We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.
Step Study
Readings on the Step.
1. Chapter 2 (“There is a Solution”) and chapter 3 (“more About
Alcoholism”) in the AA Big Book
(pages 17-43).
2. “Step One” in the AA Twelve and Twelve (pages 21-24)
3. Any other readings on the Step that you feel are appropriate.
Questions:
1. What does it mean to admit something?
2. Why do you think the Step says, “We admitted” rather than “I
admitted?”
3. What does the term “powerless over alcohol” mean?
4. What does the term “our lives had become unmanageable” mean?
Activities for the First Step.
1. Make a list of specific examples of your powerlessness over
alcohol
2. Make a list of specific examples of how your life has become
unmanageable.
Understanding the First Step.
The AA Big Book devotes two entire chapters to Step One. The First
Step is so basic to recovery that the AA Twelve and Twelve says it is
the only Step that we can practice with “absolute perfection” Step
One is an admission of the central problem we face as addicts: our powerlessness, a door opens to the solution to our problem. As long as we deny our powerlessness, however, our problem cannot be solved.
In Step One we admit our powerlessness.
Step One is the only Step that mentions the addictive substance, addiction, or object of our compulsion and our problem with it:
powerlessness. Beginning with Step Two, the next eleven Steps
describe a series of actions to solve that problem. It is
significant that only one step of the twelve deals with the problem, and that the other eleven steps focus on its solution. AA and its sister fellowships are about living in the solution—not the problem.
Key Concepts.
The Meaning of Powerlessness
“We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking”, says the AA Big Book. “We know that no real alcoholic
ever recovers control.” The First Step is about admitting defeat in
our battle with alcohol or whatever addiction or compulsion. But
Step One is not merely an intellectual admission of powerlessness.
It is an emotional acceptance of our powerlessness made at the gut
level. It is surrender, and in the early days of AA, the Step was
taken on one’s knees. The AA Twelve and Twelve refers to the
acceptance of powerlessness and unmanageability as an experience of “utter defeat”, “bankruptcy”, hopelessness” and “hitting bottom”, As the Big Book says, “We learned that we had to fully concede
(admit) to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the
first step in recovery.”
It is the desperation we feel at “hitting bottom’s that motivates us to do the work of the programme.
Controlled drinking is not possible for an alcoholic.
The longer we are in recovery, the more we realize how unmanageable our lives had become.
Twelve Step Fellowships are “we” programmes.
Our surrender in the First Step makes us teachable and willing.
WHAT THE FIRST STEP ACCOMPLISHES.
Step One forces us to look at our addiction. In doing so, it
addresses a unique symptom of our disease: denial. Addiction is the
only disease in which the victim of the disease, as a symptom of
the disease, does not believe that he or she has it despite
conclusive evidence to the contrary. As the AA Big Book tells us,
“The idea that somehow, someday that he will control and enjoy his
drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The
persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the
gates of insanity or death.” The same denial often applies to
other compulsions and addictions as well.
By bringing us to a state of powerlessness and surrender, the First Step does the following:
Helps us break through our denial and accept the reality of our
addiction. Without this acceptance, it is difficult for us to work
the other steps and to stay in recovery.
Helps us to become willing to make the changes in our attitudes and behavior that recovery will require.
Makes us teachable so that we can learn from the Steps, programme literature, and our fellow programme members who have maintained their recovery.
Opens us to the need for a Power greater than ourselves to help us overcome our addiction.
Begins the difficult process of ego-deflation in which we exchange our grandiosity, narcissism, and self-centeredness for maturity and humility.
Our surrender in the First Step makes us teachable and willing.
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