This highly-praised book outlines how you can take a proactive approach to life, gradually stepping up from feeling stuck and powerless to enjoying a balanced and happy life. It offers a new take on the original Twelve Steps. It describes the steps as a mindful program instead of a mystical experience in which change somehow happens to you.
This book reflects a deep understanding of behavior change, codependency, stress, and trauma. It presents a clear roadmap for self-compassion and mindful self-discovery. It provides specific step-by-step instructions and a broader context that helps readers make sense of the healing process.
In short, this book is “a user-friendly guide to the application of mindfulness in everyday life”.
See bottom of the page to buy this book online.
Praise for this book (in alphabetical order)
This innovative revisioning of the Twelve Steps program gives the reader a practical, time-proven structure for making important life changes. Prengel’s extensive clinical experience is reflected in his compassionate voice and the clarity of his guidance.
Judith Blackstone, PhD, Author, Trauma and the Unbound Body and Belonging Here
11 years ago, I decided to get sober, and as I am not a religious person, I could not get to grips with the AA 12 steps or the big book, and it was your version of the 12 steps (proactive 12 steps) that saved me. Thank you for my new life.
Miss Emma Marnie Burchill
In this book Serge Prengel not only harnesses the power of a traditional 12-step model but offers a broader non-religious prescriptive path for healing and change that goes beyond addressing addictive behaviors. It offers an in-depth perspective and specific instruction.
Eva Gold, PsyD, Author, Buddhist Psychology and Gestalt Therapy Integrated: Psychotherapy for the 21st Century
This clear and well-written book presents a road to recovery in more modern, process-based terms that is, on the one hand, deeply resonant with 12-step traditions and, on the other, a fresh and uplifting reworking of the 12-step model.
Steven C. Hayes, PhD, Co-developer of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Compassionate and supportive, this new approach offers mindful ways to disentangle ourselves from our addictive patterns without shame or judgment. The Proactive Twelve Steps are a welcome gift to the world of recovery, offering healing to the body/mind/soul wounds that occur with addictive processes.
Suzanne Noel, Founder, Recovery Focusing
This book invites both self-compassion and a deep dive into conversation with the self around the experiences of addiction, recovery, relapse, and healing, opening the door to including current understanding of the impact of stress and trauma on all of us as we struggle with being human.
Sarah Peyton, Author, Your Resonant Self: Guided Meditations and Exercises to Engage Your Brain’s Capacity for Healing
Serge Prengel reframes the 12-step model into an efficient manual for self-initiated change. The model brilliantly and succinctly provides a map to disentangle the individual from the pervasive constraints that have resulted in self-destructive behaviors, which have limited opportunities to enjoy life and to experience feelings of purpose and satisfaction.
Stephen W. Porges, PhD, Distinguished University Scientist, Kinsey Institute, Indiana University Bloomington
his book is a meaningful roadmap for the recovery process, not just for those recovering from addictions but for all of us mortals.
Mark Schenker, PhD, Author, A Clinician’s Guide to 12-Step Recovery
The Proactive Twelve Steps is a user-friendly guide to the application of mindfulness in everyday life.
Marjorie Schuman, PhD, Author, Inquiring Deeply: Mindfulness-Informed Relational Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis
I highly recommend this book to people in recovery as well as to anyone wishing to make proactive improvements in their lives.
Inge Sengelmann, LCSW, SEP, RYT, Author, It’s Time to EAT: Embody, Awaken & Transform our Relationship with Food, Body & Self
You cannot live your best life unless you embrace your fears and vulnerabilities. The Proactive Twelve Steps show you how to do just that.
Kristen Ulmer,
Author, The Art of Fear
Prengel’s objective is to take the powerful 12 steps of Alcoholic Anonymous and translate them into an accessible and secular-friendly program for change of all kinds. I was particularly moved by his descriptions of the healing power of community and compassionate listening.
Jeff Warren, Co-author, Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics
Prengel’s objective is to take the powerful 12 steps of Alcoholic Anonymous and translate them into an accessible and secular-friendly program for change of all kinds. I was particularly moved by his descriptions of the healing power of community and compassionate listening.
Jeff Warren, Co-author, Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics
Buy this book online
At Amazon.com: As a paperback or as a Kindle ebook
Please note: The above links are to the US site. In other countries, search your local Amazon site for 1892482363 (paperback) or B09C16T79V (ebook).