Survivors of Incest Anonymous

1. I declared that I have total control over my secrets and what happened to me and that I can completely manage my life and still keep things hidden and safe.

(We admitted we were powerless over the abuse, the effects of the abuse, and that our lives had become unmanageable.) 

 

2. Came to know that I need no one and that my keeping my secrets and denial help me maintain my happiness and sanity.

(Came to believe that a loving higher power, greater than ourselves, could restore hope, healing and sanity.) 

 

3. Made a decision to harness the benefits (as I understand them) of any of what has happened within my incestual relationships.

(Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of a loving higher power, as we understood that to be.)

 

4 Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of all others.

(Made a searching and fearless inventory of ourselves, the abuse, and its effects on our lives. We had no more secrets.)

 

5. Admitted to no one, including myself, any of my wrongs, no matter how evident.

(Admitted to a loving higher power, to ourselves, and to another human being our strengths and weaknesses.) 

 

6. I became entirely ready to defend, excuse, and justify my actions, using personal attacks on others (if necessary), and to minimize any mistake I make.

(Were entirely ready to have a loving higher power help us remove all the debilitating consequences of the abuse and became willing to treat ourselves with respect, compassion and acceptance.) 

 

7. Boldly declare that I have no shortcomings (while secretly believing that anything bad I ever did could not be forgiven).

(Humbly and honestly asked a loving higher power to remove the unhealthy and self-defeating consequences stemming from the abuse.)

 

8. Made a list of all persons that had (or that I thought had) harmed me and searched for opportunities to collect on those debts.

(Made a list of all the people we may have harmed (of our own free will), including ourselves and our inner child(ren), and became willing to make amends to them all.) 

 

9. Collected whatever I felt that I was owed whenever possible, regardless of the fact that doing so may cause injury or harm to someone else.

(Made direct amends to such people where ever possible, except when to do so would result in physical, mental, emotional or spiritual harm to ourselves or others.) 

 

10. Continued to take an inventory of others’ wrongs against me and promptly collected on them when possible.

(Continued to take responsibility for our own recovery and when we found ourselves behaving in patterns still dictated by the abuse, promptly admitted it. When we succeed, we promptly enjoy it.) 

 

11. Sought through experimentation, expert opinions, keeping my secrets, and family's advice, a means to make what happened harmless. I search only for more knowledge of how and what to do to keep conflict from happening, and the means to do so without consequences.

(Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with ourselves and a loving higher power as we understood that to be, asking only for knowledge of it's will for us and the power and courage to carry that out.) 

 

12. Having an escaped pain by hiding what has happened (even to myself), I tried to carry this message to other suffering people like me to lead them to practice these principles in all their affairs with me. 

(Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other survivors and practice these principles in all our endeavors.)