George W. Bush's 12-Step Program

It is a somewhat dated article but still very relevant.

George W. Bush's 12-Step Program
April 16, 2004
Like many Americans, I was deeply disturbed by President Bush’s performance during his April 13 press conference. His verbal incontinence, ill-timed smirks and uneasy pauses are nothing new. But once he got past his sober opening statement, his deer-in-the-headlights gaze, unnerving silences, and bizarre “I see dead people” comment suggested something seriously amiss. And his shocking inability or unwillingness to own up to any of his immense inventory of presidential mistakes led me to think something was very, very wrong indeed:

"I'm sure something will pop into my head here...maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one."

Like many people, I worried that George W. Bush might have “fallen off the wagon”, or worse. Knowing of his victory over alcohol in the 1980’s, however, I ruled out backsliding. No, George W. Bush has won his battle with the bottle. But it seems he is still struggling with a key stage in any 12-step recovery program: making amends.

As we’ve done before, Perrspectives is here to help.

Easy Does It

By way of background and for those unfamiliar with the story, George Bush in the 1970’s and 1980’s was a legendary party animal, spiritually adrift in the oil fields of West Texas. Though she denies issuing a “Jim Beam or me” ultimatum to her husband, Laura Bush was clearly worried about his heavy drinking bouts with his friends. “For the first time, they weren't just spending their time sitting around kicking back with hamburgers and beer,” she recalled.

It was the Reverend Billy Graham who in the mid 80’s helped put a 40-year old George W. Bush on the path of the straight and narrow. At a Bush family gathering, Graham asked, “are you right with God?”

“No,” Bush replied, “but I want to be.”

The rest is history. A repentant, born-again Bush quit alcohol cold turkey. By the 2000 presidential campaign, he would claim that his favorite philosopher was “Christ, because he changed my heart.”


(con't) http://www.perrspectives.com/features/12step.htm

...that I can see, and certainly not the AA 12 step program outlined in the article, especially step 12 which says: "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs." It's the practicing of the principles of the 12 steps that I find lacking in George W Bush.

<link to the 12 steps of AA> http://www.aa.org/default/en_about_aa_sub.cfm?subpageid=84&pageid=13

<edit to add commonly accepted principles>

The AA Principles and Virtues

Honesty
Step 1. We admitted that we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.


Hope
Step 2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Faith
Step 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.

Courage
Step 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Integrity
Step 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Willingness
Step 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Humility
Step 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

Brotherly Love
Step 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

Justice
Step 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Perserverance
Step 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Spirituality
Step 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.

Service
Step 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, especially alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

in George W Bush.

I've always had problems with thinking of George as practicing 1-12.