Welcome to the Alcoholics Anonymous Christian Workbook and Bible, a resource thoughtfully designed to guide you through meetings, it is a journey of reflection, faith, and spiritual growth. This workbook combines Biblical principles with the transformative steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, offering you a meaningful way to strengthen your faith while working toward recovery. Each meeting is carefully structured to encourage prayer, self-reflection, and journaling, allowing you to connect deeply with God and examine your personal walk with Him.

Over these meetings, you will find prompts and exercises that encourage you to write and reflect. While it may seem like a lot of writing, this process is essential for growth and healing. Writing allows you to process your thoughts, acknowledge your struggles, and celebrate your victories. Think of this workbook as a personal conversation between you and God—a space where honesty and vulnerability lead to restoration and hope.

We’re here to support your journey, and this workbook is a step toward reclaiming both your life and your faith. Let this be an opportunity to grow spiritually, deepen your understanding of God’s Word, and take meaningful strides on your path to recovery. Remember, you are not alone in this journey—God is walking alongside you every step of the way. Let’s get started and see what He has in store for you!

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.
   2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
   3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
   4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
   5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
   6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
2. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
   8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
   9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
   10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
   11. 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.
   12. 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.

REACHED STEP 2

PROFILE: 

Ally was always overweight as a child and teenager.  Her weight was a very sore subject in her family, but food was her main comfort for anxiety and depression.  She never felt as though she fit in with others, and her friends seemed to be untrustworthy and two-faced.  Food became her comfort, companion, excitement, and recreation.

Over the years, her weight continued to climb until she was hopeless about the possibility of having a slim body.  She would have fleeting periods of weight loss, but was never able to make a lasting difference.  Years of self-hatred and feeling marginalized by life made her disbelieve that God could or would help her with her food and eating problems.  She struggled for self-esteem and tried many self-help strategies for learning to like herself despite the extra pounds.

When she walked into Overeaters Anonymous, a Twelve Step group for compulsive eaters, she knew that she was powerless over food.  Step One was obvious to her.  But Step Two, coming to believe that a greater Power could restore her to sanity, was a huge roadblock.  The challenge of Step Two was to gain enough faith to believe that God could accomplish what she could never do.  As with all of us, Ally’s faith had to grow as she opened her mind to the possibility that God could actually help her with her specific problem.

By talking to a sponsor and other people in the program, she learned to simply believe that God’s power was there and that he was really interested in her food issues.  She began with hesitant faith to ask God to remove the insanity-the obsessive thoughts about food, the time spent bingeing, the negative thoughts about self, and the damaging effects on her body.  Over time, her trust and belief in God grew as she learned to let go of food one day at a time, follow a food plan, and trust God to help her act sanely around food.  The surrender of her dependency, as we all must learn, came by taking opposite action around food even when she didn’t feel like it.  By surrendering daily, Ally felt closer to God without the “food fog.”  She regained wholeness and sanity around food.

Step Two-

We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

As we have faced our powerlessness to stop the deadly progression of addiction in Step One, we have admitted our complete defeat.  Because there is no hope available within ourselves (our sinful, human condition), Step Two describes the process by which we look outside ourselves to develop hope that there is a Power that can stop the addictive process.

This step begins with recognizing that addiction is a season of insanity.  What usually begins innocently as seeking pleasure, relief, or comfort becomes, over time, a coping mechanism for avoiding reality and responsibility.  The pain of dealing with the upsets, hardships, and disappointments of life can wear down our faith and confidence in God.  Substances and addictive behaviors can be a way of managing our stress and our sense of being out of control.  As time goes on, unfortunately, this coping mechanism turns against us.  Instead of relief and comfort, we find more difficulties and troubles.  We multiply our problems instead of solving them.

