Christians Should Not Fear the Twelve Steps

Many Christians wonder if entering a drug treatment center for their addiction problem will interfere with their faith in Christ. After all, don’t most drug treatment centers promote the twelve step approach to recovery, which allows for recovering addicts to "choose their own conception" of God, thus eliminating the need to rely solely on Christ for healing and protection? A lot of Christians fear involvement in twelve step programs because they fear they will be communing intimately with non-believers who may lead them astray from the one true God.

While the concerns some Christians have regarding this issue may be based on legitimate fears, all too often these types of Christians are facing a much deeper problem—denial of their disease. The disease of addiction is a tricky illness. Much like Satan of the Bible, it uses deception to kill the spirit, and very often kill the body as well.

While not all drug treatment centers are Christian in nature, those followers of Christ who do have the disease of addiction have Christian treatment center options that may alleviate their fears about recovery from their illness. While not all Christian treatment centers use the twelve step approach, many Christian treatment centers utilize the twelve steps because of their effectiveness. This Christian twelve step approach recognizes the early Christian roots of the first twelve step movement, Alcoholics Anonymous, and they allow Christians to open up to the fact that they have nothing to fear about the steps or about AA members.

In fact, there is nothing anti-Christian about AA’s steps. They are, essentially, Christian in nature. If one were to break down the twelve steps into their simplest terms, they simply ask each suffering addict to believe in God, surrender to His will for them, and do unto others as they would have done unto them by living a life of correct actions in the company of fellow human beings. If faced with a non-Christian in AA who attempts to deceive a believer, a Christian who is on right footing before God always will be protected from deception, as the Bible states. There is no difference between relying on this power in a twelve step fellowship, or say in the secular workplace where Christians come face to face with non-believers every day.

As Christians work through the twelve steps during Christian drug treatment, they begin to see that the steps, in conjunction with their faith, relieve their compulsion to drink and/or drug. In this respect, it is difficult for a Christian who finds freedom from their disease to believe the twelve steps or drug treatment centers are bad. After all, freedom from addiction is a good thing. And Christians who find this evidence for themselves will remember that nothing good comes from evil. Christ Himself preached "God alone is good." (Mark 10:18).