TWELVE STEPS TO SPIRITUAL RECOVERY (Twelve Activities of the Spiritual Boot Camp)

1. We admitted that we were powerless over the memories, emotions, attitudes, thoughts, bodily reactions and spiritual pain resulting from combat.

2. Having undergone a "conversion experience" into a world of violence, we came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to peace of soul, peace with others and peace with God as I understand him.

3. We made a decision to turn our anger, guilt, resentments, shame and fear over to God and to commit ourselves entirely to God’s loving care.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, including all we had done in combat, leaving out nothing we had done personally but not accepting responsibility for what we did not do personally.

5. Admitted to ourselves and to one other person the exact nature of our past wrongs and our present tendencies to do evil, asking God to forgive our past sins and remove our defects of character.

6. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and become willing to make amends to them all either directly or indirectly, insofar as this is possible without harming others or ourselves.

7. Having admitted our tendency to "play God" in our judgments of others and of ourselves, and now submitting our judgments to those of God, we now forgive all others any offenses they may have committed against us, we forgive ourselves and accept God’s forgiveness of us.

8. Having entered into a deeper spiritual state, we surrendered ourselves completely to God, letting go of our hidden hatreds and desires for revenge and also of our guilt over the unintended consequences of acts we performed in good faith or in ignorance.

9. We began to exercise a specific and detailed "discipline of trust," whereby we gradually came to trust ourselves, trust others and to trust that God would restore to us our power to rejoice, to give thanks, to praise and to enjoy.

10. We began to enter into the silence and the still waters of our souls in peace rather than in the isolation and loneliness of fear, spending time in quiet prayer–and in sharing what we have discovered within ourselves in prayer and worship together with others.

11. We committed ourselves to completing the final mission of a combat soldier: becoming bearers of peace, prayerfulness, happiness and rejoicing , resolving to go behind the "enemy lines" of fear, mistrust, selfishness, greed, hatreds which surround us in our culture, confident that, as warriors of peace, we will overcome these barriers using the weapons of peace, mercy and kindness which we have been given.

12. Where before we were infected with the contagion of violence, we will now spread to others the contagion of peace which we have received, planning our mission carefully, including all those within the ambit of our lives.

W. P. Mahedy

Sources: AA Literature; The Rise Program and other works by Madeline Gershwin et al.; Johnny’s Song by Steve Mason; Twelve Recovery Themes and Spiritual Steps by Joel Brende, MD,; Serenity: A Companion for Twelve Step Recovery by Robert Hemfelt & Richard Fowler; the works of Beverly Donovan, PhD, Jonathan Shay, MD, PhD; Janet Bernardi Waldo, John Ferguesson, VA Chaplains Richard Clewell & Michael Carr. Material from Out of the Night and other works by the present author.