When we face the fact that we have been, in a sense, insane to think that we could make life work by acting out in our addiction, we see that our belief in God and in his Son, Jesus, has been nullified.  Our faith has been overthrown by our addictive thoughts and behaviors, and we are headed toward spiritual disaster.  Surrendering the reins of our life is not easy.  We have to face our arrogant thinking and realize that although we believe in God, we have not allowed him into our lives in a real and practical way.  We have not fully understood how desperate we are for his restoration and healing.  When we can honestly accept that we are not God, and that he must have more room in our lives than we have previously allowed, we will come closer to releasing our arrogance.  We have been trying to bend life to our will and have not considered God’s will at all.

In the meditations on this step, we look at scriptures that describe what happens when we try to live in our own power.  First, we begin to think that God is unfair; we begin to question him and wonder if he is really with us, as Job did.  Our “insanity” in this case is in having the arrogance to think that we could actually see the whole picture as God does, and know what is fair or unfair.  Coming to believe for Job meant accepting that he was a finite human, and that God is omniscient.

We may become grandiose like Nebuchadnezzar and think that we have the right to declare how life should revolve around us, our needs, and our wishes.  This king looked at his successes and began to claim the credit for himself.  He lost the humility of remembering that God rules and gives power and success “to anyone he chooses” (Daniel 4:32).  His grandiosity of thought and attitude was revealed by the dream that he had Daniel interpret.  Daniel pleaded with him to turn from his sin of grandiose thinking, but his ego was hooked by the pride of accomplishment: “By my own might power, I have built this beautiful city as my royal residence to display my majestic splendor” (Daniel 4:30).

God did not allow Nebuchadnezzar to continue in that way; he was humbled by God with a season of insanity and grazed aimlessly with the cattle in the fields until he acknowledged God’s power and sovereignty.  This king’s grandiose thinking is similar to the grandiosity of addiction-we try to make life work by medicating, avoiding, or filling ourselves with more and more sex, food, relationships, or substances.  What eventually happens is similar to what happened to Nebuchadnezzar: we end up wandering aimlessly, humiliated, and not accomplishing much.  His season of insanity was like our season of addiction.

After his pointless drifting, this king came to his senses by looking up to heaven and realizing that life did not revolve around him, but around God.  In the same way, to be relieved of addition, we realize that our way of dealing with life ahs not worked.  Our years of medicating our emotions with substances or compulsive behaviors have not brought the sense of comfort we were seeking.  As we face the insanity of choosing to cope with life in these ways, we look up to heaven to find the all-powerful God.

Addiction is also a type of insanity in the way that it affects our internal world.  Jesus came upon a man who was called Legion because he had so many demons living in him.  Addiction is like that-we become consumed with demons of envy, jealously, fear, and hate that drive us away from relationships and toward the tombs of isolation, bitterness, and hopelessness.  We need Jesus to restore us to our right minds, put us back on our feet, and heal our hearts, as he did for this man.

If our addiction goes on for years, we can become outcasts from society, like the woman in the Gospels with the issue of blood.  We are cut off from relationships and are unable to find acceptance from people.  Isolation and loneliness are terribly painful, and they are not what God intended for us.  It is essential for us to restore our relationships and connections with people if we er to emerge from our addictions and make a successful recovery.  Our insanity must be healed by our reaching out for God as this woman did.  She hesitantly and feely sought Jesus in the crowd, thinking, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.”  Reaching out to others is a tangible sign that we are reaching out for God’s healing in our lives.

Once we can face and accept that we have been insane in these ways, we are closer to recognizing how desperately we need God’s touch to restore us.  Coming to believe in Step Two is a process of becoming aware of a greater reality that anything we can see with our eyes.  God is willing at any moment to help us overcome our addictive behaviors and unmanageable emotions.  By engaging n this process, we allow God to restore us to right thinking and to clear faith in his power.  Then we can be free from the isolation, the grandiosity, and the tortured thoughts and feelings that accompany addiction.

