Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to other couples, and to practice these principles in all aspects of our lives, our relationship, and our families.

Step Twelve is about taking the message of couple recovery to other couples. Those who have worked the Twelve Steps have much to offer other couples. When we are able to shine the light of our own recovery experiences in such a manner that others find their own way, we are practicing the Twelfth Step.

We find that spiritual awakenings are seldom sudden occurrences, but more generally gradual shifts in perspective. These spiritual awakenings often take place through couples working the Steps of RCA together. We typically gain an awareness of the importance of our coupleship as “a oneness and an entity,” and thus reach new levels of commitment. When we learn that neither one of us is the center of the universe, we may be able to see how we fit together and how our coupleship fits into the rest of the world. These awakenings transform us both individually and as a couple.

We acquire new depth and understanding of the wisdom of the Twelve Steps. As we watch other couples around us being transformed, we witness the spiritual nature of the program in action. We come to believe in miracles.

Just as in our individual programs, in the RCA fellowship we carry the message in many ways including:

• Sharing as a couple in RCA meetings
• Seeking and accepting service positions
• Being sponsors and temporary sponsors
• Carrying the message of hope to others:

• • at retreats
  • in our individual program meetings, for example, by posting flyers and ads, as well as talking about RCA to people who have “couple issues”
  • by informing the helping community (spiritual, medical, legal, and counseling)
  • by making a schedule of RCA meetings available

• Supporting the national convention through participation, voting as a group delegate couple, and making financial contributions
• Serving on the World Service Organization (WSO) Board of Trustees, or on a WSO Service Committee, or volunteering
• Writing our couple story and sharing it with others (especially by having it published in the RCA Blue Book)

Having worked these Twelve Steps, it is important to remember that Step work is meant for a lifetime. As we practice these Steps we have a better understanding of our history, our lives, our coupleship,
and our Higher Power. As we share our experience, strength, and hope, we see the positive effects on our relationships, and if we have children we can break the chains that have bound families for generations. We learn from those couples who have gone before. The message we carry is a liberating one. Working with newcomers is not only a rewarding experience; it shows where we have been and where we need to go.

We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it to our partner and to others we had harmed.

Step Ten is about continuing to take inventory of our coupleship by reviewing our behavior. A suggested way of taking this inventory is to ask: “What has my partner done to help the coupleship?” and “What have I done to harm the coupleship?” Also, “What have we, as a couple, done to harm or help others?” This can be done daily or weekly, privately or publicly. Much of our harmful behavior involves blaming our partner. A daily or weekly inventory tends to reverse the process of blaming. It also expresses what we like and appreciate in our partner. In first doing the Tenth Step, it may be helpful to write this inventory. By its nature Step Ten is an ongoing process, repeated as often as
necessary. The hope is that this new behavior will become familiar and automatic.

Ongoing practice of Step Ten maintains our honesty and humility. If we become comfortable and start believing we don’t need to continue practicing Step Ten or regularly attending meetings, we tend
to become irritable and short-tempered, think negatively, and may relapse. Examples of relapse behavior might include avoidance, excessive working, compulsive spending, isolation, busyness, control, manipulation, withholding feelings, and difficulty with intimacy. Nothing stays the same in our life or coupleship. We are either growing or regressing.

RCA suggests three types of ongoing inventories:

1. Spot-check inventory: Whenever agitated or fearful, you might pause and spot-check your underlying motives.
2. Daily or weekly inventory: What have I done that is harmful to our coupleship? What has my partner done to support our coupleship?
3. Long-term periodic inventory: Perhaps an annual spiritual retreat focused on how your coupleship has grown (or not), and your role and your partner’s role in this growth.

Step Ten is ongoing and never fully completed. However, having demonstrated a willingness to fully understand our own role in the dance of the coupleship, we should be ready to move on to the
spirituality of Step Eleven.

