Step One

“We admitted that we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable.”

Spiritual principle: Honesty

The most compelling truth of Step One is that I cannot find recovery from something I cannot acknowledge. I need to bring my powerlessness out from the murky damp depths of my shame-box and into the light of day. Truth, surrender, letting go. Yes, it can be frightening, but this fear is indicative of how healing this step is when taken honestly and thoroughly. 

To get on the path of recovery I needed to take Step One on my own; I didn’t understand this consciously at the time, but this meant that no matter how many times my girlfriend-at-the-moment told me I was a hopeless drunk (begging the question what she was doing with me in the first place) and no matter how many friends and family members expressed their concern regarding the relative shambles my life was in, I was the only one who could make the vital and humbling admission called for in this step. 

Through practice I eventually found out that I would get as much help as I ask for with the other eleven steps — from the fellowship of AA, a sponsor and honest sober friends — but this first step has to be taken solo. I do this by admitting — which is saying, believing and accepting the responsibility that comes with such an ego-deflating statement — that I am powerless over my alcoholism and that my life has become unmanageable.

The Big Book says our drinking was only a symbol of an underlying problem. The 12&12 tells us the root problem is self-centeredness and selfishness, but to an alcoholic on the cusp of recovery, such self-evident truths are not always so simple or apparent. An double-edged admission of both powerlessness and unmanageability is psychically excruciating — it goes against everything we have been telling ourselves over and over and over ad nauseum for years. The unmanageability is often self-evident; for many of us the bleak reality of a life in shambles and the mounting wreckage that is sharply evident in those vital moments of clarity can often pierce even the densest denial. But powerlessness? Do I truly understand what it means to be powerless in the face of alcohol? Because I need to understand, believe, and accept this stark fact with every faculty that is operating (and in early recovery sometimes this is not much). But if I want to stay sober and experientially understand the meaning of serenity, one thing is certain: I have to understand Step One at a cellular level. This means letting go of the rim of the toilet bowl I've been living in and allow myself to be flushed down, through the aperture of honesty, into the vast unknown. What makes this step so difficult and unapproachable for some is the ignorance of what comes after such an admission.

What does it mean to admit powerlessness, other than to admit that on my own, I am lost. Left to my own devices I have repeatedly proven to be hopeless in the face of alcohol. I lacked power, and because of this lack and my unwillingness or inability to accept it (through denial, rationalization and justification) for all the years of my drinking, I left a wide swath of damage in my wake. It’s clear to me now that I could not open myself up to the strength and beauty that is available to me, that lives in and through me, until I could admit that I was defeated and I needed help.

But that admission is just the beginning. The most effective way for me to understand step one was to burn my powerlessness and unmanageability into my consciousness. Because I had reached a place where I was willing to do whatever was suggested, when I was told to write down ten consequences of my drinking, I drafted an honest list of 10 examples of times that drinking alcohol impacted my emotional, mental, social, interpersonal, physical, medical, financial, legal and/or spiritual well-being. I was also asked to write down a list of 10 crazy things I had done, and the lengths I had gone to, for alcohol. Ten examples weren’t difficult to come by, so that list was rather quick. Then I shared these lists with somebody I trusted. It needed to be witnessed, a vital part of the spiritual nature of this program. 

Next I was told I had to learn deeply what tells me my life had become unmanageable. I needed to examine dangerous behaviours that I had engaged in through my abuse of alcohol, which included such things as driving drunk, having unprotected sex, and drinking to the point of alcohol poisoning on many occasions. After I came up with the most obvious examples on my own, I was encouraged to provide even subtler examples of how I had engaged in or experienced any of the following: lack of concentration while driving/working/child minding, seeking or abusing prescription medication, self-medicating, suicidal ideation, suicide attempts.

I was by now ready to admit my life was unmanageable, but apparently I wasn’t done learning about the extent of it, because next I had to survey the effects of my alcoholism on social life, specifically how it affected my relationships, my reputation, my popularity and my contact with friends, family and extended family. 

“Okay, I know I am powerless and my life is unmanageable,” I said. “Not yet,” I was told. For instance, what were the financial, legal, and workplace implications of my drinking behaviours? Have I incurred fines, legal expenses due to my alcoholism/addiction? Have there been effects to my overall personal economy? Has there been a cost to others, through stealing, borrowing, damage to property, or other injury? Have I become materialistic? Have I had issues with drug dealing, drunk driving, theft, fraud, assault, imprisonment or any other legal ramifications from my behaviour? How would others in my place of work describe me? How have I coped with responsibility, performance and reliability on the job?

After all this examination, I was feeling pretty beat. I was so clearly rudderless, so lost and out of control, that the desolate terrain of my own life started to seem oppressive. My powerlessness and unmanageability became an emergency. It was softening the soil of my own mental landscape to make way for the awareness of the spiritual ramifications of my alcoholism. I had to weigh my awareness, my peace of mind, and face the incessant feelings of guilt and shame. I saw how I couldn’t love or care for myself or others, I couldn’t trust myself or others, and I couldn’t value my life and set goals. I witnessed, with more shame, how I had become increasingly selfish and less caring. I was completely out of alignment with the most basic spiritual principles.

A thousand mile journey starts with the first step. We can't move forward without this step. The healing begins with this ego-deflating admission. Nobody can force me to take Step One. Nobody can stop me from taking Step One. This step requires an ongoing awareness. As the oldtimers say: nothing changes if nothing changes. My inability to manage my own life on my own resources, once clear, prepares me deeply for what comes next in Step Two.

An ongoing, daily awareness of Step One is required in my program.  If I meditate on it, I can feel my alcoholism physically residing within me; it's difficult to describe, like shadows lurking in my own cells. My alcoholism to me can be-—at times of low spiritual connection—a theoretical abstraction. But then I remember I knew at one time that my powerlessness and unmanageability were absolutely true, and with some work I can sense its absoluteness. Sometimes it is as if from a distance, an image I see when I look up from my busy day. 

Alternately, when I make even the smallest effort toward self-honesty and what I consider to be prayer, my alcoholism is a sharply defined physical and mental fact, an integral facet of my experience from one moment to the next. I remember that point of no return, the place where the world seemed to drop out from under my feet and alcohol could no longer help the feelings I needed to avoidwhere I stared at a bottle of wine I'd pulled from my knapsack and I was so bone tired I just wanted to flop on my cousin's couch and sleep forever; it was with a mixture of incredulity and horror and panic that I realized no matter how tired I was, I would not be going to bed until that wine was gone. I was alone and knew I didn't want to drink it, really, but that I would not be able to help myself. At that point, and when I think about that point, that's where all the other moments--of disappointing myself and others with broken promises and regret and wasted effort and good (but weak) intentions--that's where all the moments seem to gather. Yes. I am convinced I am powerless over alcohol today.

No, I do not have lingering doubts as to whether I am an alcoholic - today. Nor do I have any doubts about my powerlessness over alcohol. I know that one drink, even one sip, could lead me into oblivion, that all bets would be off, there would be no controlling or imagining what would come after, but I know that I would be getting my passport to the land of shame and remorse back very quickly.

I have proven to myself numerous times that I cannot manage my own life on my own resources; I am routinely — consciously or unconsciously — trying to manage all of my affairs, with my proverbial hands on all the levers: work, home, relationships, expectations. It's uncomfortable and exhausting, and when I lose my connection to this vital awareness of Step One, the wheels start coming off the cart pretty rapidly. Yet the converse is true, as well. When my life starts getting unmanageable again, I can always come back to the spiritual bedrock of Step One with an honest heart, and make a new beginning at this amazing spiritual program.