For me, if I take powerlessness and base my self-worth on it - I will just keep on drinking. Once I clearly saw that it is just a condition of my being, not a definition of it - hope sprang.
Okay - I am powerless, I understand what that means based solely on my experience with alcohol - What happens when I drink? Even more, what happens when I don't drink and try to leave it alone completely? I had to start looking where I could tap into some power and get rid of this (seeing that I cannot do it myself) Willingness to do just about anything - and I step forward.
I love how back asswards this whole deal is. In powerlessness I find willingness and hope and begin to take a little action and faith grows. Maybe a condition of the fourth dimension.
My favorite part in the big book about this:
"He had come to pass his experience along to me - if I cared to have it. I was shocked but interested. Certainly I was interested. I had to be, for I was hopeless."
Bill's Story pp 9-10
http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/en_bigbook_chapt1.pdf
Bill being '12 stepped' by Ebby Thacher- Oxford Group member.