Step the first: 1. Admit that you have the Power over any feeling you possess or project.
Your life IS manageable if you so desire.

Step the second: 2. Restoration to sanity is optional. Sanity is relative. A higher power could be the toilet brush, if that is what you are into.

Step the third: 3. "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him." Okay this is the AA step 3 verbatim. I am down with it.

Step the fourth: 4. Forgive yourself and start anew.
"Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself. " is the AA version. I support you if you want to do that but personally I believe it is just another way of focusing on the inward.

Step the fifth: 5. Admit your shit. I do not buy into telling another living person unless you are Catholic and trust your Priest. Tell God.

Step the sixth: 6. Ask God to forgive you. Asking him to remove all your defects of character kind of eliminates the free-will thing. This is not Stepford. You really are alive. You really can change if you so choose. Yes, you can. Never believe otherwise.

Step the seventh: 7. Humbly ask God to help you change. Help you strengthen your will towards what His will is. The AA version again seems to eliminate your will and puts it all on God. God can do anything at all. But God wants *you* to meet him. Reach up. He is right there.

Step the eighth: 8. Make amends to all you have wronged by living simply, acting humbly and walking with your God. I do not, absolutely do not believe it is necessary to list off every single person you have harmed. If you believe that, you need to just quit your job and stay home writing. Every action you take harms someone. What you buy. What you eat. What you drive. All those people dying of lung cancer from toxic air. Yes you harmed them in ways far more important than some squabble in the past. Live now, and live well.

Step the ninth: 9. Convince a friend to do likewise. Now two of you have a healthier perspective.

Step the tenth: 10. Continue to take personal inventory and when you are wrong promptly admit it. You should be doing this anyway. AA or no AA. It is not very hard. Not after the first time.

Step the eleventh: 11. This is the spiritual one. It is very helpful to draw a circle and divide it like a pie in equal portions. Label the pieces: Physical. Emotional. Mental. Spiritual.
Now list ten ways in each quadrant in which you ensure that aspect of you stays healthy. Like it or not we are spiritual beings.

Step the twelvth: 12. Live live live. Stop thinking about living and live. Surround yourself with people who are like minded. Onwards and upwards.

It works for me but I do not talk it through anymore.
I truly believe that the odds are, the person you most wrong is yourself.
Forgive yourself, embrace others and move on.
It really doesnt need to be hard.
of course you want to make it your lifes work.



Acknowledge you are your own Higher Power. You are not helpless. You have the freedom to make choices.