Step 1
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol
- that our lives had become unmanageable.
Is this surrender, or humility? Surrender is what you do in the middle of the
fight, and you quit. But, if the fight is over, and you lost, it is not
surrender, it is accepting reality. This is a big
step, it is the foundational step.
Before you can use directions to get somewhere, you need to know where your
starting point is. For example, the directions to getting to New York City,
where I was born, start with where you are NOW.
If you don't know that alcohol, or whatever you "drug-of-choice" is, has
beaten you beyond control, how can you get back into the driver's seat? If you
say that you haven't been beaten, then you don't need this program, do you? It
is not for those that can manage on their own, or are still trying to be a "Lone
Ranger" in their spiritual walk.
This is why many people say that you are "talking-to-the-bottle" if the drunk
hasn't hit bottom yet. If doing it your way is so good, why are you reading
this?
This is why I pray that all drunks, addicts, etc. have it so bad that
they do hit bottom. That's when they have a chance to turn their life around.
Only when it can "get-no-worse-than-this", can they start upward.
Yet, if they think that they still can handle it, and that everyone else is
hounding them, maybe they should read "The Big Book" and see why this was made
the first step by the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous. Not by preachers or doctors or therapists, but by
people wanting their dreams and their hopes and their futures back from where
they had been lost.
Oh, you are not insane? I see. If using
your drug of choice has given you such a rotten life so far, isn't it insane to
thing that it will do you any differently in the future? A friend of ours
defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different
results".
* The Twelve Steps are reprinted with
permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. Permission to reprint
and adapt the Twelve Steps does not mean that A.A. has reviewed or approved the
contents of this publication, nor that A.A. agrees with the views expressed
herein. A.A. is a program of recovery from alcoholism. Use of the Twelve Steps
in connection with programs which are patterned after A.A. but which address
other problems does not imply otherwise.
The complete Serenity Prayer
is also available on this website.
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