Alcoholics Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) adalah sebuah perkumpulan informal untuk mantan pecandu alkohol. Anggota bertemu dalam kelompok-kelompok lokal yang bervariasi besarnya dari beberapa orang sampai beberapa ratus orang. Pada 2001 ada lebih dari 100.000 kelompok di dunia dengan lebih dari 2 juta anggota.
Tujuan perkumpulan ini adalah "to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety". AA mengajarkan bahwa seorang pecandu alkohol, untuk sembuh, tidak boleh minum alkohol sama sekali. Perkumpulan ini juga menawarkan bantuan kepada mantan pecandu dalam bentuk dukungan satu sama lain dengan "berbagi pengalaman, kekuatan, dan harapan".
Alcoholics Anonymous adalah program 12 langkah pertama yang menjadi model bagi perkumpulan-perkumpulan lainnya, misalnya Al-Anon/Alateen, Gamblers Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Sexaholics Anonymous, dan Overeaters Anonymous. AA didirikan oleh Bill Wilson, seorang spekulan saham Wall Street, dan Dr. Bob Smith, seorang proctologist dari Akron, Ohio, keduanya mantan pecandu alkohol.
12 Langkah Alcoholics Anonymous
- We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
- Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
- Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
- Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
- Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
- Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
- Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
- Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
- Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
- Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
- 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.
- 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.