12 Step Recovery Program for Reverts/Converts

As children of alcoholic parents, Prodigal Daughter and I have benefited from the principles annunciated in the 12 Steps of AA. There has just some been discussion on my blog regarding the subject of converts/reverts returning to their former protestant faith. I began to think of the 12 Steps of AA and how they were uniquely applicable to this situation as well. Therefore, I developed my own version of the 12 Step Program. Together, we can say the 12 steps and hopefully prevent someone from falling off the wagon, or out of the Barc of Peter, so to speak. (The regular font is the original , brown italics are my reworking of them)


1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.
We admitted we were powerless over our desire to experience God on our own terms-our spiritual lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Came to believe in the hierarchical Church with an infallible teaching authority that could restore us to theological sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Made a decision to submit our will and our life over to the care of the Church historically started by Christ 2000 years ago.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
We performed an examination of conscience with the help of the Holy Spirit.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
We went to Confession and confessed our sins in detail to a priest.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
We received forgiveness and grace to sin no more through this sacrament of reconciliation instituted by our Lord in John 21.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all good and deserving of all my love, I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance and to amend my life. Amen

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. We perform Penance, attempting to make restitution for the wrongs done and the temporal consequences of our disobedience.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Continue to perform restitution where possible for my sins.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
We continually live in a state of grace and humility acknowledging that we can fall from His grace by our conscious choices to sin. We continue to make frequent use of the confessional.

11. 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. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God through the gifts, graces and sacraments given us by Christ in the Church praying for the knowledge of His will and the power to carry that out.

12. 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.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we try to carry this message to all our brethren and to let Christ guide us in all our earthly affairs.