We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

This is another action step and requires a willingness to confront our issues. In order to avoid unintended harm, you may wish to review your proposed amends with your sponsor couple. For example, parents or children might be harmed by learning of compulsive behaviors. This Step takes courage, good judgment, and a careful sense of timing.

Many of us begin our Ninth Step with our children. Depending on their maturity, we discuss our unhealthy behaviors only when it is clear they will not be harmed. We make further amends to our children by respecting them as individuals, by maintaining our own recovery, and by striving to be healthy and happy adults ourselves.

We caution you not to confuse apologies with amends. Sometimes apologies are called for, but apologies are not amends. Amends are made by repairing damage when possible, and then acting
differently. For example, we can apologize ten times for being late to a meeting, but this does not “amend” the issue. Being on time and changing our behavior becomes our amends.

As we repair the damage done to others, we are healing our own coupleship. We find satisfaction in knowing we are doing all we can to pay off emotional, material, moral, and spiritual debts.

In preparation for the actual making of the amends we suggest that you:

1. Read the Safety Guidelines
2. Devote time to prayer or meditation
3. Think about what you want to say
4. Be clear—possibly writing out your amends
5. Create a comfortable, safe setting

In making the actual amends we suggest that you:

1. Keep it simple
2. Express a desire and/or ask permission:

• “I (we) need to admit the harm I (we) have done and take responsibility for my (our) actions. I (we) would like to make amends to you. Are you willing to receive an amends?”

The form of our amends may be something like this:

• I (We) want to make an amends about _______.
• I (We) ask for your forgiveness.
• I (We) plan to change my (our) behavior by _______.

In making amends, we also need to make amends to ourselves and our partner. How do we make amends to ourselves? We develop new attitudes that reflect a willingness to love and forgive ourselves. The format for making an individual or coupleship amends may be similar to other amends, but you may want to use this suggested format:

• I want to make an amends to our coupleship about _______.
• I would like you to forgive me for all the words that were said out of fear (thoughtlessness, inconsideration, anger, immaturity, self- righteousness, selfishness, etc.) and out of my own confusion.
• I ask for your forgiveness.
• I plan to change my behavior by _______.

As a result of doing our amends we are developing ourselves as persons within a healthy relationship. We ask our Higher Power for the courage and wisdom to face each new challenge in our coupleship. We take responsibility for our mistakes and learn from our experiences.

The final three Steps are about practicing what we learned in the first nine Steps.

We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

Step Eight is about those people—including ourselves—who have been harmed by our couple dysfunction, such as family members, children, friends, and co-workers. In this Step, we continue to take our coupleship inventory. This Step helps us to interact with other people in new ways. It calls for changes in our behavior.

In Step Eight we need to determine the harm that we have caused. What is the exact nature of this harm? It helps to categorize our wrongdoing into the following four groups:

Emotional Wrongs

• Raging
• Holding grudges
• Withholding information
• Giving our partner “the silent treatment”
• Making shaming or blaming statements

Material Wrongs

• Borrowing, spending, or withholding money selfishly
• Cheating, or not abiding by terms of couple contracts
• Disregarding others’ boundaries regarding personal things
• Destroying or violating joint property

Moral Wrongs

• Setting bad examples
• Engaging in infidelity, broken promises, lying
• Engaging in emotional, physical, sexual, or verbal abuse

Spiritual Wrongs

• Neglecting obligations to ourselves, family, support group, or community
• Avoiding self-development
• Lacking gratitude
• Neglecting our spiritual quest
• Lacking humility
• Being self-righteous
• Preoccupying ourselves to the point of emotional unavailability

Now we suggest that you look at the facts and ask yourselves:

1. What are your thoughts and feelings about the harm you have done?
2. What are your fears about making amends?
3. What causes your resistance to making amends?
4. What consequences of your harmful behavior are you willing to accept?
5. What are the ways you plan to make amends?

