The POWER of the 1st paragraph of Step 1

[1_day@_a_time]

Who cares to admit complete defeat?

Practically no one, of course.

Every natural instinct cries out against the idea of personal powerlessness.

It is truly awful to admit that glass in hand, I have warped my mind into such an obsession for destructive drinking/thinking that only an act of Providence can remove it from me.

What has helped me greatly is to look for the spiritual principles in recovery.

My experience has been, to learn APPLICATION OF THESE PRINCIPLES in the moment I'm in.

BTW, what unmanageable means to me: MY THOUGHT LIFE, SOBER.

[1_day@_a_time]

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[Justforthem]

This is kinda of a light bulb that came on in my mind was that alcohol had beaten me. I then sat there and sank into place as to why it had taken me ages to admit the defeat. It came apparent that I didnt like to be beaten by something.

[nelco]

I didnt like to be beaten by something

Nor me ,but I had to surrender to win this battle.

[SurviveIt]

I admit that I'm whipped. I need help. I need to stop drinking and work on the personal issues that drive me to drink.

Falling on my knees and asking for help from a God I don't believe in is the part that's tripping me up.

[keithj]

SurviveIt,

You don't have to believe everything all at once or before you start working an AA program. What you believe at the beginning is irrelavent. If you are convinced that you are beaten, you are ready to start. The whole purpose of that Big Book is to enable you to find a power greater than yourself which will solve your problem. I was a life-long atheist who recovered from alcoholism by taking the 12 steps.

[sugErspun]

Step one does not require one believe anything. Step one is experiencing and realizing powerlessness and unmanageability.

Can you control how much you drink once you start ~ all the time?
Can you stay stopped by just choosing to do so?

I describe my step one, which came around 20-40 days sober as: "I don't want to drink again, I know what will happen if I do...but I also know that I am going to." It has nothing to do with belief or non-belief in God.

Keith shares above that he was an atheist and recovered. I absolutely believe him. Having casted all ideas of what God is, was, should be, is supposed to be, will be...and starting with the willingness to do whatever it takes to recover (this willingness was born in the first step)...left me open to tap into power that I could not muster myself.

Don't worry about the God thing, in fact ~ I think a non-belief is a good place to start as your conception will grow.

[keithj]

Originally Posted by sugErspun

I describe my step one, which came around 20-40 days sober as: "I don't want to drink again, I know what will happen if I do...but I also know that I am going to."

This is almost exactly how I describe my step one experience. I didn't know it at the time, but that was step one for me. I had full knowledge of the consequences that awaited me if I continued to drink. And I absolutely knew without a doubt that I was going to drink.

[stone]

Originally Posted by SurviveIt

I admit that I'm whipped. I need help. I need to stop drinking and work on the personal issues that drive me to drink.

Falling on my knees and asking for help from a God I don't believe in is the part that's tripping me up.

Many people describe AA itself as their HP, when they went to a meeting and saw the people there who were sober they opened up to the possibility they could do it too, with help.

There are many atheists in AA who work the program fine from what I have seen.

What is crucial for me is to remove the focus from myself, my ego, my self-obsession.

Originally Posted by nelco

Nor me ,but I had to surrender to win this battle.

Surrender is so important, it means we become willing to do whatever is needed, it also means the delusion that we can be like normal people is in the process of being smashed.

I have thought I have surrendered many times only to find I was still in delusion...I hope it is real this time...whilst I am hoping, I am also putting the effort in like never before. Meetings and trying to live the Program.

[stone]

Originally Posted by keithj

I was a life-long atheist who recovered from alcoholism by taking the 12 steps.

Hi Keith, I notice you say, "was a life-long atheist" has that changed now?

Also, can I ask if you would share a little of how you worked the steps as an atheist please?

[keithj]

Originally Posted by stone

Hi Keith, I notice you say, "was a life-long atheist" has that changed now?

Yes, that has changed. I came to believe. I'm not sure what I believe in, but today I have absolute trust in a higher power that works in my life.

Originally Posted by stone

Also, can I ask if you would share a little of how you worked the steps as an atheist please?

Wow, that's a tough one. It's either really complicated or really, really simple. I just took the steps. Nothing special. As I look back on it, I really took steps 1 and 2 before coming back to the rooms of AA. I still did footwork with a sponsor (Akron method) studying the book, but I came to that sponsor knowing that I was absolutely f**ked and that God was the answer. I don't know where that idea came from. I think it came from knowing that I was never going to get better, but still having hope that I would.

So I asked that everything I thought I knew be put aside (set aside prayer), all my prejudices (one really, that god didn't exist), and not worry about it too much. When I said the 3rd step prayer on my knees with a sponsor, I felt absolutely nothing. In the following weeks I said that prayer many times every day while working on my 4th step. I prayed to something I didn't believe in at the time and just kept working at it.

And on and on. At some point, and it really wasn't a point, but a slow gradual awakening, I found that I was unable to convince myself that there wasn't a higher power working in my life. I don't know exactly how that transition occurred stone.

The bottom line was that I just followed the directions in the book as best I could. I prayed where it said pray, I wrote where it said write, I honestly answered the questions that were asked. And today I trust and rely on that higher power with absolute faith. Sounds too simple, but there it is.

