ABSTRACT
The original 12-Steps Programme was designed for people with an addiction to alcohol and forms the basis of the Alcoholics Anonymous method of treatment. This programme, way of seeing addiction or form of treatment has been shown to apply equally successful to many other forms of serious addiction, such as drug addiction or compulsive gambling. The remarkably successful "12-Step" programme has some lessons for people in a counselling situation. About 67% of all people who follow it properly get significant help from it. The persistent habits that people have been looking at can be seen as akin to old survival techniques or perceptions about life that they developed in their family of origin, have used fairly religiously ever since, and that are now increasingly inappropriate or dysfunctional. These persistent habits can include: low self-esteem; patterns of blame or lack of personal responsibility; persistent self-sabotage; work-a-holism; self-abuse or self-harm; inappropriate anger reactions; heavy drinking or smoking; financial mismanagement; and so on.
