The Twelve Steps of OCD

From The Twelve Steps of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder | myOCD.net,

One of the major forms of treatment used in the famous Alcoholics Anonymous is the use of the “Twelve Steps”.  Recently, I had the thought of adapting it for obsessive-compulsive disorder, but as it turns out, I wasn’t the first to have the thought!  This is the list I found at Recovery-World.com, though you could easily find it elsewhere, as well.

    

1. We admitted we were powerless over compulsive/addictive behaviors — 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.
7. 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 others still suffering from the effects of compulsive behaviors and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Although religion is one of the basic principles of the Twelve Step Method, having a religious affiliation is not a requirement by any means.  If you are not a believer, you can easily switch out “God” for anything, including maybe family and/or friends. As the saying goes, “There is more than one way to skin a cat”.

Would you like to make any changes to this list?  Do you have any other programs that could be useful for “curing” OCD?  Let us know in the comments!

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