MRomeo99

I guess I just have a serious problem with the first step. The submission to being powerless over alcohol. In every other facet of our lives we are required to take responsibility over who and what we are. I built a very successful business because I embraced the responsibility of doing so. Even when I didn't like it or it was darn hard. I don't like confrontation, I had to deal with it and become good at it. It's against everything I believe in human nature to embrace powerlessness and to not embrace responsibility.

Everything I've ever studied in success literature and why people become successful in their lives comes down to embracing your power and responsibility. But somehow with alcoholism I have to throw that all out of the window? Yeah, yeah I get it bend like a willow rather than cracking like an oak. Flexibility has nothing to do with personal responsibility. I messed up my life, and it's up to me to fix it. Being powerless just doesn't seem to jive with my personal belief systems.

It feels to me if I wash myself of all responsibility to being in control of my actions and can blame it on a disease then I always have an excuse. It also doesn't jive with what I see at meetings, the ones who seem to be 10-20-30 years sober seem like they got pissed off and they couldn't take it any more. They actually TOOK power and fought the disease. Even though in their words they are saying they surrendered to Him and that they were powerless. I see an inner strength, and I just disagree that it wasn't their power that helped to cure them.

It feels to me like this step doesn't ring true to me. It doesn't seem to be how the world really works. When I look at the ones who are successful they don't affirm the ideal, they actually seem to me to prove the exact opposite.

There are other issues that I have a problem with in AA, but the first step seems to be pretty difficult to me.

Spirit08

Maybe you haven't learned enough about Step 1. We have an allergy of the body and an obsession of the mind.

SDSurfn

I've thought about this alot as well.

For me, I'm powerless after I take a drink. Because then, all bets are off, and I have no idea how much I will drink, or for how many days I will drink, and I don't know what will happen while I'm drinking. Very quickly, I end up isolated, in a dark, dark place. Again, I'm speaking only for myself here.

However, I'm not powerless against that first drink. I have a defense against the first drink. As long as I keep doing what I have been doing these last 95 days, I am able to avoid that first drink.

So for me, the "powerless" applies to myself after I have taken a drink, not before.

This thread probably belongs in the AA forum, mods can move if they see fit.

MRomeo99

How does being powerless help with that? It seems to me that when you embrace the 12 steps you are acting with power not being powerless. It's much easier to be powerless and fall off the wagon and stop practicing the steps. But it takes real power and responsibility to follow the steps or do whatever it takes to get better.

See my problem?

Natom

Hello mate,

My experience with step one was just an admittance of the powerlessness I had over my disease. However I have the power to change this. We all do. You have the power to recover. But you don't have power over alcohol or drugs. I still know that it was me who did what I did when I did it, we get to that later in the 12 steps. But for now all you have to do is say that you don't have power over alcohol or drugs.

Natom.

bbthumper

I was powerless over alcohol. My history proves it. I had lost the choice of whether or not I was going to drink. When I did drink I had no control. A loss of choice and control sounds like powerless to me.

One of the best kept secrets in AA, IMO, is that we dont stay powerless. The big book refers to us tapping a new source of power several times. It mentions powerless once in the first step. What I need to remember it is a source of power that I have been given access to. It is not my power. I take actions to stay tapped into that source and I am no longer powerless.

Surrender is against our instincts. Not easy to do, but just look at your track record with booze is there any evidence that you have real, lasting power over alcohol?

bbthumper

The whole point of the 12 steps is to gain power so we are not powerless. "A lack of power was our dilemma" The book gives us clear and precise directions on where and how to find that power.

Have a spiritual awakening as the result of the steps and you'll have so much power you'll have no choice but to give it away. Thats the beauty of this deal.

Wesley423

for me it was when i excepted the fact that i was and still am an addict. i also own a business and had some of the thoughts u have. i am powerless over my addiction but it wasnt until i excepted the fact that im an addict was i willing to do anything about it. its easy to set in a meeting and say im an addict but until i excepted it i wasnt willing to do anything about it. today i can say in an addict in recovery and that feels great! 90 days today and still climbing. if i can do it anyone can. your pal in recovery...Wes...

YEM

"We WERE powerless over...." You arent now if you are sober. If you could control your drinking, I dont think you would be in AA.

