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ОглавлениеOn the First Step
November 1944
The first of the 12 Steps in the creed or philosophy of Alcoholics Anonymous is, “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.” By such an admission any alcoholic, provided he is sincere, has achieved his first success on the road to well-being.
Such an admission is usually very difficult for the alcoholic to make. The very nature of his disease makes him shun the knowledge of his inability to cope with the problems of everyday life. Hence his desire for something that will rapidly create whatever he thinks he lacks as an individual. With a few drinks under his belt he can fashion the most wonderful dreams about himself. These dreams can become his real characteristics—but only when he recognizes that he must dominate alcohol rather than have alcohol dominate him.
The sincerity with which the newcomer takes the First Step is the gauge by which his recovery through AA can be measured.
Over the years the alcoholic develops a three-dimensional ability at picture building, which is a kind way of saying that alcoholics are adept liars. So that by really taking the First Step—admitting freely and without reservation that he is an alcoholic—a person starts to build a new pattern of thought. The whole, at last, is fabricated from truth rather than wishful thinking or fantasy.
John B.
New York, New York
I Had Lost the War!
November 1952
It didn't take me five minutes to admit that I am an alcoholic. It's true that I had always rationalized that I had lost a battle, when in reality I had lost the whole war. Yes, at long last I surrendered unconditionally.
A while ago a speaker said that it was no use admitting that one was an alcoholic unless the admittance was accompanied by a realization of what being an alcoholic really meant. The next time I heard the speaker he persuaded me that I wasn't finished with the First Step yet. He said there was no use my making the admission even in the full realization of what it meant, unless I accepted the fact that I was an alcoholic without resentment. That took a little longer; but finally, after having the resentment removed I thought I could honestly say I had fulfilled the three conditions he laid down. Admission, realization, acceptance. From now on, all I had to do was to take this Step each day, and then devote my thoughts to the other 11. All sweet naiveté! To think that a mind soaked with alcohol would so easily change its habits of thinking and rationalization. John Barleycorn dropped the direct attacks like an experienced campaigner and started a flanking attack coupled with some smooth fifth-column work.
I began to read some other works on alcoholism as well as the Big Book. A natural interest, you might say, for an alcoholic. In all sincerity some of these books as well as seeking a “cure” were also hoping to learn something about “prevention.” I began to ask myself—How and when did I become an alcoholic? Did I become an uncontrolled drinker five years ago? Or was it ten? Could I have been born with alcoholic tendencies? These and many more questions surged through my mind.
The same speaker now told me that there was no use in my wondering why or when I became an alcoholic for the very simple reason that it wouldn't change my condition; even if I did find the answer, I would still be an alcoholic.
The clergy, the scientists, the medical profession, the social workers, all have good and legitimate reasons for seeking the answer to “how and when,” but do I? The Twelve Steps told me “to try to carry the message.” They didn't mention my becoming an expert on alcoholism, its prevention and cure. Actually do I really care about the future generations? Perhaps I should, but truthfully, my charity hasn't developed to that extent yet.
Why then, was I concerned with how or when I became an alcoholic? I know now. Subconsciously or otherwise, I was making a last desperate attempt to get out from under. Somebody else, or something else was going to accept the responsibility for my plight. My fault? Perish the thought. Wasn't it enough that I admitted my condition, realized what it meant, and accepted the fact without resentment? Did I have to accept the blame too?
Apparently I had. Funny thing—it doesn't seem to matter much to me now, “how or when.” My interest in future generations is confined to wishing well to those who legitimately seek the answers. I still have too many “selfish” things to look after before I can become “unselfish” enough for that.
Anonymous
Toronto, Ontario
I Was Just Run-of-the-Mill
March 1953
To all outward appearances, many things and circumstances in my life are much the same as they were three years ago: same husband, same house, same economic standard, same community interests. But to me and to my close family and friends who are observing, these things and I are greatly changed. These changes have come about since my faltering and almost disinterested approach to AA.
I did not think myself alcoholic, and if I had, probably would have tried to conceal it, had I not learned that alcoholism is a disease no more to be ashamed of than diabetes or tuberculosis.