[stone]

Thanks Keith.

I don't know what will happen with me, I already have an HP I can tap into (the beginnings of it anyway) but still struggle with the G word. I have been through the book with my sponsor but went out 6 months later and have been having months and two months sober since...then I decided as I wasn't fully committed I would drop AA completely and see how it went. I was sober 2 months and drank again, to cut a long story short I came back to AA 2 weeks ago.

Now I am "just doing it" (a bit like you say you did), I feel that this time maybe I have surrendered, I hope so.

Thanks again.

[keithj]

The word God freaked me out for a while too. I started using the word God when I felt God. When I couldn't get a grip on this overwhelming feeling.

Best of luck to you stone. Faith is something that grows. And I loved what you had to say about surrender. It was in knowing that I was forsaken, I was hopeless, I would never recover, that there was either god or there was obliteration for me, that I found recovery.

[1_day@_a_time]

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[1_day@_a_time]

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[freya]

Yeah, I had a really hard time with the HP/God thing, too. But, for me, willingness to try it proved to be enough. I just did things that were clearly working for other people and tried to "act as if," and, somehow, without my even noticing exactly when and how, it worked.

But, here's the best thing I've ever heard related to this. I thought it was so profound that I went home immediately after the meeting and wrote it down word-for-word in my BB as closely as I could remember it:

At Step 2, I tell my guys (sopnsees): "You don't gotta believe in God -- but you gotta believe you ain't God --- and you gotta get down on your knees every morning and pray. I don't care what you say. You can say: "I don't believe in you, but my sponsor's makin' me do this...and, just in case, if there's anyone or anything out there listening to this and it can do anything to help me stay sober today, that'd be great."

And that's somethin' they can do, and that's fine, cuz, ya know, my HP's big enough to handle being talked to that way.

And then I tell 'em, after they've been doin' that a few weeks: "I want you to start really watchin' for "coincidences" in your life....just pay attention and keep a list and let me know what you see."

And pretty soon, they start seeing all these "coincidences" and gettin' psyched about that, and after awhile they're gettin' really into all these things they see in their lives, and then I tell 'em: "Ya know, there really are are no coincidences -- everything coincides."

And then, of course, after some more coincidences and some more time, they start to get on this kick like they're all that and the world is revolving around them, and that's when they're ready for me to lay the truth on 'em:

"Yeah. It's awesome isn't it? Life does revolve around you. It revolves around each of us -- it revolves around each of us individually. That's how great God IS."

freya

[keithj]

Originally Posted by freya

--- and you gotta get down on your knees every morning and pray.

This reminds me of a story a friend of mine shares. He came into AA much the same as me, with the lifelong view that belief in a higher power was a nice delusion for weak minded sheep.

Sponsor: "S, now you need to start praying."
S: "Yeah, but I don't know how to pray."
Sponsor: "I don't care. Pray anyway."
S: "Yeah, but I feel silly. I'm uncomfortable with it."
Sponsor: "I don't care. Pray anyway."

This story cracks me up everytime I hear it. Just the way the guy tells it. S recovered, and much like myself, has a strong faith in a higher power today.

[adiktinrecovry]

I was agnostic when I came to AA. I had no idea AA existed. I hated the God I knew growing up and could not surrender my life to such a being. I read the chapter to the agnostics with my sponsor and had major problems retaining the information written there because I was so brain damaged from alcoholism. She told me what the book said. That I did not have to have a God to get this as a matter of fact I didn't have to have any beliefs at all. The only thing I had to know for certain was that I could not drink. I knew I couldn't because I had literally died from drinking and there was a fate worse than death waiting for me and I did not want to know what that was. I knew what it was like to be a walking corpse and I knew without a doubt I could not go back to that way of life. Something had to change and I had to be a part of it. Surrendering to win is a nice way to put it. The way it felt for me was death would not end the pain because alcohol had ceased to be an effective pain killer a long time before I hit the bottom of the bottle and life itself. The only way left to go was to something I did not understand and subject myself to doing something I had no idea would work. I did so with desperation. Later on she told me that the 1st step was the only one I had to do perfectly, the rest of them could be done with my best efforts. So I went with it. It worked and it's still working years later. I don't profess to have a deep belief in God. I know what I feel working just as was mentioned above in other posts from these fellows in AA, a force that did things for me when I could not plan them out myself. I had to let go or something bad really really bad was going to happen and I wanted to go on living. It was not set in my heart it was a fleeting thought that happened much like a resentment. It came and it left me as quickly. So, I did it without a faith in anything at that point other than my craftsman wrench which was my higher power. It had a lifetime warranty and could do things I could not do. I had another friend who spoke of a woman who prayed to a door knob. Good on her because I didn't even pray to my wrench I just stared at it a lot and wondered why it could do the things I could not do. Step 3 was where I felt something enter my life I had never let in before. although it was familiar I Had no idea it could come to me and help me. I don't call my HP Godde when I am alone anymore. I call that Hp by the words my ancestors used and as I grow in this way of life I understand more each day. I was beaten and I needed an alli who could win the fight for me. Step one was not where I found my HP. So it can be done. I just went with it because what I was doing definitely wasn't working and I had definitive proof it was not and would never work.