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    A Woman's Way through the Twelve Steps Workbook
    A Woman's Way through the Twelve Steps Workbook
    A Woman's Way through the Twelve Steps Workbook
    Ebook96 pages1 hour

    A Woman's Way through the Twelve Steps Workbook

    By Stephanie S Covington

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    About this ebook

    Designed to be used with the book A Woman's Way through the Twelve Steps, this workbook helps deepen the understanding of the lessons taught and brings them to life with exercises and journaling activities.

    Women's recovery can differ from men's, and each person's recovery is in many ways unique. That's why Stephanie Covington has designed this workbook to help a woman find her own path--and find it in terms especially suited to the way women experience not just addiction and recovery but also relationships, self, sexuality, and everyday life. Deepening and extending the lessons of a book that has helped countless women, this workbook makes A Woman's Way Through the Twelve Steps that much more measured, meaningful, and clear.

    Unlike many "rewritten" Twelve Step interpretations for women, this guide works with the original Step language, preserving its spirit and focusing attention on its healing message. In sections devoted to each of the Twelve Steps, Covington blends narrative, self-assessment questions focused on a feminine definition of terms such as "powerlessness" and "letting go," guided imagery exercises, and physical activities.

    A clinician and past consultant at the Betty Ford Center, Stephanie S. Covington, Ph.D., L.C.S.W., is the author of A Woman's Way Through the Twelve Steps, Leaving the Enchanted Forest: The Path from Relationship Addiction to Intimacy, and Awakening Your Sexuality: A Guide for Recovering Women.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHazelden Publishing
    Release dateJun 3, 2009
    ISBN9781592857685
    A Woman's Way through the Twelve Steps Workbook
    Author

    Stephanie S Covington

    Stephanie Covington, Ph.D., is a psychotherapist, an internationally known speaker specializing in dependency, and the author of many articles on women and addiction. She lives in La Jolla, California. Liana Beckett, who has an M.S. in marriage, family, and child counseling, works with individuals, couples, and groups with dysfunctional or addictive family backgrounds. She lives in San Diego, California.

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      Book preview

      A Woman's Way through the Twelve Steps Workbook - Stephanie S Covington

      A Woman’s Way through the Twelve Steps Workbook

      flower vine

      Stephanie S. Covington, Ph.D.

      HWord_vector®.eps

      Hazelden Publishing

      Center City, Minnesota 55012-0176

      800-328-9000

      hazelden.org/bookstore

      ©2000 by Stephanie S. Covington, Ph.D.

      All rights reserved. Published 2000

      Printed in the United States of America

      No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any manner

      without the written permission of the publisher

      ISBN: 1-56838-522-6

      Editor’s Note

      The Twelve Steps are reprinted with permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (AAWS). Permission to reprint the Twelve Steps does not mean that AAWS has reviewed or approved the contents of this publication, or that AAWS necessarily agrees with the views expressed herein. AA is a program of recovery from alcoholism only—use of the Twelve Steps in connection with programs and activities which are patterned after AA, but which address other problems, or in any other non-AA context, does not imply otherwise.

      Ebook ISBN: 978-1-59285-768-5

      04 03 02 01 00 6 5 4 3 2 1

      Cover design by David Spohn

      Interior design and typesetting by Spaulding & Kinne

      CONTENTS

      Introduction

      Step One

      Awareness

      Unmanageability

      Self-soothing—Introduction: Listen for a New Voice

      Gratitude

      Step Two

      Faith

      Sanity

      Self-soothing: Contemplating Nature

      Gratitude

      Step Three

      Control

      Surrender

      Decision Making

      Self-soothing: Breathing Meditation

      Gratitude

      Step Four

      Fearlessness

      Inventory

      Self-soothing: So What?

      Gratitude

      Step Five

      Admitting

      Naming

      Self-soothing: Celebrate

      Gratitude

      Step Six

      Readiness

      Personal Knowledge

      Self-soothing: Journaling

      Gratitude

      Step Seven

      Relinquishment

      Humility

      Self-soothing: Palms Down, Palms Up

      Gratitude

      Step Eight

      Discernment

      Willingness

      Self-soothing: Movement

      Gratitude

      Step Nine

      Amends

      Action

      Self-soothing: A Soothing Place

      Gratitude

      Step Ten

      Staying Present

      Discipline

      Self-soothing: Walking Meditation

      Gratitude

      Step Eleven

      Prayer

      Meditation

      Conscious Contact

      Self-soothing: Self-soothing Chart

      Gratitude

      Step Twelve

      Spiritual Awakening

      Practicing the Principles

      Carrying the Message

      Self-soothing: Serenity Prayer

      Gratitude

      About the Author

      Introduction

      flower vine

      Since 1935, when Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) was founded, more and more women have entered recovery programs based on the Twelve Steps of AA. Yet we are finding that women’s recovery may differ in some ways from men’s recovery. Even more, we are learning that each person’s recovery is unique, and there is no one right way to proceed in working the Steps. This workbook is designed to help you create your own path of recovery.

      Using the Steps as guides, you will explore what you think, feel, and believe. Then you will connect this inner life to your actions with other people in the world around you. This experience of connecting your feelings and beliefs (your inner life) with your actions (your outer life) is what I call wholeness or integrity. The Steps provide principles for living. These principles can help you develop integrity. The theme of the Steps is that your life can be congruent with your deepest values. The Steps will help you discover what your values are; then they will help you see how you may have acted contrary to your values in the past and how you can act in harmony with them in the future.

      You will come back to this theme of unifying your inner and outer lives throughout your journey. Progressing in recovery is like climbing a spiral staircase: you cycle up and away from a life that revolved around the object of your addiction (alcohol, other drugs, food, or whatever). Addiction is like a downward spiral into ever-tighter circles around the object of your addiction, but in recovery you spiral upward into ever-widening circles of self-knowledge, freedom, and connection to others. In addiction your inner and outer lives are constricted; in recovery your life expands. The diagram on the next page illustrates this.

      p2 fig.jpg

      From Helping Women Recover: A Woman’s Journal by Stephanie S. Covington (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999), 2. ©1999 by Stephanie S. Covington. Reprinted by permission of Jossey-Bass, Inc., a subsidiary of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

      We recover in connection with others, not in isolation. That is why the Twelve Steps speak of we rather than I. This workbook assumes that you are connected to others on the journey of recovery. Feel free to discuss your experiences of the exercises with others, especially your sponsor.

      This workbook is a companion to the book A Woman’s Way through the Twelve Steps. You will benefit from reading about each Step in the book before covering that Step in this workbook. Many recovering women were interviewed for A Woman’s Way, and you will see some of their words quoted throughout this workbook. They are cited not as experts, but rather as sister journeyers who are sharing their experience, strength, and hope. Occasionally, additional quotations from A Woman’s Way are used to help illustrate the points in this workbook.

      Each Step, or chapter, includes exercises to help you explore your inner and outer lives. Afterward, each Step suggests an exercise for self-soothing. In

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