Download PDF of the History of Drug Addicts Anonymous

Drug Addicts Anonymous was founded in Sweden in 1997 and made its way to Dallas, Texas in early 2007 when a small group of addicts wanted to start a 12 step fellowship that used the program of action outlined in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Out of respect for AA’s 12 traditions and singleness of purpose, they wanted to have a fellowship where they could speak freely about their experience and completely identify, while still utilizing the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous as the basic text. If the program of AA could relieve an alcoholic of their obsession with alcohol, then it could do the same in relieving an addict’s obsession with drugs. Upon contacting their brothers and sisters in Sweden, they were granted permission to use DAA’s 12 steps and traditions. Hence the first Drug Addicts Anonymous group in the U.S. was born.

We recover through the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Twelve Steps, which brings about a spiritual awakening. We cannot express our gratitude enough to AA, who gave us the permission to adapt and apply the 12 steps and 12 traditions. The book of Alcoholics Anonymous is the most valuable tool we possess. It contains the precise instructions on how to recover from this deadly disease. Feel free to share your experience freely based on your use of any substances and reflect on your experience with substances while going through the reading. We ask that, while reading, we keep the wording as is to respect the original text.

Download PDF of The Twelve Steps

The Twelve Steps of DAA

1. We admitted we were powerless over narcotics and all other mind altering substances – 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 Him.
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. Were entirely ready to have God remove all theses defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him 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 Him, praying only for knowledge of His 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 drug addicts and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Download PDF of the Twelve Traditions

1. Our common welfare should come first:  personal recovery depends upon DAA unity.
2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority – a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience.  Our leaders are but trusted servants:  they do not govern.
3. The only requirement for DAA membership is a desire to stop using narcotics and all other mind-altering substances.
4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or DAA as a whole.
5. Each group has but one primary purpose – to carry its message to the drug addict who still suffers.
6. A DAA group ought never endorse, finance or lend the DAA name to any related facility of outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
7. A DAA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
8. Drug Addicts Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
9. DAA as such, ought never be organized;  but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
10. Drug Addicts Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues;  hence the DAA 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.
12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.