My symptoms were similar to those of many others, no very exclusive ones peculiar to my very special case. For some time I was aware of the fact that I could not depend on me especially after that first drink. My former enthusiastic interest in my home, the appreciation of the beautiful rural surroundings in which I live, the enjoyment in my dogs, my music, my interest in the several community projects in which I worked was waning and in some instances had disappeared. Worst of all, my attitude toward my fine husband was changing to the point where my love for him was rather vague and detached. Sometimes I wondered what was happening and became thoroughly miserable over it but I always found that a cocktail or two magically changed the complexion of things, temporarily at least, and it was always tomorrow that I would face reality. Aside from one incident, there was nothing to indicate to the casual observer what was slowly and insidiously eating at my very soul.
Like many others in AA to whom I have talked, it was easy to admit that my life was unmanageable but not that I was powerless over alcohol, the latter for several reasons. I did not drink in great quantities. Sometimes, because it was not convenient, I would not have anything for as long as six months. I had never promised myself nor anyone else that I would not drink again. The only person who had suggested it was my husband and I could see no reason for it. However, after being informed on alcoholism, the first part of the First Step was relatively easy for me.
To receive this education on alcoholism, I spent every day for two weeks from noon until midnight in one of the AA clubs of a neighboring city, where I talked to men and women of all ages and wide experience every night. I went there with the idea of looking over the situation and deciding whether I would be interested in the program or would condescend to associate with any of the adherents. What a revelation to my ears and eyes awaited me!
I was just run-of-the-mill.
Those people were all sober and they were all happier than I had been for at least five years. Toward the end of the two weeks, I had learned that I was an alcoholic, that my case was just run-of-the-mill. I was not special at all. I had also learned that if I continued to drink, it was not impossible, indeed it was highly probable, that my material circumstances would change for the worse, my health would decline and my mind become more befuddled and foggy … all these if something worse did not get me first! But I also learned that my disease could be arrested, if I would accept the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous as a way of life, and best of all I would be happy again, would feel love in my heart, would enjoy God's beauties and would be anxious to give of myself in service to others. I learned I must not only accept the Twelve Steps but must work each one as written, in the order named, each day that it is my privilege to greet; and from that time on, my life should be made up of twenty-four-hour periods.
The simplicity of the whole thing appealed to me. What a relief to “turn everything over" after the highly complicated design I had for living! Now that the days have lengthened into a few years, my husband is beloved and cherished, the house has become a home again and some of the community projects have progressed because of my willing service. Best of all, there have been invisible changes in me and each day my heart sings as I try to do His will for me. All this did not happen overnight. It required diligent working of the Twelve Steps and application of the principles, and the task is far from accomplishment, but the dividends are growing.
Even though I am the granddaughter of a clergyman, the daughter of a clergyman, the niece of four clergymen, and the cousin of three clergymen, God had never been real to me and it certainly had never occurred to me to get him mixed up in my problems. Strange that I should find my God in a group of recovered alcoholics, yet it is the most magnificent and humbling experience I have ever known.
G.R.P.
Richmond, Indiana
Beyond Step One
July 1957
It has been my contention for some time that AA is not merely a fellowship of ex-drunks gathered together for the purpose of staying sober. It is a program for better living, in which the gaining and maintaining of sobriety is merely the first step—to alcoholics a “must” and all-important one.
The AA program centers on better living rather than sobriety. In the Twelve Steps the words alcohol and alcoholics are each mentioned only once. I think it is logical to assume that they are used in Steps One and Twelve simply because we are a Fellowship of alcoholics and sobriety is our first problem, not our last; nor can they all be solved by sobriety alone.
The other ten Steps do not refer to drinking but dwell on improving our way of living. I will concede that these other ten Steps would help a person stay sober if he saw fit to use them for that purpose and they are no doubt an indirect asset to sobriety; but they are a direct benefit to a better way of life.
The “Definition of AA,” as many have seen fit to call it, is for me a complete explanation of AA.
