My 12-Step Guide to Being a Badass
1. I admitted I was powerless over all the excruciating bullshit in the world—that the life I was expected to live according to straight society was unmanageable, and not a life I wanted to live anyway.
2. Came to believe that I had to take power for myself because there was no greater power outside of myself that would save me and anyone who told me anything different was recommending and condemning me to insanity as they were insane themselves.
3. Made a decision to live my own life in accordance with my own will and understanding.
4. Made a searching and fearless inventory of everything I had to work with as I propelled myself into greatness, or self-destruction, as I lived my life my own way, not knowing where the chips might fall, and not really caring either.
5. Admitted there was no God and I could do no wrong.
6. Was ready to realize that it was a fictitious and sanctimonious God who had all the character defects and I was ready to remove such a God from my moral vocabulary and calculations.
7. Boldly proclaimed that the only moral shortcoming was the cop-out of believing in God.
8. Made a list of all persons who made me want to puke and became willing to vomit and shit prodigiously.
9. Avoided such people whenever and wherever possible, except when to do so would cause injury or inconvenience to myself.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and gain power in the ways available to me.
11. Sought through drinking, writing, dancing, shopping, eating, reading, thinking, goofing off, and fucking to improve my conscious contact with myself, as I understood myself better than anyone, desiring only the knowledge that is power and the means to do whatever I wanted.
12. Having had an intellectual and creative awakening as the result of these steps, I tried to carry this message to other nonconformist badasses, and to practice these principles in all my affairs.