TheJungianThing

Once the booze is in the system a reaction occurs that results in a "phenomena of craving". This is supported in the book, anecdotally, I'm not sure where science is on it today. But the words "explains things for which we could not otherwise account". I.E. Drinking more than intended, drinking things I normally wouldn't, etc...

That NEVER takes place until I put it into my system.

So what I've become "powerless" over, is my mind, when it comes to alcohol. Prior to getting into AA and taking steps, I drank. It's what I did, it's who I was. As I got separated from alcohol and the physical withdrawal subsided I got to observe just how much of my mind was centered on the effect alcohol produced. "Obsession". My mind constantly racing, constantly trying to tell me why it was "okay" to just drink "a little".

As that subsided I got to see what "wanting" a drink looked like. "Hmmm, that'd be kind of nice and tasty - never had BlueBerry Wheat Ale".

Prior to the AA Fellowship and the AA Program (Steps from the books), I didn't have the power to NOT ACT on those thoughts, wants, and desires.

Then, I did. Then, the thoughts and desires began to become less frequent, then there were none. Then the occasional one would rear its head but - I didn't have to act on it. I had POWER, I was connected to a power greater than myself.

Maintaining concious contact with that power is the order of the day and the vigilance necessary such that I don't ever drink again. It's been worthwhile so far, so I'll keep doing it. I've yet to wake up regretting NOT DRINKING. Compare that to the countless times I woke up regretting drinking or regretting drink number 5, or what have you.

An honest tally of my drinking life proved one thing. I made Alcohol the power greater than myself. It was my higher power. Since it was more powerful than me, I might as well have been powerless over it. Look at all I was willing to risk, give away, lose, do, not do, etc... for the sense of ease and comfort alcohol provides.

Boleo

Same with me. Alcohol was my master. When it called me, I responded like Pavlov's dog. It WAS (repeat WAS) the highest power in my life. Till I tapped into an even greater power, which solved the problem for me.

Am I still powerless? Who cares. Alcohol never calls out to me now. There is no need for me to choose between drinking and not-drinking. Thoughts of drinking never even show up on my radar screen. Even when I am surrounded by people who are drinking. I simply don't see any attraction in it anymore.

Am I responsible for staying sober? Not exactly. I am responsible for taking the action that keeps me spiritually fit so that my Higher Power can keep me sober. Keeping myself sober is simply above my pay grade. My new employer has that job.

"If I keep on turning my life and my will over to the care of Something or Somebody else, what will become of me? I'll look like the hole in the doughnut." This, of course, is the process by which instinct and logic always seek to bolster egotism, and so frustrate spiritual development. The trouble is that this kind of thinking takes no real account of the facts. And the facts seem to be these: The more we become willing to depend upon a Higher Power, the more independent we actually are. Therefore dependence, as A.A. practices it, is really a means of gaining true independence of the spirit."

(12&12 page 36)

shaun00

I made some pretty successful decisions in my life, some good business decisions made my material life a rich one for a while.

NOT so with alcohol.....looking at my past experience with alcohol, gathering all the information from past drinking and not drinking ....i came to the conclusion i had lost the power of choice with regards to booze...completely and utterly powerless.

And here is the basics of the that conclusion.

When i drink, something quite odd happens, rather than have a few, get tipsy and go home, a strange allergy of sorts develops, ..earlier i made the decision to have a couple but here i am, blasted and will continue to oblivion ...it becomes impossible to safely predict when i would stop.

I have had periods of being dry, ....throughout those periods of being dry, a obsession to drink again starts to gnaw away at my mind, ...it gathers pace over time, till its my every waking thought....the awful reality of my last drinking begins to fade, the thoughts of the consequences begin to carry no weight at all.....finally i would convince myself, to try the old game again, maybe it will be different....and finally i pick up the first drink and immediately the first paragraph in this post starts all over again.

A physical allergy and a mental obsession , if i drink, i cant stop....if im not drinking, im obsessed with drinking and will eventually drink.

that is what powerless means to me......catch 22......in trouble if i drink and in trouble if i don't.

justanothrdrunk

If I leave my car windows open and it rains - I'm powerless over the weather, but it doesn't mean I'm not responsible for my car getting wet inside. I still need to take appropriate action to prevent damaging my car's interior.

