Clutterers Anonymous
A twelve-step fellowship for people recovering from compulsive cluttering.
What the fellowship is
Clutterers Anonymous applies the twelve steps to clutter — physical, mental and digital. It treats the piles as a symptom rather than a housekeeping failure, and works on what is underneath them.
What members describe
Not a checklist and not a diagnosis — just what people in CLA commonly say brought them in.
- Rooms, a kitchen or a car too full of things to use as intended
- Real distress at the thought of letting a possession go
- Acquiring more with nowhere to put it
- Files, papers and email accumulating past the point of usefulness
- Clutter that has caused conflict at home, or stopped anyone being invited in
Your first meeting
CLA meetings are notably free of shame, which matters in a fellowship whose problem is visible to visitors. Members use tools like clutter buddies — someone to be on the phone with while you work through one drawer.
Where 12Gradus fits
12Gradus is software for the sponsor, not a substitute for one and not part of any fellowship. Nothing here is affiliated with or endorsed by Clutterers Anonymous.
A sponsee's profile records that they are in Clutterers Anonymous and dates their clean time from their recovery start. Daily check-ins, a self-reported urge score, high-risk days noted beside the chart, a rough-moment button that reaches the sponsor immediately, secure chat and a text bridge all work the same in every programme.
The step work is the part that does not. The built-in library is written for Gamblers Anonymous. A sponsor in CLA assigns their own materials instead — which works, and is what sponsors have always done, but it is not the same as having CLA's own step work in the app.