How It Doesn’t Work

1. We admitted we were powerless over nothing—that we could manage our lives perfectly, and those of anyone else who would allow us to do so.

2. Came to believe that there was no power greater than ourselves and the rest of the world was insane.

3. Made a decision to have our friends and loved ones turn their will and their lives over to our care, even though they didn’t understand us.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of everyone we knew.

5. Admitted to the entire world the exact nature of everyone else’s wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to make others straighten up and fly right.

7. Demanded that they shape up or ship out.

8. Made a list of all persons who had harmed us, and became willing to get revenge on them all.

9. Got direct revenge on such people wherever possible, except when to do so would cost us our lives or, at the very least, prison time.

10. Continued to take the inventory of others, and when they were wrong, promptly and repeatedly told them so.

11. Sought through complaining and nagging to improve our relations with others, as we could not understand them, asking only that they knuckle under and do things our way.

12. Having had a complete physical, emotional, and spiritual breakdown as the result of these steps, we tried to blame it on others and get pity and sympathy in all our affairs.