We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.
Would love to hear your feedback on this step...When I first saw this step it made no sense to me at all....None of them did really...I had a drinking problem that cost me everything and damn near killed me...What was this? Let's hear it boys and girls.
-- Edited by Stepchild on Monday 14th of October 2013 12:17:27 PM
The two parts I take from the book are, as above, we lerned we had to concede to our innermost selves..... But the part often missed that trips a lot of folks up is "The delusion that we are like other people OR PRESENTLY MAYBE has to be smashed." In that part lie the seeds of a relapse.
The step says we admitted we WERE powerless over alcohol. The book then explains "lack of power, that was our dilemna" We needed to find a power by which we could live and it has to be a power greater than ouselves, obviously. How do we do that? That's exactly what this book is about. To put you in touch with a power greater than yourself who will solve your problem. Until we get that power, we remain powerless and can drink at any time. We need to get to God QUICK.
Towards the end of the book a lone man thinks for a second that perhaps he can't do this thing. The book reassures him that he has just tapped a power much greater than himself and he can accomplish great things with a little application and labour. He is no longer powerless, he has recovered and been given the power to help others.
I find these days that, as long as I keep my will as close to Gods as I can, I do not suffer from powerlessness. Whether to do with the past, or the future, other people, places or things, I have been able, through the grace of God, to develop a manner of living that largely puts all these things into their right perspective.
I can use the past to help others (experience) I use God's power in all my daily affairs, dealing with people places and things (strength) and I have a faith, well based in experience, that tells me if I keep doing what I'm doing, the future looks good too (hope).
As far as alcohol goes, I lost the power of choice in drink and I never got it back. I have about the same choice to drink today, as I used to have not to drink. No Choice. I have been placed in a position of neutrality where I don't even need to make that choice or even think about it. I was powerless, but that problem has been removed.
Apropos the tenth step promises:
"And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone - even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality - safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition."
God bless, MikeH
-- Edited by Fyne Spirit on Monday 14th of October 2013 03:52:54 PM
Thanks Stepchild. I have to practice step one every day because this disease tries to convince me that I don't have it. I have to remind myself where this disease took me and how it made me feel.
I always knew I was powerless over alcohol from the very first taste of it I had. I loved it too much. I remember thinking 'THIS is the answer to all of my problems!' I knew I was powerless and yet I kept trying to fool myself into thinking I could outsmart it and outrun it. In the end, the fight was totally unmanageable. Who wants to live their life chained to a substance that betrays you? I remember thinking I couldn't trust myself as a person. What I really couldn't trust was alcohol. Living my life the way I lived it was unmanageable and I was on borrowed time until the next big crisis brought about by my drinking.
THIS is why I have to maintain a fit spiritual condition. Even given the above, my disease sometimes tries to convince me that it would be ok to try again. Now that is a messed up alcoholic brain. The good part is: I know what I need to do to live a good life. And it's pretty easy.
I am a newbie in recovery but Step One really taught me that not only was I powerless over alcohol, I was powerless over many things in my life. Could not change yesterday, cannot change what will happen tomorrow, can't change how people treat me or think of me...........WHAT I could control was whether or not I would choose to take a drink today......Just for Today.......
One thing I didn't get was this step is broken into two parts....Powerlessness and unmanageability. The first part is the only step we have to get 100% right...The directions in the Book are this...
We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery.
BB pg 30
I noticed they used the word concede...Rather than admit. The opposite of concede is deny...Probably a better choice of word. After a couple readings of The Doctor's Opinion and the first three chapters...I had a pretty clear idea what an alcoholic was....Me.....The description they give in the book is this...Beginning chapter 4 with..
In the preceding chapters you have learned something of alcoholism. We hope we have made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the nonalcoholic. If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic. If that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer.
BB pg 44
Also Me.
The stories you read about Bill...And Jim...And Fred..And the Jaywalker...Make it pretty clear what the alcoholic life is about...I know it hit real close to home for me. This first part of step one was my first taste of getting honest with myself....No more denial....I couldn't beat this with my own power....I was powerless.
Once I put a drink in me...More often than not...I had no control over what I would drink....And no matter how much shame and guilt and suffering I put myself through...The insanity of picking one up again was always there....Like mixing your whiskey with milk...That kind of insanity.
So they tell me in the book...
Our liquor was but a symptom. So we had to get down to causes and conditions.
BB pg 64
If liquor was just a symptom...What were the other symptoms?
We were having trouble with personal relationships, we couldn't control our emotional natures, we were a prey to misery and depression, we couldn't make a living, we had a feeling of uselessness, we were full of fear, we were unhappy, we couldn't seem to be of real help to other people
BB pg 52
Unmanageability.
