Recovery homes were once called half-way houses and were designed to house alcoholics who were indigent. Today recovery homes are called sober living or transitional living and house individuals from all socioeconomic background who are seeking to extend their residential treatment program and build a more secure foundation in sobriety and recovery before returning to their previous home or creating a new life elsewhere.
12 step programs are common type of ongoing recovery program. A twelve-step program is a set of guiding principles for recovery from addictive, compulsive, or other process addictions. The suggested 12 steps were originally developed by the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) a small group of men who shared a desire to stop drinking in the late 1930s. The original 12 steps and corresponding philosophy has been adapted as the foundation of other twelve-step programs to deal with other addictions.
There are also non 12 step programs for individuals wishing to recover from addictions or compulsions. A few are listed below. However, the 12 step remains the most popular and widespread model for treatment and recovery from drug and alcohol addiction. Many addiction recovery centers use the 12 steps as a component of their recovery program.
- Adult Children of Alcoholics - 12 step program for individual raised in alcoholic or addicted families
- Al-Anon/Alateen - 12 step program for families and friends of alcoholics (Alateen is for teens, Alatot for toddlers also exists)
- Alcoholics Anonymous - 12 step program for those who have a desire to stop drinking
- Co-Dependents Anonymous - 12 step program for those who wish to develop healthy not codependent relationships
- Cocaine Anonymous - 12 step program for cocaine users
- Crystal Meth Anonymous - 12 step program for crystal meth users
- Gamblers Anonymous - 12 step program for problem and pathological gamblers
- Marijuana Anonymous - 12 step program for marijuana smokers
- Nar-Anon – 12 step program for friends and family members of addicts
- Narconon – The Church of Scientology’s inpatient treatment for drug abuse
- Narcotics Anonymous – 12 step program for drug addicts
- Nicotine Anonymous – 12 step program for smokers
- Overeaters Anonymous – 12 step program for individuals with food addictions and eating disorders
- Rational Recovery – addiction counseling and self help – alternative to 12 step
- SMART Recovery – non 12 step, cognitive behavioral non-confrontational addiction recovery assistance
- Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous – 12 step program for people recovering from love or sex addiction SLAA
- Sexaholics Anonymous – more traditional 12 step group that SLAA, use the Big Book of AA to recovery from sex addicion
- Sexual Compulsives Anonymous 12 step group formed to address sexual compulsions among homosexual men
These are the original suggested Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous as published by Alcoholics Anonymous in the first edition of “ The Big Book,” in 1939. Since that time, more than 25 million copies have been printed in many languages.
- We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
- Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
- Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
- Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
- Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
- Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
- Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
- Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
- Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
- Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
- Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His Will for us and the power to carry that out.
- Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Other twelve-step groups have adapted these steps of AA as guiding principles for problems other thanalcoholism. In some cases the steps have been altered to emphasize particular principles important to those fellowships. One example being the first step in Al-anon replaces the word “alcohol” with the word “people.”