The 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous serve as the basis for many 12-Step programs — Narcotics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Sex Addicts Anonymous, Al-Anon, and Love Addicts Anonymous, just to name a few — and I find that they provide a good spiritual and cognitive-behavioral grounding for any of us who have problems.
Problems are part of human life, and that means the 12 Steps could be applicable to just about everyone. Let’s see how it works:
One of my clients came to realize that he was being limited in life by an almost unconscious bias against people who held positions of authority. He couldn’t avoid supervisors and security guards at work, and there were times when he had to interact with police officers, representatives of the DMV, and others charged with enforcing rules in society. But he always seemed to approach them with an “attitude,” sometimes creating trouble that didn’t exist in the first place.
I introduced this man to the 12 Steps, substituting the word “problem” for “alcoholism” or “addiction,” and we used the Steps as a basis for him to come to terms with what kept getting in the way of his own happiness. At first he resisted — the Steps seemed like another form of authority for him to become upset about. But with study, discussion, reflection, and practice, he found that they gave him a certain freedom he had not experienced before. By accepting responsibility for his problem and working through it in a step-wise fashion, he gained serenity.
From bias to serenity, from troublemaker to calm adult, from resistance to acceptance and freedom. What a journey… and it took just 12 steps.
(For earlier posts not shown here, go to http://www.lablanche9.wordpress.com/.)
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