Cats -
This is an awesome/great idea! It wasn't until I got into the steps that my recovery finally took off. I need to be working a step at all times and I'm looking forward to participating in this.
When I first did this step I only did the first part of it....I knew that I was powerless over people/places/things. Essentially, the words alcoholic/addict are symbolic about everything in life. The alcohol/drugs and the people that used them were just a symptom. The real thing that I am powerless over is life - and life on life's terms. After years of trying to manage that I could easily accept that I was powerless. For some reason, I "forgot" to read further and acknowledge how unmanageable my life was. I thought that I just tended towards excitement, adventure, "living out loud". etc. My sponsor guided me by asking "if you were on the outside looking in, what would you see that would help you to understand how unmangeable your life is?" Wow - that is when I first began to see it more clearly - the anxiety, unhealthy practices, serial relationships with unavailable (usually due to durgs/alcohol) men, unfullfilled potential, chaos, financial irresponsibility, depression, procrastination. Aack!!! All of it. Then I began to see how I was controlling, pleasing, tolerating, denying to manage how I "wanted" people and things to be.
Today, I still accept that I am powerless but I still see the undercurrent that believes otherwise. I have to be fearless when I look at myself because I am so quick to hide behind benevilency, kindness, warmth, and pleasing. Exploring my motives is imperative. I have to ask myself "what is it I am wanting here?" I really have to look and see if I have an agenda. If I do, I am not accepting my powerlessness. When I don't do that I start finagling in all kinds of crazy directions to make what I want happen. I want my fairy tale and I really do a lot of adjusting to try and make that true.
I start over on this step all of the time. It is the foundation of it all. Begin at the beginning as they say. I finally learned that if I am having trouble with a step to return to the one below it.....that always leads me right back here...to the beginning, to step one....the one where I admit that I am powerless and even more importantly for myself - where I admit and begin to look at how unmanageable my life is.
Once I realized that I had so much to work on it really helped to take my focus off of other people. I figured that I could work on other people ONLY if my side of the street was clean. Yeah right - that is never going to happen so the world is safe from that idea (as long as I remember that!).
That's all I've got. Thanks for reading - Donna