Written by So Lost in Wisconsin

Inspired by the latest Kaybot’s letter to Tracy , I felt compelled to write a Pink version of twelve steps. I guess what it boils down to is this- — challenge accepted.

Here are twelve important steps toward Mary Kay recovery. I hope you all have taken each and every one of them towards your recovery. If you haven’t . . . don’t worry. There’s still hope for you on your path towards lifting the pink fog.

1. We admitted we were powerless over cosmetics—that our lives had become unmanageable.

Our finances are out of control, our families are falling apart, and our self-esteem has crashed and burned along with our credit.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than Mary Kay could restore us to sanity and financial well-being.

At some point, we all have realized that Mary Kay is the path to insanity, and the further we move away from it, the closer we come to normalcy again.

3. Made a decision to turn our money and our marriages over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Once the cult mindset hit us, it was hard to understand how the world truly worked. Once that pink bubble pops, we realize that we have been living and breathing one thing, and one thing only, while the rest of our lives have fallen apart around us. That is where we get to pick up the pieces and start over.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of our self-esteem.

Can you believe it? Once we get to step four, we are starting to realize that our self-esteem is more reliant on us, rather than our successes and failures in an industry that stole it from us and didn’t really accept us for us.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our disillusion.

Here is the point where you start to realize that you are in debt up to your eyeballs. There are little pink boxes everywhere, and it’s time to send them back. It’s time to admit to yourself, God and others that we were truly brainwashed into getting a full store that we never really sold. How were we thinking we actually could make money at this?

6. Were entirely ready to have God rebuild these missing pieces of character.

We were sucked into the God first, family second, career third mindset, and now it’s time to actually do it. But this time, it isn’t for the cult mindset, which is really about Pink first, Pink second and Pink third. Now we can focus on God, our family, and whatever WE decide will be the third.

7. Humbly asked Him to accept our shortcomings and rebuild.

We were all failures at Mary Kay. What shortcomings we all had. Now it’s time to accept that it wasn’t our fault that we failed. We worked our business the way we were taught. We need to ask him to accept that in us, and rebuild what was destroyed because of it.

8. Made a list of all persons we had recruited, affected, and robbed and became willing to make amends to them all.

Here is the point where we start to make friends again. No more of them avoiding our calls because they no longer want to spend money or be recruited. We apologize for our pink pressure, and do our best to rebuild our friendships, which are not dependent on sales and production.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others who are still foggy.

Let’s face it. We got them into this, and it may not be easy to get them out. Our cult sucked us in, and the ones we affected might not be as easily recoverable. They may not be ready for rock bottom and to start their twelve steps towards recovering from their addiction.

10. Continued to return personal inventory.

And if we can’t, then we sell it on eBay. Or Craigslist. Wherever we can to get it out of our lives and home.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact people as we understood them, praying only for knowledge of the true Mary Kay business opportunity and the chance to expose it.

The healing begins. Now we get to tell others what we have learned, and face the attacks of the people who are still in their pink fog. Deal with them in love, as their twelve steps will begin very soon.

12. Having had a Pink Fog lift as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to Kaybots, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

The fog is lifted. Now it’s time to help others. And, we won’t treat them with the awful words and actions they have treated us with. The road to recovery is long, and eventually, we will be able to move forward with pride in what we’ve learned from all of our experience.