The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Work-Anon

The Twelve Steps of Work-Anon
1. We admitted we were powerless over work—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 God.
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. Became entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked God 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 God, praying only for knowledge of God's 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 the friends and family of workaholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

The Twelve Traditions of Work-Anon
1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon Work-Anon unity.
2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority—a loving God as expressed in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
3. The friends and relatives of workaholics, when gathered together for mutual aid, may call themselves a Work-Anon Family Group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation. The only requirement for Work-Anon membership is that there be a problem of workaholism in a relative or friend.
4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or Work-Anon as a whole.
5. Each group has but one primary purpose: to help families of workaholics. We do this by practicing the Twelve Steps of W.A. ourselves, by encouraging and understanding our workaholic relatives, and by welcoming and giving comfort to families of workaholics.
6. A Work-Anon group ought never endorse, finance or lend the Work-Anon name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
7. Every Work-Anon group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
8. Work-Anon should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
9. Work-Anon, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
10. Work-Anon has no opinion on outside issues; hence the Work-Anon name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films. We need guard with special care the anonymity of all W.A. members.
12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

The Work-Anon Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions were adapted from The Twelve Steps and The Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous and The Twelve Steps and The Twelve Traditions of the Al-Anon Family Groups. Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. Steps and Traditions copyright © 1939 by A.A. World Services, Inc. and the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions of Al-Anon Family Groups, © 1994 by Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc.