1st Step ACTIONS

We admitted we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable.

In the first series that I wrote for this blog, I shared my experience, strength and hope based on my first experience of AA's 12 steps.  The second series was more philosophical, as I considered the principles behind the steps and how they apply to life in recovery.   This series, the third one, is all about actions, the steps within the steps that help the person in recovery to be, and to stay, sober.

I remember sitting in a clubhouse with another alcoholic who was beginning to work the steps after I had been sober a while.  He asked a lot of questions, all of them good.  The tone of the conversation began to bother me, however, because this person was spending too much time trying to figure why he (or she) was an alcoholic without considering the actions that help the alcoholic to step up and to step out of the problems that lead one into AA.

Eventually, I redirected the conversation by asking this person, "Do you know what the most important  body part in AA is?"  The first response, which was wrong, was "the head."  The next response, which was equally wrong, was "the heart."  The following response was "the liver."  Wrong again.

At last I shared my opinion.  "It's you ass," I said, "Your ass is the important body part in AA.  You have to bring it to meetings.  You have to take it to places where you may help other alcoholics.  You have to do stuff, important stuff, so that you spend less time in your head and are governed less and less by your emotions"

AA, as I have been taught since the first meeting that I attended, is an action program, and this series is an honest effort to look at the actions that help the alcoholic to work each of the 12 steps.


1. Be honest about why you are in AA.
Nobody comes into AA on a good day.  I know that I didn't.  Life was spiraling downward, and I was looking to stop the spiraling.

I put off going to an AA meeting for years, but the fact that I even thought about attending a meeting before I spent a night in jail following a DUI suggests that I belonged in AA years before I arrived.

While I did not have any doubts about whether I was an alcoholic or not when I arrived, some men and women do, but let's face it, if one has to ask if one is an alcoholic, then one probably has a problem, because this person is not in a chocolate factory wondering if he or she is a chocolate bar.


2. If you have any doubt about whether you are an alcoholic, then go out and drink exactly one drink per day for one week.
If the thought of going out and drinking only one drink seems absurd to you, because you know that the first drink leads to the next one and eventually into oblivion, then this experiment may not be necessary.

When I came into AA and someone suggested controlled drinking, I was overwhelmed by fear.  If I could control my drinking, then I would never have driven drunk or spent a night in jail in the first place.  

For men and women who continue to drink in the face of mounting consequences, the only option is to abstain from drinking, which is why AA is an abstinence program.  Alcoholics who do not take the first drink never become drunk; those who ignore this simple truth will drink and drink again, and in so doing, will continue to suffer and to inflict suffering.

3. Admit that you are powerless over alcohol.
Admitting that one is powerless over alcohol is not as dramatic as it sounds (which is disappointing given how much alcoholics enjoy drama).

I admit that I am powerless over alcohol every time that I walk into an AA meeting; walking into an AA meeting, in fact, is one of the most honest things that I do.  By walking into a meeting, I am not able to lie to anybody, including myself, about why I am there.

If I am to experience power, I have to distance myself from that over which I am powerless.  If I notice that the place where I live is engulfed in flames, I do not stay inside.  I step outside of the place where I may be most comfortable and ask for help.


4. Admit that your life has become unmanageable.
The list of people who were willing and able to help me is much longer than I thought that it was when I stepped into the program.

Bridges had been burned.  Relationships had faltered.  The mountain of debt before me seemed insurmountable.  Life had become unmanageable, and the evidence was glaring.

Sure, I was tempted to blame anybody and everybody for the problems in my life, but the cold, hard fact was that I had driven myself over the cliff and distanced myself from people who were willing to break my fall.

I thrashed around flexing muscles that only I could see, and when my vision began to clear, I had to start accepting responsibility for the consequences of my actions that included the decision to take the first drink.


5. Stop talking, and start listening.
In the first meeting that I attended, I sat with tears in my eyes before sharing.  One of the sad facts of this scene, as I remember it, is that I had to speak.

By speaking, I placed myself on center stage.  The self-pity, which was authentic, was also a way of calling attention to myself.  While it was important that I spoke, that I admit that I was, and am, powerless over alcohol and that my life had become unmanageable, it was also important that I start listening, because all of the information that I had to share at that point in my sobriety was about the illness.

Soon, it became evident that I would have to look outside of myself for healing.  Something out there was more powerful than alcohol, and by this stage in the program, I was clear that it was not me.

INTRO: Third Step

Years ago, I asked for help, but as I became an adult, I stopped asking and started demanding that I be given what I thought that I deserved.

One's understanding of faith and life begins at home, I think, because home is the place where one first experiences everything from authority to autonomy.  On the one hand, my parents provided me with food, shelter and educational opportunities.  On the other hand, they were prone to emotional outbursts, which led to feeling unsafe and unsure of how to pursue thriving relationships. 

Looking to protect myself, I retreated into books.  With this education, I distanced myself from faith and life and expected good things to happen by virtue of my accomplishments.  When life did not meet my expectations, I drank, and then I drank some more.  Now I attend meetings with other men and women who sabotaged their lives with lofty expectations.

AA's third step calls for a decisive action: to turn one's will and one's life over to the care of God as one understands God.  This statement assumes: 1) that one knows what one's will for his or her life is; 2) that one is able to experience God's care; and 3) that one's understanding of God allows for a meaningful relationship to exist between this person and God.

As an adult, I have changed cities and jobs often.  Every time that I transitioned from one situation to the next, I was abundantly clear about why I was making this change.  I have pursued different career paths and seem to prefer whichever one I am not pursuing at the time.  Since becoming a member of AA, I am clearer about the nature of the work that I find fulfilling, but I am less certain about what this work looks like in everyday life.  By understanding who I am, I am better able to be in a relationship with anybody, including God, and to follow wherever God leads me in recovery.  

It is difficult to understand why I was reluctant to turn my will and my life over to anybody or anything, especially God, before coming into the program, because, as an active alcoholic, I was never in control.  I was controlling in professional and personal relationships, but I was not disciplined enough to achieve, much less sustain, meaning, magic or success in any area of my life.  

Because I was unable to meet the expectations that I set for myself, feelings of failure haunted me.  I looked to others to help me in ways that I was unwilling to help other people.  When they could not, or would not, help me, then I began to think of the world as a cruel and harsh place.  I did not trust anybody, especially myself, because I assumed that everybody was as selfish as me.  I felt abandoned by God and neighbor and that nobody was willing to give me a second or third chance.  I was not willing to forgive myself or anybody else and assumed that everybody else was as unforgiving as me.

I was raised in a home where Christmas is celebrated and the line between Jesus and Santa is often blurred.  As an adult, I have come to think of Christ as compassionate and God as forgiving, although I was taught from an early age that God gives commandments to an imperfect people and then judges them for being imperfect.  Christmas seemed like a time to pay off the emotional debts of the past year.  All was to be forgiven if the parents spent enough money on gifts.  In the end, I believed in asking for presents but not in forgiveness.  Now I believe in humility, which asks for nothing but peace.

The God of my understanding is forgiving and empowering, and I am finding that the more that I trust this understanding of God, the better I feel about myself and about other people.  I feel safe more often than I feel threatened.  I am more forgiving, because I feel forgiven.  Even though the third step seems to emphasize understanding God, I am finding that the third step is actually about experiencing God as a peaceful presence in one's life, work and relationships, especially those circumstances in which peace is brought about only through forgiveness.