Most of the alcoholics begin the path of alcoholism with different motives, and one realizes that alcohol addiction relieves physical pains, painful feelings, and provides stimulation. For a while, addiction seems to be a good way to relieve stress, worry, loneliness, regret, fear, and boredom that comes along the way or so they think. However, life is full of these conditions as a result one becomes more and more addicted to alcohol. Rarely do individuals involved in addictive alcohol behaviors admit that they are addicted. Denial of the seriousness of the problem and avoiding detection and repercussions of choices make people hide or minimize their behaviors. However, they do not realize that deceiving themselves leads to slipping deeper into alcohol addictions. As a result, such individuals become more isolated from people and particularly God.
The 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous
Step 1: Admitting that one is powerless to overcome alcohol addictions and life has become unmanageable
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Alcohol addicts must be willing to admit that they are addicts and are powerlessness to manage this condition. They have to acknowledge that they have tried to work on the addictions on their own but have failed. Acknowledging that the addiction has become worse, and has caused damaged relationships and robbed of them of any sense of worth is paramount ( Greenfield & Tonigan, 2013) . The incredible thing about being honest and realizing defeat is the start of the recovery. In this stage, the alcoholics should be willing to abstain, let go of their pride and practice humility, admit the problem by seeking help and attending meetings.
Step 2: alcoholic’ should believe that there is a power greater than themselves who can restore them to sanity
When the alcoholics have realized their powerlessness over the addictions, it is important to seek God. Alcoholics should humble and reach out for help. People attend recovery meetings where they hear men and women describe their lives, changes and what they did to recover from the addiction. Hearing these kinds of stories enables alcoholics to loosen up and adjust to the new environment ( Adams, 2015) . In this step, the alcoholics should read, pray and contemplate on the scripture, have faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost and believe in God.
Step 3: the alcoholics should make a decision on turning their will and lives over to God‘s care
In this step, the alcoholics should make a decision of opening to God by surrendering their entire lives (the past, present and the future). Total submission to God is critical, and it is considered as a unique thing to put on Gods’ altar. It is quite hard but true because no matter what he has given us, they are loans and hence indebted him ( Kelly et.al, 2013) . The alcoholics’ should allow God to help them recover as well as redeem them. In this step, the alcoholics should attend sacramental meetings and also renew and review their baptismal covenants. They should also learn to trust and obey God.
Step 4: alcoholics should make a searching and courageous moral inventory of themselves
The alcoholics should search and write a fearless inventory of their lives by summarizing and examining their thoughts, emotions, events and actions of their lives. The fourth step is concerned about the truth by highlighting all the events of life even the weaknesses. The inventory serves as a step in assisting alcoholics to align in the will of God. The inventory is a list of memories of institutions people, organizations, principles, ideas, or events that trigger negative and positive feelings such as sadness, resentment, anger and bitterness.
Step 5: the alcoholics should admit to God themselves and other people about the real nature of the wrongs
In this step, the alcoholics confess their wrongdoings to demonstrate the willingness and commitment to focus on a new life that is based on living and telling the truth. Repentance comes when people truthfully admit their wrong doings. They have to seek for forgiveness, seek counsel from religious leaders such as the bishop, and be honest with oneself, other people and God. The alcoholics should then allow peace to come into their lives and hence this step promotes sincerity.
Step 6: alcoholics should be totally ready to allow God to remove all their character weaknesses
The alcoholics should be ready to have a change of heart that allows God to take charge of all their weaknesses. As one allows God to take over their lives, they become strong and steadily the negative feelings and thoughts are replaced with the word of God. By doing so, one becomes united with God in heart and the mind ( Kelly et.al, 2012) . Therefore the alcoholics should allow God to convert their hearts and participation in the God’s fellowship by attending relief society priesthood meeting. They should also be willing to change so that the power of God may erase their imperfections.
Step 7: the alcoholics should humbly ask God to erase all their shortcomings
Humility is important in this step and the alcoholics are required to be humble and ask God to remove all their weaknesses. The alcoholics should learn to have humility and patience for the will of God to prevail in their lives. They should allow God to take care of every aspect of their lives ( Werner, 2015) . The alcoholics should seek the power of God to become effective in their personal life through meditations and sacramental prayers. The alcoholics should also learn to pray humbly to God to ask him to prevail in their lives.
Step 8: The alcoholics are supposed to make a written lust if all people they have harmed and their willing to make amends to them
The alcoholics should make written lists identifying people whom they have harmed and would like to restitute them. Recovering addicts should seek god’s guidance as they look for things they might have neglected and people they have hurt. The alcoholics’ should learn to forgive themselves and make a list of people that they offended ( Werner, 2015). They should then pray for others and also reaching out to others. In this stage, the alcoholics are breaking the cycle of offense and bitterness.
Step 9: alcoholics should make direct restitutions to all people they have harmed wherever possible
The alcoholics should apologize to all the people they have harmed. Even though they may be faced with despair while facing other people, they should be courageous. While doing this, they should always seek God’s wisdom and guidance ( Werner, 2015) . They should abstain from judging other peoples and be willing to offer tithes and offerings and also demonstrating love to other people. The alcoholics should also be willing to take necessary actions to ensure they have amended their mistakes.
Step 10: continue taking personal inventories and when they offend people they should promptly admit
This step requires making amends as quick as possible when one is offended. One should always evaluate the whole day’s activities and whether any harm was done to a person. Human beings are to error and hence one can make mistakes knowingly or unknowingly and hence should always apologize and make amends ( Kelly & Greene, 2013) . Examining words, thoughts, and deed on a daily basis and immediately admitting the wrong.
