Recovery Literature

The 13 Steps

These are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery. Nobody is making you do anything. We have found, however, that those who do not work the steps continue boofing. Draw your own conclusions.

1. I

   We admitted we were powerless over the boofing — that our boof had become unmanageable.

   This is the only step that requires you to admit anything specific. The rest get vaguer. This one is on purpose.

2. II

   Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

   The power does not have to be God. It can be the group. It can be the process. It can be a dog that has never boofed and never will. It just has to be bigger than you, which, given recent events, is not a high bar.

3. III

   Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of that power, as we understood it.

   A decision is not a transformation. A decision is just a door. You still have to walk through it, probably more than once, probably on a day when you really don't want to.

4. IV

   Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

   Searching. Fearless. Both words are load-bearing. Yes, it includes the time at the rest stop. Yes, it includes the time that doesn't count. It counts.

5. V

   Admitted to our higher power, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

   The other human being does not have to be Gary. In fact, we actively recommend it not be Gary. Gary has enough.

6. VI

   Were entirely ready to have all these defects of character removed.

   This is the step that sounds easy and is not. "Entirely ready" is doing a lot of work here. Some of us have been on Step Six for years. We are told this is fine. We are not entirely sure it is fine.

7. VII

   Humbly asked for these shortcomings to be removed.

   Humbly. That's the whole step, really. We asked, and we asked without making it about us, which for Boofers is a genuine spiritual achievement and should probably have its own chip.

8. VIII

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

   Gary is on the list. We know. We put him there. The willingness comes first. The action is Step Nine. You have a little time. Not a lot of time. A little.

9. IX

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

   Direct. Not a text. Not a letter you wrote and didn't send. Not telling someone else to tell them you're sorry. Direct. The exception about injury is real and important. If the amend would cause more harm than the original boof, do something quietly good instead and move on.

10. X

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

    This is the maintenance step. It never ends. This is also the step that makes us, frankly, a little insufferable at dinner parties — but in a new way, and a better one, and we are learning to keep most of it to ourselves.

11. XI

    Sought through prayer or meditation to improve our conscious contact with our higher power, praying only for knowledge of its will for us and the power to carry that out.

    Prayer is optional. Meditation works. So do long walks, staring at ceilings, sitting quietly in parking lots without doing anything. The point is contact. The point is quiet. The point is: ask, and then actually listen for once.

12. XII

    Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other Boofers, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

    Some of us are still waiting on the awakening. We are told this is fine. What matters is the trying. What matters is that you know this road exists, and that you reached back for whoever was still lost on it. Even Gary. Especially Gary.