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Step One of the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous
“We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.”
This week, we will continue our First Step Work by applying rigorous honesty to the consequences of our using and self-destructive behaviors. The complete instructions for this exercise can be found here. Keep in mind that this exercise has a two hour time limit.
Be prepared to discuss your stepwork with your reading assignment and practice exercises completed at our next Step Workshop meeting.
This week we will listen to following the Speakers Tapes:
AA: Theresa F. on Step 1 in 12 Step Series
Alanon: Mary Pearl 3rd tape in 12 Step Series
AA: Frank M. 3rd tape in 12 Step Series
You might want to hold off on doing your Practice Exercises until you’ve had a chance to listen to the Speaker Tapes. Listening to the speaker tapes first might help you with definitions and in answering your questions. You can always download the speaker tapes to ipods, cd’s, etc., so you can listen to them while you’re traveling, doing housework, working out or whatever.
The 12 Stepworkshop Groups began on January 9, 2011. To start at the beginning of this Stepworkshop series, please go here.
To do ALL the assignments and exercises with complete instructions, you must register and attend our online Stepworkshop. Go here to register.
Everyone from the recovery community is welcome to share their thoughts on the speaker tapes or with working the 12 Steps. Please share your experience, strength and hope with us in the Comments Section below. In accordance with our Traditions, your email address and will not be made public.
Lest we forget:
*Honesty is the spiritual principle we practice in Step One.
**Honesty is the ability to be honest with yourself.
***Perk your ears up and listen closely to First Step concepts and key words during discussions meetings.
****At meetings, share about your experience with the First Step and its core principle honesty.
Simple tags: 12 steps online, 1st step speakers, first step study, Theresa F. AA speaker, Mary Pearl Alanon, Frank AA speaker
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Writing this list it has become clear how being powerless affected not only my life but all my loved ones also. I lost so much due to the nature of my addiction. Lost relationships with friends, family, girlfriends. My career never really started due to being in the grips very early on in life. As a result i was never able to achieve my true potential and due to this I was unreliable regarding work and was always trying to play catch up and not doing the job i was capable of doing. I became unemployable and this illness took everything from me. I ended up in treatment centres, hospitals, police stations, courts for drink/drug related offences. My physical health suffered and I caught various different diseases from hepatitis, pneumonia, malnutrition etc.
Over the course of my decline I could see and feel my spirit fading slowly. My self-worth, respect declined and in the end i had given up all hope of ever overcoming my addiction, My self-respect had been taken from me and i lived to use whatever i could to escape the pain of my reality. I had become a shell of a man and never want to forget where this illness takes me if I am not willing to go to any lengths to recover.
Admittance means to me that I need to get honest and agree to the fact that I am powerless which means without strength or ability. Lack of power. To concede, to know that deep within my soul i am powerless.
I did not lose many tangible things when I was drinking. I did create problems at work which I am still dealing with after a long period of time and now hold many resentments towards. Thank goodness that is another step. My children suffered. Not so much that they saw me in a drunken stupor but because my drinking did not allow much time for a social life for them. My husband has been extremely supportive and we are able to build, have and hold on to a beautiful relationship. My intangible losses are great. I have lost my self-worth, my-self respect. My ego has taken a drastic blow. I was angry, lonely and tired every day (once again not asking for help or allowing anyone to help me). There was restlessness and discontent in my live. I have a great deal of self pity and fear. I have great fear and anxiety now of the real world. I lived in a bubble for so many years that I now have to figure a way to get out of. I may have had these fears and anxiety that I drank to overcome but now I am faced with dealing with them sober.
My brother committed suicide 20 some odd years ago. He was an addict and was at the beginning of sobriety. I used to think that the reason for him taking his life was that he was when he was using, that he lived with rose colored glasses on, now I can relate to the feelings and loses that he was suffering from. What a shame that I did not know then what I do now.
I was broken spiritually and mentally and if I would have kept on, probably physically. When I was in rehab, they told me that I had a disease of feelings, and I thought, what the, how do I get a disease of feelings when I hate expressing my feelings. Anger is something that I have no clue how to deal with. I don’t go into fits of rage and have not lashed out, I internalize it, keep it to myself and then usually drink over it. I usually give the silent treatment, and no one usually knows when I am doing it but it then festers inside me, I don’t deal with it, which of course just gives my disease a great ammunition for later use as I can turn it into some great stinky thinking…
tyflms
I wasn’t able to be at the Exercise 3 meeting, so I’ll post my share here. I remember defining powerless years ago and discovering that it meant that not only can’t I change someone/something but that power was defined as “authority”. That hit me square between the eyes. Wow, not only could I not change others, but it wasn’t my job! It was the first time that I honestly began to start turning over my problems, worries and my loved ones to my Higher Power. “Admitting” meant to let something in, and to me it was about letting the truth of my life in. My sponsor would say that with God all things are possible. Slowly my denial started to crack and it’s been a process ever since of seeing how I participate in my own insanity and letting God help me with it.
By writing the list of intangible and tangible consequences of my self-destructive behavior I had to think about what some of my self-destructive behaviors are. I saw that there are still plenty of things I do that result in feelings of anxiety, sadness, loneliness, and self-loathing. Some of my behaviors include, spending too much money, eating badly or over-eating, not being present, lashing out in anger or judgement, just to name a few. Before writing this list I hadn’t consciously seen how I’m still acting out my feelings in these ways and how they impact my serenity. I’m glad for any opportunity that forces me to look at myself more deeply. Knowing the root causes of my problems at least gives me the choice of whether to deal with them or not. But if I don’t know what they are, I walk around in a miserable clueless haze.
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