September 27, 2011
Common Knowledge: What is the Big Deal About Step One? 0
“So, What is the Big Deal About the First Step?”
It has been called the “most important step” or, the step that has” to be done perfectly.”
When we make that commitment to do the 12 Steps, it might be well to step back and take pause before we jump into it.
After close to six months of new sobriety, no one can say that Dennis has not taken enough “pause.” In fact, my strenuous resistance to getting a sponsor and working the steps has caused lengthy procrastination — and ultimately relapse.
Part of my resistance to Step One, is, it just seems too darn “simple.” I mean “admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.” Well, duh, isn’t that obvious, and baldly redundant? Why would I be attending MEETINGS on a weekly basis if I didn’t believe that?
But the sad reality is this: In my first attempt at recovery in 2010, part of the reason for my relapse was I didn’t really believe that my drinking was unmanageable; some sardonic observers suggest that some people ( not you or me , but people we know, you know) come into A.A. to learn methods to manage our drinking.
Let me suggest that honesty is the beginning of recovery and nothing significant in the pursuit of health — mental, spiritual, and physical — transpires until we embrace it.
The authors were keenly aware of the seemingly endless excuses, rationalizations, denial, delusional bliss — we all employed to avoid the very action needed to take the steps. Is it any wonder that they would suggest admitting powerlessness??
Obvious? Redundant? In regard to unmanageability, how is it that everyone can see it except the alcoholic himself?
Part of the meaning of “hitting bottom” (and this hardly encompasses all the meaning) is that we are willing to surrender our sick resistance to the A.A. principles. Then as Bill W. said, “our obsession leaves us and we enter a new dimension — freedom under God as we understand Him.”*
Until next time, hang in there.
Dennis C
* Quoted from “Came to Believe” Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., New York
