prospect through the steps. Typically, the term used for someone who walks a person through the 12-steps is titled a Sponsor. Customarily the group expects the sponsor to have at least six months of abstinence off alcohol.Additionally if feasible, the sponsored may be required to attend 90 meetings in 90 days.
Above all else, at the core of working the twelve steps is the principle of sharing the journey with others in the group. Step One of Alcoholics Anonymous (A. A), request the first commitments from a person and shares characteristics with the stages of change. Step One states “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives have become unmanageable” (A. A. world services Incorporated, 1976, pg.
56). When an individual takes this Step, acceptance and contemplation are taking place in the mind.Drug counselors consider the psychological shift monumental to the process of long-term permanent change. “Because contemplators are seriously thinking about changing their smoking behavior, they would use consciousness raising the most to gather further information about their smoking”( Prochaska & DiClemente, 1983). Additionally, this step means coming out of denial. This is based on the assumption that the acceptance of a problem is the antonym of denial.
In other words, what this can bring upon the individual is a deeper desire and perception of damage from alcohol.Finally according to Matt Pimentel Step One is also known as “I cannot do It step” (personal communication, 2012) Step Two states “Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity” (A. A world services incorporated, 1976, pg. 56). In contrast to the I cannot do it step this step is also known as the he can do it step (Power greater than one’s self).
In this step, the individual is to believe in a higher power that can help restore sanity from alcoholism. Common members of A. A. will tell you that anything will do.A common higher power chosen is the group itself. Additionally in the A.
A. book, is a chapter dedicated to people who struggle with the concept with God. The central theme of the chapter we agnostics is pick your own God as long as it’s a power greater than your own “morals” and or “philosophy” (Alcoholics anonymous world services incorporated, 1976, pg. 54) Step Three may require an individual to go back to step two and analyze their higher power.This is because in this step the commitment is to turn over one’s self driven efficacy and autonomy to the care of the higher power.
Made a decision to turn are will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him” (Alcoholics anonymous world services incorporated, 1976, pg. 56). For example if the higher power is a doorknob, turning ones self-control and being over to the care of a doorknob may not make sense. Unless the individual conceptualizes the doorknob as a decision to use, then it may not be a good idea to open the door. Step Four “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves” (Alcoholics anonymous world services incorporated, 1976, pg. 56).
Step Four ask the individual not only to take a hard look at self, marking the good and the bad, but also to look at all offensive things in one’s life. This includes past relationships businesses and relatives. Subjectively what is concluded is that the point of all this is to seek out and understand the wrongs that the individual committed. Creating this distinction and allowing the individual to understand new information concerning their part, allows for some of the built up unconscious anger to subside. In conclusion, underpinning the Alcohol Anonymous Steps are ethics, principles, and cognitive psychology.The book has been in circulation for 73 years and “Alcoholics Anonymous, now in its fourth edition, has sold over 30 million copies and has been translated into 67 languages.
” Sponsors lead the prospects through the 12 steps. Whereas Step One begins the journey for the man or women in need of a miracle. Additionally for the individual struggling with the word God there is a chapter dedicated to elaboration on the word called Chapter to the agnostics. Finally, the resilience and continual growth of AA point out the unieqness and beauty wrapped in its words that will not fade for quite some time.