Week8

Recovery Principle

PERFECTIONISM

Read 1 Kings 19:1-21

People who are perfectionists tend to see the world in black and white.  We often feel like we’re superhuman, able to take on anything-until we discover a flaw.  Then we come crashing down and consider ourselves completely worthless.  This ‘all or nothing’ way of thinking can be very dangerous to the recovery process.

The prophet Elijah is one of the great heroes of the Bible.  If anyone had reason to feel superhuman, it was he.  His prayers brought a lengthy drought upon Israel-and later brought fire down from heaven, humiliating Queen Jezebel and her priests of Baal.  But even Elijah could have a bad day.  Let’s consider his reaction after being threatened by Jezebel.  “’I have had enough, LORD,’ he said. “Take my life…I have zealously served the Lord God Almighty.  But the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you, torn down your altars, and killed every one of your prophets.  I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too’” (1 Kings 19:4, 10).  Then God told him that there were “7,000 others in Israel who have never bowed down to Baal or kissed him!” (19:18).

Like Elijah, if we’re perfectionists, we may thing that we are above everyone else.  We work very hard to please God and other people, but we can grow dangerously discouraged if things don’t seem to work.  This tendency is something for us to watch for while working on Step Four.  If we don’t allow ourselves to be less than perfect, we may find that we are at great risk when life reminds us that we are only human after all. 

Recovery Principle

FAITH

Read Job 19:8-27

When we experience pain and loss because of something that is beyond our control, we may feel like God is our enemy.  The anger and confusion we may feel don’t need to destroy our faith.  We may never grasp why God allows such trails, but at such times we need to wholly trust in God, who is sovereign and will not allow us to suffer more than we can bear.

Job felt this way, too.  He said, “God has blocked my way so I cannot move.  He has plunged my path into darkness.  He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head.  He has demolished me on every side, and I am finished.  He has uprooted my hope like a fallen tree.  His fury burns against me; he counts me as an enemy.  His troops advance.  They build up roads to attack me.  They camp all around my tent….My close friends detest me.  Those I loved have turned against me.  I have been reduced to skin and bones and have escaped death by the skin of my teeth….Oh, that my words could be recorded.  Oh, that they could be inscribed on a monument, carved with an iron chisel and filled with lead, engraved forever in the rock” (Job 19:8-24).

Despite Job’s confusion and pain, he was able to conclude his complaint with a statement of his faith in God: “But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last.  And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God!  I will see him for myself.  Yes, I will see him with my own eyes.  I am overwhelmed at the thought!” (Job 19:25-27).  God is on our side, even if we cant see it right now. 

Week 10

Recovery principal

Self perception

Read psalms 8: 1-9

We develop our sense of self perception by noticing how the important people in our lives, see us. If we grew up in dysfunctional family, they're skewed view of us, probably warped our ability to see ourselves as we truly are in God's eyes. Understanding how God sees us in the value he has placed on us can help us overcome the negative self perception that many of us have developed.

King David was amazed as he thought about how much God valued him. He said, what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human being that you should care for them? Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor. You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority. How precious are your thoughts about me, oh God. They cannot be numbered. I can't even count them: they outnumbered the grains of the sand. And when I wake up, you were still with me. Goddamn demonstrates how precious we are in his sight by sending Jesus to give his son for us. 

God wants us to realize how precious we are to him, and to see ourselves in the light of his love. Consider this: if God considered us worthy of giving up the most precious thing he had, his only son, what does that say about how valuable we are to him?

Week 11

Recovery principal:

Honesty

Read Psalm 32: 1-11

Elias miserable. We may know from personal experience, the heavy burden of trying to hide a secret life. If we are avoiding God and withdrawing from people because we fear being found out, we are living in needless agony.

