| Recovering Couples Anonymous | |
| Official World Service Organization Website |
Both of us are responsible for the presence or absence of intimacy between us. As soon as each of us accepts mutual responsibility, we are ready for the First Step of RCA. Step One involves taking 200% responsibility for the health or disease of the relationship. Each person carries 100%.
Occasionally a couple may not have been far enough along in their individual recoveries to be able to answer the following questions, or they may have gotten into a fight or into dysfunction simply by having issues raised. If this were the case, we encouraged step work be done only in the presence of a sponsoring couple.
We also recognized that some couples came to our meetings having met after both partners had been in individual recovery for various periods of time. They may not have had a long history of coupleship dysfunction or other dysfunction. In those cases, Step One involved understanding old dysfunctional patterns with other partners. It also involved understanding family-of-origin issues, personality traits and other individual issues that might have affected the relationship.
Writing is very important. It is suggested that the couple take one pencil and one piece of paper and begin the process together. RCA is about the "we"-ness and "us"-ness of our relationship. In Recovering Couples Anonymous, we open ourselves up to a new way of thinking and living in coupleship.
Now that you have that piece of paper, make a couple decision. Who will hold the pencil and do the writing? Are you able to share, negotiate or compromise? Is there a power struggle? Are you ready to take the First Step? Now read aloud the "Safety Guidelines."
Divide the paper in half with a line down the middle. Make a list. You are now ready to answer the following questions:
Having surrendered thus far, we were ready to take Step Two.
THE TWELVE STEPS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
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. 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 alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. (Used with permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.)