High Bottoms and Step 1 are a difficult combination. Admitting to our innermost self that we are alcoholic, powerless over alcohol, is tough enough, but it's harder still when we still have family, home, job, car, health... Non-alcoholics don't have to do that dance. They just stop drinking when they lose, or almost, lose their job, family, etc... Done...
This is why, I think, that it is so very important to be rigorously honest with ourselves. This alcoholism thing is not quantitative... not how much we drink or how much we've lost... but qualitative... why do we drink, what happens when we do, and perhaps, more importantly... what happens when we don't.... Are words like obsession and compulsion appropriate in discussing our relationship to alcohol?
My own experience, a workplace intervention... I still have the job and all the rest. I am a very blessed man... Willingness to not drink was external, at first... The need for serenity and happiness was, however, very much felt within. So, that's where the motivation comes from to work a rigorously honest program. If I can't successfully complete a meaningful step one, then the rest of the program (the steps) is just so much BS and without a meaningful step one I would be in dry alcoholic hell....
That dry alcoholic hell is perhaps why some relapse. It may be why some will tell you to keep drinking until you hit bottom. But it can also be the motivation, the stick, to do that dance with step one and be honest with yourself when you do.... The carrot... Happy, joyous and free... The promises of AA... they are there for you no matter how high or low your bottom.
Keep coming back.