Your experience with Step 1 will be just that; your experience. As far as feeling something special, I think about all I can expect to feel from Step 1 is desolation and despair. I don’t recommend guys stay too long in that place, because it’s not a good place to get stuck. The only product of Step 1 is absolute and complete surrender. The whole point of Step 1 is to inevitably lead me to Step 2.
On the other hand, Step 1 is not to be glossed over. It was, and still remains, the absolute foundation of my recovery. All steps lead back to Step 1. That surrender is not a one time event, but a continuous state of mind. I’ve been sober for a while, and I’m just as powerless today as when I took my last drink.
I can look at my reaction to alcohol and know I can’t safely drink. Just like Bill W. did. That’s when his problems got worse, when he knew he couldn’t drink. It’s easy to look at the destruction in my wake; the DUIs and crashed cars, the divorce, the lost jobs, the sickness, the hatred in my heart, the warped lives of blameless children. But those are just consequences of my drinking. My real problem is, I can’t NOT drink. That’s where my life is unmanageable. It’s unmanageable because I’m powerless.
Step 1 for me was really knowing in my heart that I was f*cked. I knew that I could not stop drinking. I knew that my life would continue to get worse, and I couldn’t do anything about it. Despite all the efforts I made, and all the things I tried, with full knowledge of the consequences, I knew I was going to keep drinking. Hopeless, I had to give up. I surrendered. I could not go on living like that, and I was powerless to change it.
So if I’m screwed, and I can’t fight anymore, now what do I do? I’m stuck, and I can’t get out. I became willing to believe that something could get me out. And that launches me into Step 2.