Appendix 1 and 2

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol- that our lives had become unmanageable

 

2. We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity

 

3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him

 

4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves

 

5. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs

 

6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character

 

7. We humbly asked Him to remove all our shortcomings

 

8. We made a list of all persons we have harmed and became willing to make amends to them all

 

9. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others

 

10. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it

 

11. We 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

 

12. Having had a spiritual experience as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and practice these principles in all our affairs.

 

Anonymous e-mail contact with other Christian alcoholics and their families: christianalcoholics@carelinks.net

 

Eastern Europe / Russian speaking counselling: a. d. 1903, Vilnius 2012 LITHUANIA; a.k. 97, Riga 1007 LATVIA

 

The Caring Network, North America

 

The Queensland Caring Network, Australia

 

 

 

Notes

(1) Caroline Knapp, “The Glass Half Empty”, The New York Times Magazine (9 May 1999), p. 19.

 

(2) Jean Kinney & Gwen Leaton, Loosening The Grip: A Handbook Of Alcohol Information (St Louis: Mosby, 1995) p. 21. This is an invaluable source of statistics and facts relating to alcoholism.

 

(3) The most Biblical attempt to justify total abstinence which I have come across is in Peter Masters, Should Christians Drink? The Case For Total Abstinence (London: Wakeman, 2001). But even this, in my opinion, fails to conclusively clinch the case Biblically. I have to leave it at the level of a personal conscience decision.

 

(4) Jorge Valles, Social Drinking And Alcoholism (Texas Alcohol And Narcotics Educations Council, 1965) p. 14.

 

(5) Darryl Inaba & William Cohen, Physical And Mental Effects Of Psychoactive Drugs (Ashland, OR: C.N.S., 1993), p. 135.

 

(6) Roy Hatfield, “Closet Alcoholics In The Church”, Christianity Today, 18 August 1981 p. 28.

 

(7) This is discussed and documented in some detail in Andre Bustanoby, The Wrath Of Grapes (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987).

 

(8) Jean Kinney & Gwen Leaton, Loosening The Grip: A Handbook Of Alcohol Information (St Louis: Mosby, 1995) p. 21.

 

(9) For a fine and moving account of a Christian’s deliverance from alcohol abuse, see the thrilling, chilling testimony of Peter Bayliss in The Perils Of Drug And Alcohol Abuse (Birmingham: Care Group Publications, 1999).

 

(10) Paul Martin, The Healing Mind, 1997, p. 157.

 

(11) K.M. Magruder, “The Association Of Alcoholism Mortality With Legal Availability Of Alcoholic Beverages”, Alcohol And Drug Education, 1976.