Opening Statement

TS welcomes all consent humans regardless of addiction or its absence, sexual or gender orientation, age, race, color or religious beliefs, disability or super power. The only condition for TS membership is a desire to solve our problems by seeking connection — with ourselves, with others, with the Earth, and with the divine mystery.

Ours is a path of companionship, mutual joy, and deep fulfillment. We now live life with many fewer of the negative thoughts and feelings that held our happy moments hostage. We did this by becoming willing to look at ourselves in a way that was not always comfortable or easy and then we became willing to make changes based on what we saw. If you see among us a life you'd choose for yourself, then you might become willing to take certain steps.

If you decide to proceed down this path, know you won't be alone! Our movement is growing slowly but surely. So many feel disheartened and disillusioned by the reality they don't realize they're co creating. Doing this work will likely have value for your life even if do not continue to participate with TS after you finish.

Our society has been factionalized by conflict, terrorized by the news media, and fragmented by social media. The upshot of all this is that society believes our beliefs more passionately than ever, because we are more fearful than ever, and instead of talking about it with our tribe around the dinner table, we text about it on social media to someone hundreds or thousands of miles away.

But our mind, body, and spirit don't respond to a message in text form the same way we do to someone in the room speaking with us. Our nervous system is less reassured by text than sound, the brain is less certain of the context when there are no facial expressions or body language to confirm or emphasize content.

Put another way, humans are meant to sit with each other in a circle (plus or minus food or fire) and talk to each other. It's how we have done since we came about on this planet, our communication is much clearer to each other in person, and it's also far better for the human brain to communicate in person than any kind of digital interaction. It feeds us in ways that are as yet not completely understood.

But the question of how to find the right group of people is always a hard one. Making bad connections can be worse than making none at all, at least at times. We of TS encourage you to try a few different meetings as each is autonomous and has a different "flavor," but the core content is always the same. We are attempting to work our program, together, one day at a time, and step by step.

Here are the 12 steps of Therapeutic Society which are recommended as a program to help you remove your own blocks to connection:

The 12 Steps of Therapeutic Society (TS)

1. We recognized we can't manage the whole world — trying to control the uncontrollable made our lives unmanageable.
2. We came to believe that better connection with the universe could help us find our best selves.
3. We decided to turn our will and life over to the care of this universe as we understood it.
4. We made a searching, courageous, and truthful inventory of ourselves.
5. We admitted to ourselves, to the universe, and to another human being the exact nature of our part in supporting the thoughts and feelings that haunt our existence.
6. We became entirely ready to let the universe help us remove these patterns that no longer serve us.
7. We humbly asked the universe to help us remove these patterns.
8. We made a list of those we had harmed or negatively impacted and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. We made direct amends to those we impacted negatively except where doing so would harm them or others.
10. We continued to take a truthful inventory and, when we caused harm or missed the mark, promptly admitted it.
11. We sought, through prayer, meditation, and regular rededication, to improve our conscious contact with the universe — praying only for knowledge of the universe's guidance for us and the strength to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we carry this message to all who suffer and practice these principles in every aspect of our lives.