I couldn't manage my life....Maybe a new Manager could...I was willing to find out.
I mean they told me...
Our ideas did not work. But the God idea did.
BB pg 52
And I saw it....With my own eyes...It worked for people...Why not me? On to step two....
I like what 'Standing Tall' said ... ... ... about being powerless over many things ... that is also something I found out too ... ... ... The 'perfectionist' in me struggled with this step for years ... it's why I accumulated so many 'white chips' ... LOL
I like what RubyT said also, cause I too have to practice this step daily ...
__________________
'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
Alcohol is only mentioned in the first half of the 1st Step .. then there is a hyphen and then it says that my life had become unmanageable.
I need the program and meetings as much as I did in 1989.
I haven't needed/wanted a drink since '89 but my life can still become unmanageable in a heartbeat and require the 11 1/2 Steps after the hyphen ......
In "The Promises" it doesn't say 'You will stop drinking' ... alcohol isn't mentioned there.
I came to stop drinking and continue to come to acquire The Promises in my life.
Step 1 taught me that I was defeated by a chemical addiction to alcohol which was beyond my mental control. The physical allergy to alcohol for me is a reality. I cannot drink alcohol because of this. After my 1st relapse in my early sobriety and my subsequent 4 month drinking spree, I had proved beyond any doubt that I was an alcoholic. Alcohol was my master. This was the 1st step in recovery for me. I was convinced that I was an alcoholic and no further experimentation was necessary to prove otherwise.
God I hated you guys when I first got into recovery and I hated your program...and I think I hated everything else for that matter. Fact was that the only thing I trusted was what I perceived was right for me and then I had to deal with the first half of the first step and that word alcohol.
When I got into recovery the first door I went thru was the door of the Al-Anon Family Groups...I was insane and suicidal because my then wife was a bitch and part of that was because she wouldn't or couldn't drink the way I drank and use to tell me "God...I wish I could drink like you". I didn't know about alcoholism or alcoholic...couldn't spell it even...dumb as a stick and should have been that way because I was born and raised within what would then become a family disease. I learned about disease because we use to read the AMA definition of alcoholism at the start of our Al-Anon meetings and my wife went from being a bitch to being a sick woman with a fatal obsession who was often chasing what was never called my "fatal obsession". I had been in toxic shock (overdose) before an never ever concluded that it had anything to do with the drinking or alcohol...maybe I had a touch of the flu also or maybe it was because I was given radium treatment as a 9 year old...it didn't matter because my family always drank and always drank alcohol and if some one asked you if you wanted a drink or you asked first without exception the drink you were asking about was alcohol. In my family if you got drunk your were safe because no one was allowed to call a friend or family member that disrespectful word "drunk"...do it and you would get your head handed to you in a basket or your ass, which ever was easiest to detach. I didn't know and didn't know that I didn't know that the problem was alcohol...today I do and I also know alot about why I am powerless over it including a well rounded knowledge about what our chemical of choice is all about. It is not designed to be controlled...it is designed to control and therefore becomes the manager or what alters the manager of my life.
"Higher Power" ...I knew about that term as a born in a Christian religion child should and still I also knew what makes a priest drunk and what you hand a priest or nun when they ask for a drink. Riding in a car with a drunk priest driving wasn't any different than riding in a car with a drunk friend or family member driving...it was all the same and God had nothing to do with it...absolutely.
I rationalize perfectly when I first pondered the 1st step and my justification for the first half of that step was "Of course I am powerless over it...it is just a liquid that sits in a bottle and can only move if moved by a human person"...the second part I knew full well because my life was hell because I was married to a bitch who wouldn't/couldn't drink (and use) like a "normal" person...me. She wished she could and she failed and now my life was unamanageable.
I knew when I got into recovery that I was crazy...insane. I knew that because of my families of origin. They were insane...crazy...sometimes locked up and also suicidal just like I was feeling when I reached the doors of Al-Anon. A couple nights before my first...for real...meeting I was out at 3Am shouting into the sky for the next available spaceship to take me off the face of the earth. (Former NASA employees feel entitled to do that...I guess). However God had other ideas as God's will describes and two things happened, one of which I didn't even think about...I stopped drinking and the other was beyond my imagination; I was sitting in a room again with many people affected by someone elses drinking and using and trying to pronounce "alcoholism".
