I learned that the 12 Steps are designed to be tools that can relieve the anger, resentments, guilt, shame, and other negative feelings that prompt the addict brain to cry out for chemical relief.

Since these emotions come up constantly, the program has to be practiced daily, one day at a time, even hourly or minute-by-minute in early sobriety. Applying the program every day is the way addicts transform their attitudes, making the enormous psychic switch from the false belief that drugs are the antidote to life’s problems to recognizing that sobriety is the remedy.
So if you have doubts or objections to 12-Step programs, I can relate because I shared them. Those doubts don’t have to stand in the way of obtaining the benefits of the program. And they don’t have to be kept secret. I hear people express similar doubts all the time at AA meetings. And rather than be criticized or ostracized for expressing them, members admire the honesty and courage that it takes to talk openly about them.
I urge doubters to keep an open mind, suspend your preconceptions, investigate 12-Step programs fully and give them a sincere chance before deciding they’re not for you.

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