Pills Anonymous
A twelve-step fellowship for people recovering from prescription drug addiction.
What the fellowship is
Pills Anonymous is a fellowship for people recovering from addiction to pills and prescription medication. It is modelled on AA and deals with the particular difficulty of a drug that arrived legitimately.
What members describe
Not a checklist and not a diagnosis — just what people in PA commonly say brought them in.
- Taking painkillers, sedatives or stimulants other than as directed
- Seeing several doctors, or buying outside a prescription, to keep supplied
- Withdrawal or dread as the supply runs low
- Minimising the amount to family, friends or a prescriber
- Work, relationships and stability affected while the prescription remains valid
Your first meeting
PA rooms understand that this one often starts with an injury and a doctor rather than a decision, and that the legitimacy of the start makes it much harder to name.
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 Pills Anonymous.
A sponsee's profile records that they are in Pills Anonymous and dates their clean time from their last use. 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 PA assigns their own materials instead — which works, and is what sponsors have always done, but it is not the same as having PA's own step work in the app.