Laying the Groundwork

Opening Prayer
Preamble and Welcome
The 12 Steps

Opening Prayer

“God grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

and wisdom to know the difference.”

Preamble & Welcome

Abridged from Al-Anon & CoDA Meeting Material

Welcome to Power Hour. We gather together to support and share with each other in a journey of self-discovery: learning to love the self. Living the program allows each of us to become increasingly honest with ourselves about our personal histories and our own behaviors.

Power Hour is based on the Twelve Steps which we try, little by little, one day at a time, to apply to our lives along with our slogans and Serenity Prayer. These are the principles to developing honest and fulfilling relationships with ourselves and others. Here, we each learn to build a bridge to God, and we allow others the same privilege.

We have all learned to survive life, but now we are learning to live life. Each of us is growing at our own pace and will continue to do so as we remain open to God’s will for us on a daily basis. Our sharing is our way of identification and helps us to free the emotional bonds of our past and the compulsive control of our present.

Anonymity is an important principle of Power Hour. Everything that is said here, in the group meeting and member-to-member, must be held in confidence. Only in this way can we feel free to say what is in our minds and hearts, for this is how we help one another.

This renewal process is a gift of healing for us. By actively working the steps, we can each realize a new joy, acceptance, and serenity in our lives. May you find here a new strength within to be that which God intended – Precious and Free.

The Twelve Steps

Steps 1 – 3: Peace with God

We admitted we were powerless over [person, behavior, substance] – that our lives had become unmanageable.
Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God.

Steps 4 – 7: Peace with Ourselves

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrong.
Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.

Steps 8 – 12: Peace with Others

Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Continued to take personal inventory and, when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.