Moses understood the price one must pay for trying to live a lie. He prayed, we wither beneath your anger: we are overwhelmed by your fury. You spread out your sins before you: our secret sins: and you see them all. We live our lives beneath your wrath, ending our years with a grown. Psalm 90:7 through nine. David showed us the other side. Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, who is put out of sight. Yes, what joy for those who record the Lord has cleared of guilt, whose lives are lived in complete honesty. When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I grown all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat. Finally, I confess all my sins to you, and stop trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, I will confess my rebellion to the Lord. And you forgive me. All my guilt is gone. Therefore, let all the godly pray to you while there is still time, that they may not drone in the flood waters of judgment. Psalm 32: one through six.

Why should we live with the weight of dishonesty when relief is available to us? God already knows her secret sins anyways. Why continue to suffer needless agony when we can be set free?

Week 12

Recovery principal

Hope

Read Psalm 42: 1-11

During bad times we may get lost in our memories of the good old days. We may struggle with conflicting emotions, teetering between the extremes of depression and hope.

The song is reflected these emotions when he said to himself, my heart is breaking as I remember How it used to be: I walked among the crowds of worshipers, leading a great procession to the house of God, singing for joy and giving made the sound of a great celebration. Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God.... I will remember you... I hear the tumult Of the raging seas as your waves and surging tide sweep over me. But each day, the Lord pours, his unfailing love upon me, and through each night, I sing his songs, praying to God who gives me... Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God. I will praise him again: my savior and my God. Psalm 42:4 through eight, 11.

Look how the smallest improved his conscious contact with God. He talked to himself,, commanding his emotions to hope and God. He repeated I will praise him again, even though he didn't feel like it at the time. In the dark times, he sang songs, thought about God's steadfast, love, and prayed. We do these things, too. 

Week 13

Recovery principal

Forgiveness

Read psalms 103:1-22

We may have a hard time believing in God's forgiveness. We may think, after all I've done, I don't think anyone can completely forgive me. Maybe we feel that we have done such horrible things or hurt people so badly that there's no way our sins could ever be blocked out entirely. Even if we could be forgiven, who could ever forget the things we have done? 

When we think of people, we know: the people we have hurt: perhaps these beers are well founded but when it comes to forgiveness from God, we need to remember that his ways are higher than ours. Thesis wrote, God does not punish us for all our sins: he does not deal, harshly with us, as we deserve. For his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the Earth. He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. Psalm 103:10 through 12. God has said, come now, let's settle this. ...Though your sins are like Scarlet, I make them as wide as snow. Though they are red light crimson, I will make them as wide as well. Isaiah one:18.  I: yes: I alone: or blood out your sins for my sake and will never think of them again. 43:25.

Part of the recovery process is accepting complete forgiveness from God. When we come to God through the blood of Jesus Christ, his forgiveness is complete. We may keep track of our failures, adding everyone to the long list we have written out against ourselves. But God doesn't keep lists of our past sins: in his eyes, we are clean.

Week 14 

self protection

Read proverbs 15:16 through 33

In recovery, we learn new ways of seeing things, new ways of responding, a new guidelines for making decision decisions. Our old patterns of thinking and didn't work very well. Now that we are establishing new patterns, we will need wise counselors. They will listen as we share our struggles with them, and they will supply the support and wisdom we need.

King Solomon gave this advice: plans go wrong for lack of advice: many advisors bring success. Proverbs 15:22. There is safety and having many advisors. Proverbs 11:14. King David look to God's word for a council, saying, your laws please me: they give me wise advice. Psalms 119:24. Isaiah prophesied about Jesus the Messiah, Same, for a child is born to us a son is giving to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, Prince of peace. Isaiah 9:6. God is our ultimate source of wise counsel. when we surround ourselves with dependable and wise counselors, we are developing a safety net. Good counsel can come from the Bible and from godly people. When we admit our wrongs to other people, they can become a source of counsel for us. They may be professionals who understand addiction, and recovery. They may be people who know us and measure their advice by godly principles. Or perhaps they are people who have experienced what we are now going through. Find someone. But above all, trust in God is your ultimate source of wise counsel.