About the Twelve Step For Everyone Class.

The Twelve Step for Everyone Class will take about 6 weeks and includes an instructor or leader (who has experience with a 12 step program), selected sponsors and an audience with a good student / sponsor ratio of about 2-3 / 1.  The smaller the ratio the more individualized attention the students receive.  

During the first session, all students are required to purchase the "Twelve Steps to Change Your World", a non-fiction book which includes all the reading and the class outline.  They will also receive a copy of the 'Big Book' that illustrates the workings of the 12 steps.  it works best if you direct the students to read all the chapters involved with each of the Steps on there own prior to coming to the subsequent weeks.

After the initial six weeks, you might want to begin a 'Big Book' study group to support folks who are continuing tom work the steps.

Week One - Accepting Powerlessness.  Power-less.  Lacking Power.  It' a strange idea to think of being without power . The good thing about making such an admission is that its a wonderful jumping off point.  It's a perfect place to rearrange your life so that the emotional attachments or the unhappiness or the lack of fulfillment begin the process of getting filled again. 

Week Two - Steps 2, 3 and 4: Believing in Higher Power help, Beginning the Work to Get Here.   This week, we'll complete the Surrender process we started last week and we'll learn how to eliminate those parts of our character that have kept us from establishing an intimate, two way communication with the God of our understanding.  Keep in mind that taking a lifelong moral inventory is something very real and very spiritual. 

Week Three - Open-Discussion Meeting on Steps 4 and 5.  This week is a review of the 4th and 5th step progress being made, with real, everyday examples of how this process has worked in the lives of others.  The sponsors also have a role to play here in talking about their spiritual experiences and how they have improved the quality of their lives by working the steps.  It's also a place where the students can share why they are here and what they expect to gain from the class.  Of course, you may not have had a hand-in-hand with the Spirit of the Universe kind of feeling after completing the inventory, but it happens sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly but you have started the process of gaining a better, closer relationship with God.

Week Four - Steps 5 - 9: Identifying the Blocks to God, Praying for Their Removal, Making Amends to Those Harmed.  The 4th and 5th step inventory should be completed.  This session of the class enhances our own spirituality because passing it on is an aspect of just about any real spiritual program.   Well, in that inventory, we identified the character defects that had been blocking us and it is now time to try to get them removed.  It's time to have God remove our baggage and that includes making amends to those we had harmed.  This session also includes "How To Listen To God"

Week Five - Steps 10 - 12: Maintenance and Growth Towards our Destiny, Sharing This Gift With Others.  To go through the the remainder of this process and to actively practice Quiet Time and Guidance, and then to pass this gift on to another, is really an attempt to improve not only ourselves but also the world.   By experiencing  the 12 Steps, we experience the spiritual awakening that leads us to "a new freedom and a new happiness".  Let's see who's ready to be rocketed into that "fourth dimension of existence" the Big Book authors talk about.

Week Six - Open Discussion Meeting. Now is the time to hear more from the students.  Some of the things you might want to say about might be if you've had any progress with amends or with practicing quiet time and guidance.  If there are any addicted people in your life how might you cope  One very important piece of business in this session is whether or not you think you can bring a newcomer and if you feel ready to sponsor some through the steps.  This reinforces Step 12.