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Made A Decision

                               Powerlessness

The ‘sober’ alcoholic chooses not to drink because he has accepted his alcoholism.

 The ‘dry’ alcoholic, while “not drinking,” is invariably angry and resentful. He finds abstinence is not exciting because he is not interested in it - he is bored. 

Father Leo B., AA speaker  

The "dry drunk" in the above quote has simply not accepted his or her powerlessness over their addiction(s). And a total acceptance - with no reservations - is absolutely essential to maintain sobriety. 

It takes utter defeat and utter surrender to go from a raging drinking alcoholic to a recovering alcoholic, one who values his or her sobriety above all things. 

AA recovery requires us to understand and admit we are powerless over alcohol because with that admission comes acceptance. And with acceptance comes the willingness to do what's needed to stay sober.

Acceptance comes hard for us all. Many of us struggled for decades to control our drinking, to drink like normal drinkers, to figure out how to avoid the consequences of our drinking. 

 

Some alcoholics (as our Big Book tells us) are never able to admit defeat. They continue to drink, drug, and pursue these controlling behaviors until our disease finally kills them. 

Our AA literature explains: 

". . . the actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge. This is a point we wish to emphasize and re-emphasize, to smash home upon our alcoholic readers as it has been revealed to us out of bitter experience."

Those of us fortunate enough to have had and acted upon our "moment of clarity" - that instant of knowing our absolute powerlessness over our disease - tend to grab hold of what AA has to offer with both hands and open hearts. 

Think back to when your own addiction(s) influenced every part of your daily life; when your drug of choice gave you permission to indulge in every kind of behavior. 

 Coming to the realization that we on our own can do nothing to escape that dark power, other than to surrender to a Higher Power, offers us no option other than total surrender. 

Then later, when we recognize we are not only powerless over alcohol, but are powerless over what people think about us, or how other people work their program, and even over the ability to keep our own hearts beating one moment longer than our Higher Power intends for us, we are truly well on our way in recovery. 

That's when we are able to stop getting white knuckles from gripping the steering wheel of our lives so tightly. 

 

  And that's also when we find there are things we are not powerless over - like our attitudes - because we can adjust our thinking. 

It takes plenty of practice, but we can let go of negativity. 

We can experiment with positive affirmations, different spiritual practices, and we can become a positive influence to ourselves and others, including even giving some care to our battered home planet. 

As our book the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions tells us: 

We perceive that only through utter defeat are we able to take our first steps toward liberation and strength. Our admissions of personal powerlessness finally turn out to be firm bedrock upon which happy and purposeful lives may be built.

Our Big Book has plenty to say about it, too:

He cannot picture life without alcohol. Someday he will be unable to imagine life either with alcohol or without it. Then he will know loneliness such as few do. He will be at the jumping-off place. He will wish for the end.

Step One is a two-part step: 

Part A: "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol" ...

Part B: "and that our lives had become unmanageable."

Once we've firmly placed the plug in the jug and our cravings

 for alcohol have stopped (sometimes quickly, sometimes more slowly) 

we can then begin to work on that Part B, the unmanageable part. 

Doing so means we must learn to "practice these principles" of AA in every area of our lives. We will not only stay sober by doing all 12 steps of recovery (and continuing to work them), we will also slowly move away from lives of turmoil and high drama and begin living lives filled with joy, purpose and serenity.

Our Big Book offers us the choice to pick up and use the "kit of spiritual tools" for our transformation.

 It all begins with accepting both parts of Step One.

With surrender comes victory over that mind set where life is too hard to live without an escape hatch. 

When we stop fighting, stop being stubborn, stop arguing and trying to figure out everything - we can begin to relax. The answers we seek will come over time. 

SLOW-briety!

I used to feel great sympathy for any person who suffered. Today I only commiserate with those who suffer in ignorance, people who do not yet know the transformative purpose of pain. 

Those of us who have that information and are "bored," or in any way hurting, can stop suffering by getting busy doing more of the doing of recovery.

So if you are "bored" in AA, you need to sit down right now with a pen and paper and figure out why. 

The more common causes are: 

Not getting to enough meetings, or not going to a lot of different meetings, 

not doing any service work, 

not attending any Big Book or 12 & 12 study meetings, 

not having a home group, 

not setting aside any time for readings and contemplation, or prayer and meditation ... 

 

in other words basically coasting along being content with just staying sober, no more and no less. 

In the big picture of our recovery that's a very "slippery" place to be.

This AA journey, after all, has worked for millions of people. It will work for you, too - 

but only if you work it.