M13 Twelve-Step Treatment: Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards covering core concepts, steps, slogans, tools, and therapeutic elements of the M13 Twelve-Step Treatment program.

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)

A worldwide fellowship that helps alcoholics achieve and maintain sobriety through mutual aid and the Twelve Steps.

Twelve Steps

A sequence of spiritual-pragmatic principles AA members practice to achieve and maintain recovery.

Twelve Traditions

Guidelines that safeguard AA’s unity, autonomy, and primary purpose of helping alcoholics.

Recovery

The ongoing process of achieving and sustaining sobriety while healing body, mind, spirit, and relationships.

Abstinence

Complete, continuous avoidance of alcohol (and other mood-altering drugs) viewed by AA as the only workable remedy for alcoholism.

Progressive Illness

The idea that untreated alcoholism inevitably worsens, leading to insanity or death.

Loss of Control

An alcoholic’s inability to limit drinking once started, considered the core symptom of the disease.

Denial

Psychological resistance to accepting alcoholism, often expressed as minimising, rationalising, or blaming.

Powerlessness

Step-1 recognition that personal willpower cannot control drinking.

Unmanageability

The chaos and negative consequences that result from uncontrolled drinking.

Higher Power

Any self-defined source of strength greater than the individual, central to Steps 2 and 3.

Sponsor

An experienced AA member who guides a newcomer through the program and Steps.

Sponsorship

The relationship in which practical, experiential guidance is exchanged to support sobriety.

Fellowship

The network of egalitarian, mutually supportive relationships within AA.

Service

Voluntary acts that help AA or other alcoholics; one leg of AA’s recovery triangle (Recovery-Unity-Service).

Open Meeting

AA meeting anyone may attend, including non-alcoholics.

Closed Meeting

AA meeting reserved for those who identify as alcoholics.

Step Meeting

A gathering focused on reading or discussing one of the Twelve Steps.

Speaker Meeting

A meeting in which one or more members share their personal recovery stories at length.

Discussion Meeting

A meeting where attendees share on a topic, Step, or reading in turn.

Home Group

The AA group a member attends most regularly and where they have service responsibilities.

Cognitive Restructuring

Therapeutic technique that identifies and replaces irrational or self-defeating thoughts—parallels many AA practices.

HALT

Acronym warning that being Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired increases risk of relapse.

People, Places, and Things

AA shorthand for external triggers—associates, environments, or objects—linked to drinking.

Enabling

Well-intended behaviours by others that protect or excuse the alcoholic and allow drinking to continue.

Genogram

A multigenerational family map used to reveal patterns of addiction and related issues.

Moral Inventory (Step 4)

A searching and fearless written list of personal defects, harms, and assets.

Admission of Wrongs (Step 5)

Confessing the Step-4 inventory to oneself, a Higher Power, and another person.

Readiness (Step 6)

Becoming entirely willing to let go of character defects.

Humility (Step 7)

Asking a Higher Power to remove shortcomings.

Amends List (Step 8)

Identifying people harmed and becoming willing to set things right.

Making Amends (Step 9)

Repairing relationships and wrongs unless doing so would cause further harm.

Daily Inventory (Step 10)

Ongoing self-examination and prompt correction of mistakes.

Prayer & Meditation (Step 11)

Practices aimed at improving conscious contact with a Higher Power.

Carrying the Message (Step 12)

Helping other alcoholics and applying AA principles in all life areas.

Helper Therapy Principle

The finding that assisting others boosts the helper’s own sobriety and well-being.

One Day at a Time

AA slogan reminding members to focus on staying sober for just today.

Easy Does It

Slogan advising balance and avoidance of unnecessary stress or haste.

First Things First

Reminder that sobriety must take priority over all other concerns.

Fake It Till You Make It

Encouragement to practise AA suggestions even before fully believing in them.

Turn It Over

Letting go of control and trusting a Higher Power with outcomes.

Jellinek Curve

Chart depicting predictable stages of alcoholic decline and recovery.

Trigger

Any stimulus that evokes craving or thoughts of drinking.

Slip / Relapse

A return to drinking after a period of abstinence; AA stresses what one does next, not shame.

Telephone Therapy

AA practice of calling peers or a sponsor when urges or crises arise.

Treatment Goals: Acceptance

Helping patients acknowledge alcoholism, loss of control, and need for abstinence.

Treatment Goals: Surrender

Fostering belief that a Higher Power and AA fellowship offer hope for recovery.

Spiritual Awakening

Inner change in perception and attitude that results from practicing the Steps.

Character Defects

Self-centred traits (e.g., pride, resentment) targeted for change in Steps 4-7.

Sober Living

Designing a new lifestyle—nutrition, exercise, hobbies, relationships—that supports long-term sobriety.

Trigger Management Plan

Written strategy for avoiding or coping with slippery people, places, things, and routines.