I permanently got the first part of the first step after 9 years of being alcohol free. The picture of me being impervious to alcohol disolved along with the statements of friends and family members of mine who also use to say, "man you can't be alcoholic...you drink and never go down". I came to understand and some of them died and others still have a progressive problem with it. I did go down after I faced the results of my own alcohol assessment...an honest one which I was told after review that if I ever drank again most likely I would die. I had already gotten back my natural tan instead of the yellowish/green color I use to wear...so I didn't have any forgone conclusions that I should even try another tangueray on the rocks with an olive and an onion or ron rico 151 straight up. The soft sound of the hammer falling for me was when I sat in an open AA meeting, in the corner, in the dark at the Alano Club in Fresno CA. and said of my own volition loud enough for everyone to hear it..."My name is Jerry and I am alcoholic". I got the first part of the first step 9 years after I stopped drinking and I could almost hear God clap. I have yet been able to hear my mind state absolutely the first step. My alcoholic mind still reviews all the events of when it and I thought I drank successfully. It will talk to me in soft tones and I listen patiently until it stops. My imagination gets creative in providing evidence and promise. My spirit however has been and still is sick of the bullshit and reviews my recovery in both programs with all of the fellowship and tools and service and then we turn around and walk into the room of step 2.
I was a difficult student however I didn't screw up the lessons by coming to class drunk or under the influence in any other way either. I didn't have to have alcohol in me to be under the influence...I just always was; I still am. For every meeting I go into (minimum of 2 each week) I remind myself it is because I am under the influence of alcoholism.
step one,actually life, teaches me that theres quite a bit im powerless over and I don't need alcohol for my life to become unmanageable. all I have to do is let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on my laurels.
Really good stuff here people....I think if I was new and feeling hopeless...And I happened upon this board and this thread....I could learn something here....And that's important...Because none of the other steps will work...Until we can get this one right. Great shares....Jerry...I had to read yours twice. Love it.
I see the steps as the links in a chain. They are not separate stand alone entities by design. They are the progressive, steps along a path.
the first step in any journey is often the most difficult. We have to overcome the fear, the inertia. For me, I had to actually enter a meeting room. I had to make that 4 mile walk across the AA parking lot, push that 400 pound door open, go in that mysterious room full of crazy people nothing like me.
Step one was the first step I ever read. I had no issue with it. My shit had to get pretty ragged before I would ever consider AA, let alone actually Go.
Step one is simple. I am a simple drunk. it needs no explanation. It needs application. In my first few weeks I noticed quickly that there were people in the meetings explaining things they were not doing. I heard to get a sponsor and I immediately did.
My immediate application of step 1 was to try new life management. That new management was following the AA program of recovery.
Powerless? Sure. I would be in some freakshow AA meeting if I had any way to control this. Unmanageable? Same answer as before.
The idea that I could control my drinking was smashed. I set out on learning this new life management system. Step 1 was not mystical or special, or anything. It was just one step, the first step.
__________________
"I spent a lifetime in hell and it only took me twelve steps to get to heaven."
"Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you."
Good stuff Strummer...I think walking into that first meeting is the first HONEST action that most of us take. I remember thinking....Damn...It's come down to this. I heard early on about the GIFT of desperation...I think we all get it...Question is whether we act on it.....Or give it back. I think I had asked someone to sponsor me after my third meeting...That was suggested to me and I acted on it.
None of these steps are complicated....Quite simple really....I think the missing ingredient that I've seen that takes more people out is WILLINGNESS....Where does that come from?....I know I prayed for mine...Daily....God make me willing....Still one of my favorite prayers....And of course alcohol played it's part...
Faced with alcoholic destruction, we soon became as open minded on spiritual matters as we had tried to be on other questions. In this respect alcohol was a great persuader. It finally beat us into a state of reasonableness. Sometimes this was a tedious process; we hope no one else will be prejudiced for as long as some of us were.
BB pg 48
I was beaten to that state of reasonableness...Set my prejudices aside...And became willing....To follow suggestions. I once heard a guy in a meeting talking about having a First Step Experience....I think I had that on that four mile walk across the parking lot. Love that.
Waaay before I got sober I knew I was powerless over alcohol, I never drank except to get drunk, and I drank without my own permission. I really didn't have a problem with that. The second part of step 1 had to be pointed out to me about a million times, and when my husband said get out or get help, (it actually took me a while to decide to get help, and that was only because I didn't want to live in my car or with my parents, I never even thought of my kids) I finally saw just how unmanageable my life had become. I had to have been the angriest person in that hall at my first AA meeting. I thought my husband was making me ruin my life and taking all the fun and joy out of it. Then I shut up and started listening to what people were saying in the meetings and I never looked back. I feel so much better, being a practicing alcoholic is utterly exhausting.
Then I shut up and started listening to what people were saying in the meetings and I never looked back. I feel so much better, being a practicing alcoholic is utterly exhausting.