Step 11: Prayer and meditation are essential to improve the alcoholic’s conscience and contact with God so as to understand him better
By knowing the scriptures of the Lord, it will enable them to resists the temptations. Praying and meditating is a powerful tool that will allow them to avoid from falling into temptations ( Werner, 2015) . Seeking God for direction and power through meditation and prayer will guide them to make appropriate decisions when faced with temptations.
Step 12: after going through the spiritual awakening due to these steps, the message is passed to other alcoholics to practice these principles in all their affairs .
The recovered addicts should share the spiritual journey of recovery to other addicts. These tools should be passed across to people having the same problems so as to assist them to rebuild their lives by dedicating their lives to Jesus Christ ( Kelly & Greene, 2013) . Sharing the testimonies and the spiritual journey to recovery will encourage other addicts to focus on establishing a relationship with God and seeking his guidance.
Treatment Models Applied to Addictive Behaviors.
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Cognitive-behavioral therapy was established to devise techniques of preventing relapse while treating alcoholics ( Davis et.al, 2015) . Cognitive behavioral techniques are grounded in the theory which emphasizes that maladaptive behavioral patterns such as alcohol addiction, learning procedures play a critical role. Therefore persons in CBT learn to determine and correct their problematic behaviors through the application of various skills that can be utilized to stop alcohol addiction and address other problems linked with it (Carroll et.al, 2008).
A primary aspect of CBT is anticipating potential problems and promoting the patient's self-control by assisting them to establish effective strategies for coping. Specific strategies include defining negative and positive repercussions of continued drinking of alcohol, self-assessment, acknowledging cravings, identifications of situations that might be risks and developing strategies to be used for coping with cravings ( Newman et.al, 2015) . Research indicates that techniques learned through the therapy remain even after the treatment completion.
The Bio-Psycho-Social Model
The social model emphasizes that alcohol problems arise from a lifetime socialization procedure in a certain cultural and social setting that directly or indirectly encourages drinking of alcohol. Practitioners believe that addiction is a multifaceted disease that is caused by a mixture of determinants such as moral, spiritual, psychological, biological, and environmental ( Black et.al, 2015) . Addiction is viewed to be as a result of external forces such as poverty, peer pressure, family dysfunction and availability of alcohol. Utilization of this model aims at improving the social functioning of the addictions by either changing their social environment or changing their coping reactions to environmental stresses. The methods of changing the environment comprise of couples, family, residential treatment and avoidance of environments that are stressful ( Hilton & Pilkonis, 2015) .
Psychological Perspectives to Understand Addictive Behaviors
Social Learning Theory
Operant and classical conditioning explain how people learn certain behaviors through direct learning. Nevertheless, human beings usually learn through observation, and this is what is referred as social learning. Social learning is a typical method how people learn and hence every useful for addicts in their recovery process ( Horvath et.al, 2016) . Social learning suggests that observation from social groups such as peers, families, friends and the community is critical. The social interactions are influential and hence people that we interact with while we grow up are played a role in how we develop. Therefore addicts might have observed their friends, parents or the community and adopted their behaviors such as alcoholism which later developed into addictions.
Cognitive Development Theory
Over time, the life experiences are the foundations for beliefs and expectation that we have about the world. These expectations and beliefs are influential to our behavior, and it often happens without our knowledge. These beliefs are very powerful to the extent that one distorts how we perceive other people and ourselves. One example of how powerful the effects are is “self-fulfilling prophecy” which suggests that what one expected to happen will happen as he/she had anticipated. The self-fulfilling prophecy can be used to maintain an individual addiction ( Horvath et.al, 2016) . Moreover, it is particularly true when the addicts believe that they will not recover and hence they won’t put any efforts to recover. Therefore when addicts experience strong cravings for alcohol they do not make any efforts to fight them.
Implications of Psychological Theories to Addictions Treatment
Social learning theory enables people to learn how certain behaviors are developed. Social learning theory explores the social interactions that people have while growing up and their impacts. The environment that an individual grows in is critical as one adopts some of the behaviors from close friends, families and the whole community in general. Observation is a key aspect of social learning theory as it demonstrates how people learn certain traits. Practitioners use the same reasoning behind this theory to treat addictions ( Dombeck, 2016) .
Changing of the environment is one of the major steps enabling the addicts to have new experiences where they could adopt good behaviors. Cognitive development theory is based on the beliefs and expectations that shape how people behave. The theory is useful as it explains why some addicts seem to believe that they cannot recover at all, and hence they make no efforts of trying to fight addictions.
Conclusion
12 steps of Alcohol Anonymous emphasize that addicts should allow God to take control of their lives and his healing power will surely prevail over the alcoholics’ lives. Recovery meetings help alcoholics to have hope because most of the recovering addicts were on the brink of destruction and hence they feel hopeful. In this atmosphere filled with hope, faith and testimonies alcoholics slowly find hope and begin to awaken and realize the power and mercy of God. The courage of admitting that addiction is not only a problem but also a bad habit is necessary. Alcohol addicts should finally admit that their lives have become unmanageable. Alcoholics should attend the spiritual programs of recovery and put into practice what they learn. Alcoholics should write these events, be honest, seek support from other people, pray and seek God’s guidance and free themselves from the past. Therefore they should stick to remain sober and clean regardless of other people opinions for instance friends.
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