Recovery Programs
12 Step Workbook
By M.V. "Pat" Peterson
The basic principles of many of the popular twelve step
programs are combined in this book into one easy text, covering problems
with:
About the Author
This book will benefit anyone suffering from these destructive
behaviors by using a series of open- ended questions
to work the twelve steps of recovery programs. M. V. “Pat” Peterson
is a licensed chemical dependency counselor. He found that, despite
all of the recovery programs around, the self-help books and
accessible therapists, the ordinary person has trouble finding
guides to work privately and successfully. He has established a
foundation to assist people through this process and this book will
help support that effort
The Process
Pat started a workbook of a few open-ended questions
relating to the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous so that prisoners
who were often afraid to open themselves up publicly (as is almost everyone
else) could work privately without an expensive therapist or a sponsor
hard to reach from confinement. Thus was this workbook born.
Peterson believed that to
receive the benefits of these steps, one must work them and not just
study them.
As the men began doing the
steps and receiving positive results from their actions, word got
out about the program. People began asking to become a part of the
group; before long, another group formed. As time passed and the
groups became an integral part of the substance abuse program,
another phenomenon occurred. Most Texas prisons are not
air-conditioned; as the summer temperature rose in East Texas, so
did the interest in the program. Because the classroom assigned to
Pat’s new recovery groups was air-conditioned, men began wanting in
the group to get a little cool. Many men joined the group for this
reason, but the rule was: they had to do the steps if they wished to
remain in the group. They soon began getting the results of doing
the steps. As the men began to get more comfortable with exposing
themselves to their peers, they started feeling better about
themselves, and with that, hope was born within them. Surprisingly,
when the weather cooled off, they stayed in the group.
This process on the Ellis Unit
lasted eight and a half years with as many as sixty men being in
these groups at any given time. Usually one step would be given per
meeting, by one inmate. The only requirement of the other members
was to honor the bravery of the member doing the step by giving him
their attention. Many times a member would work the first three
steps and then quit the group (citing other things they needed to be
doing). In a few months, they would return, asking to be admitted
back into a Step-do group. Pat would admit them, asking where they
would want to begin. In most cases, they’d say step one. Many of the
men tried this path of working the first three steps, stopping only
to return and do them again. These men were laughingly called the
“Texas Three Steppers.” With the encouragement of their peers, many
of these men moved on to the fourth step, then completed the
others.
Throughout the years, Pat
personally practiced the principles of the steps and realized that
he was evolving, too. In his quest to help others, he became the
recipient of experiences he had only dreamed of. He was able to
confront all those parts of himself he had earlier refused to
accept. As he began to love and accept all the character defects of
the men, he started the process of loving and accepting all those
same aspects of himself. Hundreds of men passed through Pat’s group.
Where the seed of recovery was planted, it could not be removed,
needing only attention to be activated. No one who completed even
one of those steps will see themselves in the same manner.
In every day life, whether it
is on a prison unit or in the free world, a part of them knows if
they ever decide to change, a tool is available in the way of the
twelve step program. Just as the book Alcoholics Anonymous and the
A.A. twelve steps were the result of the effort of the first one
hundred members, this workbook is the result of the effort of
incarcerated men.
What Others Have To Say...
"By the time I met Pat
Peterson, I had been in and out of recovery a number of times and at
each juncture I was exposed to a 12-step process that was
implemented with slight variations. I thought I’d seen it all. When
I started working the steps using Pat’s method, it was more intense.
The raw emotions and insightful honesty brought about a personal
transformation that has blessed me with the ability to stay clean
and sober for eleven plus years now. Once I quit using, Pat’s
process allowed me to address my other glaring character defects in
a timely manner, and I spend more time trying to give something back
to others instead of seeing what I can get out of them. goal."
Tall Tom
Ellis Unit, Huntsville, Texas
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