This article was submitted by Promises Rehab. Thank you for your submission! We always like to hear from rehab centers who believe in the 12 step philosophy.

At Promises we focus on the 12 Steps as a critical foundation for long-term recovery. By introducing our clients to the steps early in the recovery process we open their hearts and minds to the value of this community.  During treatment, clients are taken to local meetings in Malibu and West Los Angeles.

More Members Share Their Ideas On The Twelve Steps 

Of the 12 Steps of NA, Step 3 involves another one of the most difficult things a human can do: Allowing our lives and will to be taken out of our hands. The exact step states: We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

      Let's take a closer look at what this means. After acknowledging the problem, and accepting that we need help from a higher power, we now have to give up control to this higher power. And that's not the easiest thing for a person to do. Control is one thing that we have a lot of problems with when we don't have it. And willingly giving it up is something very few of us would normally consider. But erasing addiction comes with its own set of rules, and these rules are the only way out.

      Now how would someone go about giving their will up? They first need to understand that God isn't human, so we shouldn't have to worry about our typical distrustfulness with other humans. God is pure, and his guidance will lead you down the right path. Think of yourself as pencil. You have the ability to draw beautiful pictures, all you need is someone to pick you up and guide your movements. This is what God can and will do for you.

Step 4 states: We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. This step is a where we start looking beyond the addiction, and seeing the negativity in ourselves that allowed us to get to this point.

     Where do we start with this though? In truth, it is just as hard as admitting our problems in the first place. There may be things in us that we have buried deep down, and as hard as it may be to bring them to light, we have to. We have to hold ourselves up to a magnifying glass, and find out everything about us. We have to know who we are before we move on. Every mistake has to be understood, and as painful as it may be, we must dissect ourselves, and comprehend our wrong doings.

 This goes hand in hand with Step 5, which states: We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. This is where we take all the things we found in our moral inventory, and we admit them to God, and to someone close to us. The purpose of this is to bring all our sins and mistakes into the open, so they become real. By making the sins of our past real, it prepares us to be able to face them, and eventually move on.