Being powerless over (as in, unable to control) alcohol intake doesn't absolve anyone from responsibility. I'm responsible for taking that first drink. I'm responsible for everything I do whether I'm drunk or not. And I'm responsible for taking action to prevent damage to myself and others.

It's not my fault I'm an alcoholic. But it is my fault if I don't do anything about it.

Powerlessness is not the same as responsibility (or the lack thereof). I am powerless over alcohol, but not powerless over me.

Mark75

IDK, I just think we overcomplicate it...

I mean ... if we drink when we didn't plan to, or planned not to. If we drink a lot more than we planned to, frequently... or if we put alcohol ahead of all other considerations when we did drink...

Powerless, allergy, whatever...

It is important, to me, in the process of surrender, to embrace that idea, of powerlessness, over alcohol.

sugarbear1

I'm powerless over my unmanageable feelings....

There's a reason we find a sponsor to guide us through the steps and to discuss these things with.

Maybe find someone who works their spirituality in all they do.

awuh1

I think that admitting powerlessness over alcohol IS taking responsibility. To me powerless refers to two aspects of alcoholism. First, that I cannot have “just one” and second, that without help it was quite difficult to not think (obsess) about drinking. Alcoholics have one or both of these forms of “powerlessness” to varying degrees. That’s what makes them alcoholics. Admitting this is the first step in taking responsibility, and taking responsibility means doing whatever it takes to make sure that this “condition” does not harm my anyone (including self). I was unable to do this all by myself. Therefore taking responsibility involved finding a power greater than myself.
Just my 2cents

Fernaceman

Were powerless, past tense. Had become unmanageable, past tense.

These things are no longer true if the steps are worked correctly and spiritual fitness is maintained.

IndaMiricale

Well I dont know about you but alcohol won the war against me. Even after losing battles I continued to go back into battle to prove I wasnt powerles, I could control this beast.. Well fact is I cant, It wins the war and all the battles.


AA's way gave me power , that I dont have to go back into battle with the bottle anymore . Just with the diease effecting other humans.That is being powerless over alcohol for me.

Dont try to be termianally unique and battle with AA. Dont be to smart and over think and break it all break in to pieces..

I just do these couple things that I was told ..

Keep it Simple
Pray
Dont Drink
Go to a ton of meetings
And Help another Alcoholic !!!

And so far as long as I do these things my life has become better than I could of imagined. I dont have to test things anymore . I just do them and it works.

muvinon

Willpower is one of those very odd qualities. The more I try to will things to go my way, the more I notice resistance. When I relax and accept that I can't control someone or some situation, then I find I have more than enough power.

I simply admitted in Step 1.....willpower wasn't working at all. That resistance was huge to stopping and staying stopped. It was beyond any other problem I'd experienced in life. It was, indeed, a true compulsion, an obsession of the mind.

Alcohol won. I was down for the count. And that scared me enough so that I knew, I needed help in a real way.

Unmanageable life didn't begin to describe my own real situation. Alcohol was calling the shots, and even I finally couldn't pretend otherwise. I arranged my day and my life around alcohol. It was in control......not me.

I am a strong-willed person, with a great many successful ventures in my life. But, I had to concede......I was beat. And had I not conceded this, I knew the way I was living would get only worse, not better.

I'm so very glad I finally conceded defeat by alcohol. Today, my life actually works. I am functioning again like the way I remembered years ago, with enthusiasm and lots of energy for ventures again. While drinking? Not a chance that would happen.

If you can simply quit and stay quit, my hat is off to you. I know only what I experience. I had to tap into a power greater than myself for this deal. And I was immediately relieved of the need to drink.

Interesting paradox. I concede defeat and immediately won back freedom of choice. Now, I work to keep that freedom.

It's a lot more precious than I ever realized. Alcoholism definitely taught me that one. I was so sure it was "me" who had succeeded on my own. Today I can laugh. Nonsense. I wanted to want to quit, and I used every single trick in my book that worked so well in the past. Against alcohol? I lost every time.

Good luck to you. My hat's off to you if you can do it alone!

stepping

I am understanding/working step one as we speak. I have been reading, praying, going to meetings etc. Something didn't make sense....
THANK YOU SO MUCH for this thread!
As of now I can say "done" because of this thread.
Thank you SR and OP, Romeo!

This is GREAT!


Sometimes I tend to make the most simple aspects confusing