The last sentence in the so-called “Definition” says: “Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.” It does not say “Our purpose”—it says “Our primary purpose.” In other words, not the whole purpose but the first.
First of what? My answer is—the first of a series of things we must do if we want a better way of life.
R.B.
Addison, New York
Slow Learner
March 1962
Stupidly, my great downfall—after nearly two sober years in AA—came about because of a misconception of the First Step.
In 1945 I had suffered very little from my chronic alcoholism. Sheer luck had saved me from jails, and a loving and patient family spared me from many humiliations which I richly deserved. I had lost several jobs, but each time moved on to better ones.
Early in 1945 when I had just lost a particularly good job with a rosy future because of a month-long binge, I came to AA. In meeting after meeting I heard fellow members tell of gruesome experiences in jails and “booby-hatches”—of wrecked homes, destitution and skid row, and each time they prefaced their remarks by saying, “My name is Joe, and I'm an alcoholic.”
Because of staying sober in AA for a while, I prospered in business. And the more I prospered the more I wondered about my experience as compared to my fellow members who kept saying they were “alcoholics” and had been so much worse off than I had been.
At the same time I heard it frequently said that “in the First Step we admitted we were alcoholics.” And I began to wonder whether, by comparison, I was really an alcoholic, or had just been using a wrong mental attitude in my drinking. In other words, I was doing a lot of silly rationalizing and dwelling on the comparison of myself and fellow members.
Naturally this led to a “blow-off” in less than two years, and I reverted to drinking, but with increased consumption. My whole object for the ensuing six years was to escape from myself—to bury my shame—as I felt I had failed in AA as I had failed my family, my employers and my Higher Power.
During this six-year interval I lost everything I possessed, not only all worldly possessions, but family, friends and respect in my field of work. I went heavily into debt, well into the five-figure bracket.
Early in 1953 I had reached a low “bottom,” and crawled back to AA. This time I read the First Step with definite understanding for the first time. I observed that it said, “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol”—nary a word about being “an alcoholic”! I was not sensitive then—or before—about the word, but before my interest had been in whether I qualified as “an alcoholic” as I heard it referred to in meetings.
Now I suddenly realized that all I had to do was ask myself a simple question: “Am I or am I not powerless over alcohol?” I didn't have to compare myself or my experiences with anyone, just answer a simple question. In 1945 I had had ample evidence in twenty-four years of irrational or “alcoholic” drinking to prove I was “powerless over alcohol.” But, I had wasted valuable time wondering whether a certain adjective applied to me.
In 1953, having lived through all of the things I had heard related in closed meetings, and having been beaten right down to the gutter, nothing mattered to me but the hope of sobriety, which I wanted more than anything on earth. In fact, at this point I had to have sobriety to live. A few months before, in a large hospital to which I had been admitted suffering from chronic and acute alcoholism and a liver enlargement more severe than had ever been seen in that hospital, I was given just two weeks to live.
God must have had other plans for me, as I pulled through to come back to AA, free from worry over definitions, and dedicated to helping new members who haven't been hurt too badly. I want them and their families to be spared all of the suffering that will come if they revert to drinking as I did. I will urge them to read the First Step literally, and ask themselves the simple question contained therein—Are you or are you not “powerless over alcohol?”
J.L.S.
Miami, Florida
I Was My Problem
August 1966
There has never been any doubt in my mind that I am an alcoholic since I found out about alcoholism. I think I could best describe myself in the early years by looking at the First Step and just taking the last half of it. I think that from the time I was born my life was unmanageable. I didn't know why and I didn't know that it was. I had a problem from the very beginning and the problem was myself. And that's the reason I think this program works for us, because it helps to remove “I”—I was my problem—and the practice of the AA program helps me to change myself so that I am no longer a difficulty to myself.
When I first came to AA I was told that I should not bother to try and find out why I became an alcoholic, but rather I should accept my alcoholism as a fact and begin to do something about it. I was terrified of what I was going to find in AA but when I got here I "came home.” When I walked into AA I felt that feeling of friendship and fellowship and warmth and all the things that we come to know as part of an AA group. I sort of fell in love with AA right from the very beginning and I have felt that way about it ever since.
