DisplacedGRITS

So i'm chairing a First Step meetings on Monday nights and I had a pretty big revelation last night. My first time in the program, I raced through the step. Of course my life was unmanageable! It was falling to pieces all around me. Of course I was powerless over alcohol. I mean, i'm at AA so what else can it be? I figured that was all the First Step I needed. I was wrong. I got to thinking about it last night and it hit me. I wasn't done with the First Step. I'm still powerless over alcohol and my life is STILL unmanageable! But why? I'm not drinking and my life is going kinda well. I feel like I have some control. Isn't that great? Well, it is but it isn't.

I've started to fool myself again. Just because i'm sober right now doesn't mean that I now have any more control over my drinking. Than I used to. I understand now that the only control I have, the only power I have, is to not pick up that first drink. To me, that doesn't seem like a lot of control. But it's so true. I know that the first drink will eventually lead to others and that if I invite alcohol into my life it will run me over again.

My life is still unmanageable. Well, my life is unmanageable by ME! I get crazy ideas. I try to hammer square pegs into round holes. I try to impress my will on my life and the lives around me and when things don't go my way, I get mad. I get restless, irritable and discontent. I try to be the star, director, lighting and sound person. I can't handle it, I can't manage it. So I start feeling like I need a break. All of my problems are dropped in my lap and I don't know how to fix them. I start feeling that old pull again. A drink would settle me down and give me a rest, I think.

So my life is unmanageable by myself. My only option is to reach out for help. Hire others to take care of all the behind the scene issues and just concentrate on the basics and being the star of my life. I am not Super Woman. I don't have all the answers but if I seek out my Higher Power, who often speaks to me through other people, I will get the insight and direction that I can't manifest through my own thinking.

Step One is a step. When you take it, it doesn't disappear. It stays there to help ground you for the rest of the Steps in your life. It's always there for you to revisit. It's a constant in your life. Step One starts your brain and soul moving to a new path. So is it an easy step? Perhaps for some but I think many people gloss over the gravity of that step. But without understanding it, can we truly say that we've done it? I'm on my Fourth Step right now but i'm so happy to have revisited my First Step. My life depends on this so i'm going to give it my all.

Gottalife

If only that were true for me, I wouldn't need AA. It's one of those myths, not found in the Big book. The fact of that matter is that I have lost the power of choice in drink. At certain times I have no effective mental defense against the first drink. So often I have found that it was not until the fifth drink that I remembered I wasn't supposed to take the first one. That's powerless.

The other aspect of the first step that is often missed "the delusion that we are like other people or presently may be, has to be smashed" means that if I harbour the idea that at some future time I may be able to drink normally, then I also have a great reason for not going to any lengths - I won't be here that long anyway kinda thinking.

"Lack of power, that was our dilemna... how were we to find this power? Well that's exactly what this book (program) is about. Its main object is to help you find a Power greater than your self which will solve your problem"

DG it's great to hear you are making wonderful progress.

DisplacedGRITS

I get your point about being powerless against that first drink. If I start lapsing in my AA practices, I lose that power. It's like honing a knife. If I want to stay sharp, I must keep up these exercises that help me stay sober. Once I quit doing that, I get dull and I get weak.

DAB

This is awesome! Can I use this the next time I have to speak at my meeting?

hypochondriac

Glad to hear you're doing well DG x

tomsteve

I mentioned something at a meeting:
"the 1st steps says:
admitted we were powerless over alcohol...

so, were is past tense, but I don't see how i can be in the "were" category. i still am!"
a man i truly respect as he truly practices the principles in all his affairs outside of the meetings, came up to me after the meeting:
"good observation, but don't complictate it. this is how i see it: read further along. it says,"but theres one who has all power" so with that one with all power, i am not powerless, but it is only the 1st drink i have power over. after that the disease kicks in and i have absolutely no power."
he would always start with,'im _______ alcoholic. greatful for the program and the choices it gives me, the greatest being whether or not i take that next drink. its the only one i have a choice over, then the disease kicks in and its a disease that tells me i don't have a disease, keep on drinkin."