An Inkling
Many of us
have been helped along the way at some point by a “12 step group.” The 12 steps originated with Alcoholics
Anonymous, but their helpfulness for recovery in general has led many groups to
adapt them, from Narcotics Anonymous to sex abuse victims groups.
Just as the
12 steps can be a tool to guide us, so their antitheses can be a jolt to awaken
us to our destructive patterns of behavior.
These negative 12 steps are borrowed from Steps, a magazine for 12 step groups. Enjoy a laugh with the “12 Steps to Total
Insanity”:
1. We admitted
we were powerless over nothing. We could
manage our lives perfectly and we could manage those of anyone else that would
allow it.
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 loved ones and friends turn their wills and their lives
over to our care.
4. Made a
searching and fearless moral inventory of everyone we knew.
5. Admitted to
the whole world at large the exact nature of their wrongs.
6. Were
entirely ready to make others straighten up and do right.
7. Demanded
others either “shape up or ship out.”
8. Made a list
of anyone who had ever harmed us and became willing to go to any lengths to get
even with them all.
9. Got direct
revenge on such people whenever possible except when to do so would cost us our
own lives, or at the very least, a jail sentence.
10. Continued
to take inventory of others, and when they were wrong promptly and repeatedly
told them about it.
11. Sought
through nagging to improve our relations with others as we couldn’t understand
them at all, asking only that they knuckle under and do things our way.
12. Having had
a complete physical, emotional and spiritual breakdown as a result of these
steps, we tried to blame it on others and to get sympathy and pity in all our
affairs.
As they
say: one step forward....
And 12
steps backward!
Keith