E.M.
Wellington, New Zealand
100 Percent
August 1988
I have wanted to take the First Step for almost two years now. In Step meetings some of you said that the First Step was the only one which could be taken 100 percent. I could not take it that fully, though, and I envied those of you who could. I envied you for your DUIs and jail sentences and DTs. You had gone so low you had taken the First Step before your first AA meeting. You weren't fighting alcohol any longer.
For me, however, I thought about drinking a lot. It was still an option.
I used to plan on going to a bar, but one of our chips says, “Call your sponsor before, not after.” So I would call, and each time she would suggest not drinking for the next twenty-four hours only. And so it was.
Recently, after my sponsor moved, the struggle with Step One resurfaced. I asked God to help as I could not go on much longer resenting being in AA.
The next day I went to my home group, where one of our members was telling his story for the first time. Toward the end he began to share that he had struggled with the First Step for his first two years, and the point he made was how glad he is now that he never decided to give up during those two years, because the obsession finally did pass. He said that he knew he was an alcoholic when he came into Alcoholics Anonymous, but he didn't quite believe it. And for as long as he didn't believe it, he fought it. Well, in time he not only believed it, but he accepted it. It was then that the obsession passed.
I'm glad he stuck it out because I needed to hear his story. If anyone reading this is still struggling with the First Step, I pray this gives you hope that there will be freedom for you, too.
Carol B.
Atlanta, Georgia
Gateway to Freedom
September 1994
Lying face down on my dirty living room carpet, hands manacled behind my back, I listened as the sheriff's deputies ransacked my home looking for contraband. I heard one deputy remark, “Boy, this dude sure likes to drink. Must be forty empty liquor bottles on the kitchen floor.”
Terrorized, my mind raced, trying to remember if there was anything illegal in the apartment. Unfortunately, a week-long drunk prevented any lucid thought at all.
How had I gotten myself into this situation? I had no idea. My world had become a one-bedroom apartment which I protected with half a dozen loaded guns. The hideous Four Horsemen—Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration and Despair—had moved in as nonpaying roommates and refused to leave. I lay in a pool of incomprehensible demoralization, not knowing what to do.
One day a week later, bright and early, the doorbell rang. I looked out through the peephole and saw it was John, a former crime partner I hadn't seen in over six years. He looked very different, was quite fit, and his eyes sparkled. Afraid of what he might want, I conversed with him through the door. He told me that the reason for his visit was to make amends to me.
After further discussion, I finally opened the door. John was stunned at my deterioration. He spent the rest of the day carrying the message to me, telling me the story of his miraculous recovery in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. I finally agreed to go to an AA meeting with him that evening, though I couldn't see how it could possibly help me.
At the meeting, I heard the First Step for the very first time: “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.”
The word powerless hit me like a bomb blast. It described my situation with alcohol perfectly and completely. My life was more than unmanageable, it was illegal.
The best part was the word “we.” I was no longer alone. Others before me had made the admission of powerlessness and had been set free from years of alcoholic misery. If John could work the AA program and stay sober for six years, then I would have to try my best to do it, too.
Later on I got an older member to help me work the program and formally took the First Step. My sponsor told me that my unmanageable life was a result of self-will run rampant. He went on to say that the only things I had any power over were my behavior and my attitude.
Believing that I was powerless ultimately reduced the size of my world—down to me in the moment. My sponsor explained that alcohol was but a symptom of deeper problems. He also went on to explain that I was selfish, childish, grandiose, emotionally sensitive and had a number of character defects that stood in the way of serenity and peace of mind. But he said I had a choice: to live life reacting to everything with childish emotions, or to try working the remaining eleven Steps and learn how to live a life guided by spiritual principles.
Today I am learning how to develop a better sense of honesty and to accept my alcoholism with all its ramifications. The obsession to drink was lifted almost immediately and the grace of God continues to shine down on me as I learn how to live life on life's terms. The First Step was the gateway into a new sober life that I could never have imagined.
Anonymous
Gainesville, Florida
Who, Me?
