A Breakdown of the Steps!

By: Tim Myers

Step One:

“We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.”

For Dummies:
I can’t stop drinking and it’s impossible for me to do anything without messing up. I try to stop but next thing I know…bang. I’m hammered, my family hates me, and all my bills are over due.

Step Two:

“Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

For Dummies:
I thought for a long time and now I’m at the point where I’m so crazy that only God himself can make me a sane person again. I mean, I’m really bonkers at this point. I need Jesus or Buddha or Something.

Step Three:

“Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”

For Dummies:
Threw my hands in the air and decided okay, I’m done. God take this drunk and messy body do with it whatever the heck you want. I don’t care, just make all my decisions for me, okay?

Step Four:

“Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”

For Dummies:
Sat down, grabbed a pen or pencil, and made a list of all the stupid stuff I did, all the mean stuff I said. Just basically took a good look at all the crap I’d done and laid it all out in front of me. I’m feeling pretty crappy right now.

Step Five:

“Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”

For Dummies:
FREEEEEEDOOOOOOM! So get this, I told another person all the stuff I did and now I feel grrrrrreat! I mean, I’m still a huge jerk and all, but man does it feel good to get that all out in the open. Booya!

Step Six:

“Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.”

For Dummies:
I’m a thief, a liar, a cheater, a liar, overly dramatic, entitled, and about twenty other things. God, I’m ready for you to take them all. Oh, and you can keep ‘em btw.

Step Seven:

“Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.”

For Dummies:
Told everyone how I talked to God and he took my character defects! Just kidding. In a non-flashy and quiet sort of way I talked to God and asked him take those defects. Oh, and I told him I don’t want ‘em back.

Step Eight:

“Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.”

For Dummies:
Jotted down probably the longest list ever of all the people I did horrible stuff to. Yeah, I was a pretty awful person.

Step Nine:

“Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.”

For Dummies:
Sat down and looked each person who I was awful to in the eye and said, “Man, it was soooooo bad when I did that to you! Tell me what it is that I can do to make this whole thing okay.”

Step Ten:

“Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.”

For Dummies:
Just about everyday I sit down and write down all the ways I was a jerk. Then, I go and fix it…again!

Step Eleven:

“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.”

For Dummies:
Dear God, oh God, My God, I pray to thee, show me how to help other people oh God. Or somethin’ like that (Tim McGraw what’s up!).

Step Twelve:

“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.”

For Dummies:
Repeat steps one to eleven with another messed up person and pretend you know what you’re doing.