- Find meetings near you
- Discover online or in person meetings
- Get 24 hour information on addiction
The 12-step principles are often incorporated into professional behavioral treatment. Your counselor can guide you as you begin working through the steps and start your recovery journey with Alcoholics Anonymous.
In therapy, you may focus on specific steps that address personal accountability, identifying harmful patterns, making amends and building healthy coping skills to support long-term recovery.
Call
800-948-8417
Sponsored
to find reliable, effective rehab facilities where you will receive access to many different treatment methods and begin your recovery journey.
AA as a Part of Addiction Treatment
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, “Most 12-step based programs concentrate on the first five steps during primary treatment, whereas the remaining ones are attended to during aftercare.”
This is partly because of the change that occurs in the program after the sixth step, where a person goes from being ready to have their higher power remove “all… defects of character” to “humbly ask[ing]” that power to do so. After the sixth step, AA often becomes a much more personal journey, which is encouraged after treatment.
The First 6 Steps

The initial 6 steps are sometimes very difficult because they ask a person to accept that their life is no longer within their control because of their dangerous, unmanageable substance abuse.
In 12-step facilitation therapy, a behavioral therapy method that incorporates programs like AA into formal treatment and guides individuals through their confusion with any of the 12 steps, acceptance is one of the key ideas that counselors help to encourage.
Acceptance leads to the realization that abstinence is the only alternative to substance abuse and when an individual cannot control their use themselves, a higher power must be sought.
Once an individual knows this, surrender becomes the next step. This involves giving over one’s will to their chosen higher power instead of feeling the need to control their uncontrollable substance abuse on their own. This act of surrender effectively takes up steps 3 through 6, in which the individual:
- Decides to turn their will over to a higher power
- Takes a moral inventory of themselves, hiding nothing
- Admits to themselves, to their higher power and to another individual, in this case, usually their counselor, exactly what they have done wrong
- Gets ready to ask their higher power to remove their shortcomings
Although behavioral therapy usually only focuses on the first 5 or 6 steps, it gives individuals a strong foundation for their recovery and a safe and effective way to begin their addiction treatment.
Seek Addiction Rehab Now
We can help you find rehab facilities that utilize all the treatment methods you need, including AA and similar programs.
Call
800-948-8417
Sponsored
now.