April 2000
At my first AA meeting, the leader asked, “Is anyone here with less than thirty days of sobriety? If so, please raise your hand and give us your first name so we can get to know you better.”
I'd had two glasses of sherry before dinner, so I felt I qualified. I raised my hand, gave my first name, and proudly announced, “I am a functional alcoholic.”
A year before, I had completed thirty-two successful years of teaching high school. I'd been what society loosely defines as a social drinker since my high school years, and alcohol use had never been an issue in my life.
Instead of retiring, I decided to make a career change and took to travel writing. Soon, I experienced something called “writer's block" and found one way to get through it was with a couple of shots of vodka. It worked, so I imbibed on an increasingly frequent basis.
It wasn't long until I was sneaking bottles into the house and hiding them in filing cabinets. My wife noticed liquor on my breath and that at times I walked funny.
She and I talked, and in order to bring peace to the family, I agreed to go to an AA meeting. The idea of me being an alcoholic was preposterous—alcoholics sleep in gutters, pass out on barroom floors, are homeless, and drive on the wrong side of the road. Me? An alcoholic at sixty? With my record? Ridiculous!
I became more careful about hiding bottles and kept my bottle of mouthwash handy. My wife was as smart as I was, and she soon caught up with me. I agreed that I would go to a rehab facility if I continued to drink.
One day I came home from the store with my spanking new bottle and when the garage door opened, there was an empty vodka bottle standing in the doorway to the house.
That was it—off to rehab.
It was there that my stereotype of an alcoholic changed. I met professional people, bright young folks, others around sixty—a random sample of humanity. Here, it was comfortable for me to admit that I had become an alcoholic—I had acquired the disease.
But I held to the belief that this was like a bad cold—if you blow your nose often enough, it will go away. Also I am different from most people—I know how to handle problems. This thinking, in time, led to a relapse, in spite of working the Steps with my sponsor and attending meetings.
Then came a period of sobriety and another relapse—and another.
One morning I booted up my computer to continue working on an article. I sat there. My brain was like a bowl of mush. Nothing happened. Then I thought of other things that were happening. My golf handicap had risen to thirty-nine. My kids had caught me drinking out of a bottle at Thanksgiving, and I had missed several writers' club meetings.
The dawn came. I had hit bottom.
I found a home group and began to attend regularly and collect chips: thirty days, sixty days, ninety days and finally one year. I fastened these to my key chain, and each time I started my car I reminded myself of my disease. Sobriety feels great and my writing career is in full swing.
I have added a third thing in life that is certain. Death and taxes are two. The third thing that is certain is that if you are an alcoholic, you are an alcoholic.
D.D.
Vacaville, California
Surrender to Life
September 2007 (PO Box 1980)
In January 2005, I was asked to leave a rehab before completing the twenty-eight days. My counselor said I was disruptive and unwilling to get honest.
Alone, cold and angry, I reluctantly headed for a meeting at a nearby psych center, thinking maybe there would be coffee and donuts. I was late, and everyone stared at me. I began to walk out in fear, but someone yelled, “Get back in here! ” He was a scruffy-looking, long-bearded biker type. As everyone looked on, he asked, “Are you an alcoholic?”
Terrified, I answered, “Yes.”
“Then sit down! ”
At the end of the meeting. I raised my hand and said, “My name is ChrisAnthony. I'm an alcoholic, I'm hungry, I have nowhere to go, I'm scared, and I really want to drink. But if I do, I'll die.”
Within seconds, the whole group surrounded me, hugging me, giving me phone numbers, and offering me jobs and places to live. Only an hour before I was homeless. The more they offered to help, the harder I cried.
Within two months, I had my own apartment, and my sponsor, Patrick (the same scruffy-looking biker), hired me as his electrician's helper and gave me a station wagon. That meeting became my home group, and I did electrical work for the members.
Patrick passed away a few years ago, but not before I did my Fourth Step with him. My First Step was done at that first meeting, when he asked, “Are you an alcoholic?” and I answered, “Yes.”
ChrisAnthony S.
Bronx, New York
