nandm

When we deny our powerlessness over alcohol our lives become unmanageable. Our lives may be unmanageable in a few areas or in many areas. They may be slightly unmanageable in some areas and totally unmanageable in others. But they will be unmanageable. Unmanageability caused by addiction take many forms. It can include physical, spiritual, and mental problems; financial and legal problems; family and social problems. The problems may have been obvious to others or known only to us, but they were in one form or another.

The longer I am in recovery, the more I realize how unmanageable my life had become. By accepting my powerlessness and unmanageability, I accept that I can not recover alone. I need help. That help, the Big Book tells me in the Second Step, will come from a Power greater than myself. My unmanageability lays the basis of my willingness to open and keep myself open to a Power greater than myself and to recovery.

Use of the plural pronoun in the First Step, "We admitted," emphasizes that we are not alone and that we do not work our recovery program alone. AA is a "we" program. "I get drunk; we stay sober: is an old AA saying. The "we" includes us, other program members, and our Higher Power. The first word in the First Step makes that point clear.

Boleo

There is more to step one than just the alcohol issues. There were other things in my life that were unmanageable;

"We were having trouble with personal relationships, we couldn't control our emotional natures, we were a prey to misery and depression, we couldn't make a living, we had a feeling of uselessness, we were full of fear, we were unhappy, we couldn't seem to be of real help to other people" (page 52)

- All quotes from Alcoholics Anonymous 1st Edition -