Step One AA

Step One
“We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—

that our lives had become unmanageable.”
WHO cares to admit complete defeat? Practically no one,

of course. Every natural instinct cries out against the idea
of personal powerlessness. It is truly awful to admit that,
glass in hand, we have warped our minds into such an ob-
session for destructive drinking that only an act of Provi-
dence can remove it from us.
No other kind of bankruptcy is like this one. Alcohol,
now become the rapacious creditor, bleeds us of all self-
sufficiency and all will to resist its demands. Once this stark
fact is accepted, our bankruptcy as going human concerns
is complete.
But upon entering A.A. we soon take quite another view
of this absolute humiliation. We perceive that only through
utter defeat are we able to take our first steps toward liber-
ation and strength. Our admissions of personal powerless-
ness finally turn out to be firm bedrock upon which happy
and purposeful lives may be built.
We know that little good can come to any alcoholic
who joins A.A. unless he has first accepted his devastat-
ing weakness and all its consequences. Until he so humbles
himself, his sobriety—if any—will be precarious. Of real
happiness he will find none at all. Proved beyond doubt by
an immense experience, this is one of the facts of A.A. life.
21
22 STEP ONE
The principle that we shall find no enduring strength until

we first admit complete defeat is the main taproot from
which our whole Society has sprung and flowered.
When first challenged to admit defeat, most of us re-
volted. We had approached A.A. expecting to be taught
self-confidence. Then we had been told that so far as al-
cohol is concerned, self-confidence was no good whatever;
in fact, it was a total liability. Our sponsors declared that
we were the victims of a mental obsession so subtly pow-
erful that no amount of human willpower could break it.
There was, they said, no such thing as the personal con-
quest of this compulsion by the unaided will. Relentlessly
deepening our dilemma, our sponsors pointed out our in-
creasing sensitivity to alcohol—an allergy, they called it.
The tyrant alcohol wielded a double-edged sword over us:
first we were smitten by an insane urge that condemned
us to go on drinking, and then by an allergy of the body
that insured we would ultimately destroy ourselves in the
process. Few indeed were those who, so assailed, had ever
won through in singlehanded combat. It was a statistical
fact that alcoholics almost never recovered on their own
resources. And this had been true, apparently, ever since
man had first crushed grapes.
In A.A.’s pioneering time, none but the most desperate
cases could swallow and digest this unpalatable truth. Even
these “last-gaspers” often had difficulty in realizing how
hopeless they actually were. But a few did, and when these
laid hold of A.A. principles with all the fervor with which
the drowning seize life preservers, they almost invariably
got well. That is why the first edition of the book “Alco-
STEP ONE 23
holics Anonymous,” published when our membership was

small, dealt with low-bottom cases only. Many less desper-
ate alcoholics tried A.A., but did not succeed because they
could not make the admission of hopelessness.
It is a tremendous satisfaction to record that in the fol-
lowing years this changed. Alcoholics who still had their
health, their families, their jobs, and even two cars in the
garage, began to recognize their alcoholism. As this trend
grew, they were joined by young people who were scarcely
more than potential alcoholics. They were spared that last
ten or fifteen years of literal hell the rest of us had gone
through. Since Step One requires an admission that our
lives have become unmanageable, how could people such
as these take this Step?
It was obviously necessary to raise the bottom the rest
of us had hit to the point where it would hit them. By go-
ing back in our own drinking histories, we could show that
years before we realized it we were out of control, that our
drinking even then was no mere habit, that it was indeed
the beginning of a fatal progression. To the doubters we
could say, “Perhaps you’re not an alcoholic after all. Why
don’t you try some more controlled drinking, bearing in
mind meanwhile what we have told you about alcoholism?”
This attitude brought immediate and practical results. It
was then discovered that when one alcoholic had planted
in the mind of another the true nature of his malady, that
person could never be the same again. Following every
spree, he would say to himself, “Maybe those A.A.’s were
right….” After a few such experiences, often years before
the onset of extreme difficulties, he would return to us con-
24 STEP ONE
vinced. He had hit bottom as truly as any of us. John Bar-

leycorn himself had become our best advocate.
Why all this insistence that every A.A. must hit bottom
first? The answer is that few people will sincerely try to
practice the A.A. program unless they have hit bottom.
For practicing A.A.’s remaining eleven Steps means the
adoption of attitudes and actions that almost no alcoholic
who is still drinking can dream of taking. Who wishes to
be rigorously honest and tolerant? Who wants to confess
his faults to another and make restitution for harm done?
Who cares anything about a Higher Power, let alone medi-
tation and prayer? Who wants to sacrifice time and energy
in trying to carry A.A.’s message to the next sufferer? No,
the average alcoholic, self-centered in the extreme, doesn’t
care for this prospect—unless he has to do these things in
order to stay alive himself.
Under the lash of alcoholism, we are driven to A.A.,
and there we discover the fatal nature of our situation.
Then, and only then, do we become as open-minded to
conviction and as willing to listen as the dying can be. We
stand ready to do anything which will lift the merciless ob-
session from us.

Step One AA

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Step One AA

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Step One AA

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Step One

“We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—

WHO cares to admit complete defeat? Practically no one,

The principle that we shall find no enduring strength until

holics Anonymous,” published when our membership was

vinced. He had hit bottom as truly as any of us. John Bar-

You might also like