Now that you have a better idea how your coupleship dysfunction has affected yourselves and others, make a list of people you have harmed, including yourselves. Review your amends list with your sponsor couple. Now ask for guidance on how to make amends that will not hurt others. When direct amends are not appropriate or possible, we suggest you devise alternative amends, such as praying for the well-being of those people, being kind and responsible to your partner and others, doing community service, or donating to a charity.

We become willing to make amends to our partner, our-selves, and others by admitting the harm we have done. As we become willing to look at our own behavior, we tend to become more tolerant and
forgiving, less rigid and judgmental. Our viewpoints, attitudes, and beliefs will begin to change as a result of our participation in this process. Now we should be ready to move on to Step Nine.

We humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.

In Step Seven, we need to form a working partnership with our Higher Power. We seek humility. Humility is defined in many ways, including the ability to face reality; knowing there is a Higher Power, and we, or our partner, are not it; not thinking less of ourselves, but thinking about
ourselves less; being spiritually no better than, but no less than, anyone or any other couple. The real change happens as we let go of our false pride and work to change in partnership with our Higher Power.

We frequently ask our Higher Power to remove our shortcomings. We know we can’t change our old ways of doing things on our own, but in partnership with our Higher Power, we can. The more we work the RCA program, the more our shortcomings are relieved. Many of us found contracts to be a vital tool in overcoming these shortcomings by adding accountability (see contract information
in Appendix) . We learn to avoid being too Hungry, Angry, Lonely, and Tired (HALT), as these states seem to make our shortcomings worse. At the very least, we avoid making crucial decisions while experiencing these states.

A suggested Seventh Step Prayer (or meditation topic):
I want to be more sensitive to my partner,
as sensitivity to my partner opens awareness of my innermost self.
Higher Power, help me become more open and aware.
I need to see my own fear behind my shortcomings:
my tendency to be sarcastic and stubborn,
my tendency to blame and make my partner wrong,
my need to make my partner feel disrespected and “less than.”
Higher Power, help me find the courage to acknowledge my own shortcomings,
instead of focusing on those of my partner.
I promise to try to use the coupleship tools I have learned
to stop interrupting my partner,
to speak from “I” statements,
and to acknowledge the strengths my partner brings to our coupleship.
Higher Power, teach me humility and remove my character defects
so that I may love more sincerely and completely.
Amen.

We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character, communication and caring.

Step Six has a clear message—get ready for some changes! The first three Steps showed us we couldn’t change on our own, but that we could find the power needed to change. Then Step Four helped us
recognize our defects. Step Five allowed us to get rid of much of our shame. With Step Six we become willing to have our Higher Power remove these defects. We don’t have to let go of behaviors. We just
need willingness to allow our defects to be removed. The more we work the RCA program, the more willing we become.

We admitted to God, to each other, and to another couple the exact nature of our wrongs.

Most of us choose to share our Fifth Step with a sponsoring couple or another couple who has been in the RCA program long enough to have worked the Twelve Steps. It is also important to share this inventory with a couple who seems to be living the program. This process of doing the Fifth Step is a vehicle to self-acceptance. This may be difficult because of shame. However, this is your opportunity to have shame transformed into humility.

We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of our relationship together as a couple.

We suggest you look at the impact of your individual behavior on the coupleship. First you may share your individual inventories. Next you can complete your coupleship inventory. The goal of these inventories is to gain awareness of the extent of our dysfunction. We all need to be fearless in our inventories. When a couple is able to face their reality honestly, they can grow in their love. Here are some questions that may help you in your individual inventory:

We made a decision to turn our wills and our life together over to the care of God as we understood God.

Together two people in a committed relationship form a coupleship, a oneness, a distinct and separate entity. This coupleship has a life of its own and needs to be nurtured. Couple recovery depends on this
nurturance. Each partner needs individual recovery such as meetings, sponsorship, support groups, spirituality, recreation, vocation, and individual interests. The coupleship needs these same elements for couple recovery.