Highlights 12 Steps Step 1
Alcoholics Anonymous Step 1
Our focus in January is on Step 1.
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
The instructions for taking Step 1 are found in the chapter More about Alcoholism, Page 30, Sentences 7-9:
“30:7We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. 8This is the first step in recovery. 9The delusion that we were like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed.”
Click on the blue Read More arrow below to read our commentary on these instructions.
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
In Bill’s Story, Page 8, Sentences 7-11, Bill W. describes the seemingly hopeless state of mind and body in which he found himself bringing him to admit his powerlessness over alcohol:
7No words can tell of the loneliness and despair I found in that bitter morass of self-pity. 8Quicksand stretched around me in all directions. 9I had met my match. 10I had been overwhelmed. 11Alcohol was my master.
Our commentary on these passages follows:
Alcoholics Anonymous Step 1.
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
In The Doctor’s Opinion, Page xxviii, Sentences 1-2, Doctor William Silkworth. describes the physical reaction of alcoholics to alcohol. This description is included to help people determine if they are, in fact, alcoholic.
xxviii:1We believe, and so suggested a few years ago, that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy; that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. 2These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all; and once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it, once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve.
Our commentary on this passage follows:
Alcoholics Anonymous Step 1.
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
In There is a Solution, Page 22, Sentences 16 - 23:1, The physical component of alcoholism is further described. This reinforces The Doctor's Opinion that once a person enters into alcoholism they can never return to normal drinking. This purpose of this paragraph is to help people determine if they are, in fact, alcoholic.
22:16We know that while the alcoholic keeps away from drink as he may do for months or years, he reacts much like other men. 22:17We are equally positive that once he takes any alcohol whatever into his system, something happens, both in the bodily and mental sense, which makes, it virtually impossible for him to stop. 23:1The experience of any alcoholic will abundantly confirm that.
Our commentary on this passage follows:
Alcoholics Anonymous Step One:
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
In The Doctor’s Opinion a crucial indicator of the powerlessness of the alcoholic over alcohol is attributed to a particular physical sensitivity to alcohol – an allergy if you will. This allergy causes a craving for alcohol. In the following passage the Doctor describes what happens when someone with this sensitivity exposes themselves to alcohol.
xxix:1After (an alcoholic has) succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. 2This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.
Our commentary on this passage follows:
