Annotated Version of the First Step

A sponsee's beginning his 1st Step and that means I'm working it too. In fact, this is really the only time I ever plan on reworking the steps: as I help others work them. I have no real desire to formally go through the steps again. At least, that's my thinking now.

Many people believe that the 1st step is formally and singly stated on the second page of Chapter 5 (How It Works) of the Big Book ("We came to believe we were powerless over alcohol--that our lives had become unmanagable.") and then explained in more detail in the book "The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions" (12x12). I've actually come to believe that the first and, in fact, all 12 of the steps are contained several other places in addition to what I call the Reader's Digest version of the Steps contained in Chapter 5 on pages 59-60. Those other places are not limited to the following: (1) in the first chapter of the Big Book, "Bill's Story" contains a summary of how Bill went through the process of the steps (it's sort of hidden, but if you read the story carefully, you'll find his working rendition of the steps...), (2) in Chapter 3, "More About Alcoholism" (which covers the first step) through Chapter 7 "Working with Others" (where it talks about the 12th "suggestion" and, lastly, (3) in most all of the stories later in the Big Book.

Below, I'd like to focus on the first page of Chapter 3, More About Alcoholism. I consider that page to be the "long version" of the first step. The short version is the last paragraph of Chapter 3 (I'll talk more about that in another blog) and the shortest version, the one everyone recites when they are called on to talk about the first step, is the one found on page 59 in How It Works.

While I agree with the value of going to the 12x12 for more information about the 1st Step, I first suggest that my sponsee's or others dealing with this step focus first on Chapter 3 of the Big Book, "More About Alcoholism" before going to the 12x12. This third chapter of the Big Book, specifically, the first three full paragraphs on the first page, represent what I consider to be the most complete expression of what it means for an alcoholic to take the first step along the path of recovery.

When I heard this section of Chapter 3 read at the beginning of an AA meeting in Southern California (they read this page rather than How It Works...) the words seemed to scream out to me as being very very important and as a result I began memorizing this page. As I've mentioned before, the process of memorization has helped me get to the core of some written words/passages in the Book and elsewhere.

The repetition allows me to savor and meditate on every single word of the passage. I end up almost having a conversation with the writer as I'm doing that: I sometimes ask myself (standing in for the writer..) "Why did the writer choose this word?" "Why didn't they use another word?" and even, heretical as it may sound, "Wouldn't this statement or sentiment be more accurate (at least for me) if it was reworded to say...." Anyway, I did this process with the long version of the 1st step and have recited it to myself quite regularly on my way to work each day... Here, I thought that it might be helpful to others, especially my 1st step working sponsee, to share this long version of the 1st step, along with all my questions / thoughts / meanderings inserted into the text. The result, I suppose could be called an annotated version of the 1st Step.

Most of us were unwilling to admit that we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think they are bodily or mentally different from their fellows.

Most, but certainly not all, of us have spent considerable time resisting, denying, fighting, and fearing the idea that we might be alcoholics. We knew that if that were true, then we'd have to stop drinking. For me, I handled this challenge by routinely proving to myself over about a 29 year period of time that I wasn't an alcoholic because I could stop. In fact, I successfully stopped thousands of times!! I would stop for various periods of time, the time wasn't really that important to me, it just to had to be long enough to convince myself (or my wife) that I had "really" quit. The problem with this strategy from the very beginning was that the first thing I would do once I'd become convinced that I had indeed stopped....would be to drink!

I also had a problem when I looked at other people's drinking routines and practices and compared my drinking routines and practices with theirs. Especially other people who were clearly not alcoholics. For example, we have a friend of ours who's about my age and who's an attorney. He and his wife have been friends with us for probably our entire marriage. As far as I know, he's not an alcoholic (although his brother is). He drinks, but he doesn't appear to drink like an alcoholic. I've seen him drunk one time in the entire time I've known him (his 40th birthday party...). Oftentimes, when we arrived at their house for a visit, he'd say if you're thirsty, grab yourself something to drink in the refrigerator. I'd open the refrigerator and look inside to see all sorts of sodas, waters and juices. And there in the back corner of the refrigerator was one beer. All by itself. Lonely. I don't remember ever opting to take his one beer. I didn't like having one beer, so I would choose a soda or a water. But know that it bothered me a great deal that this guy kept one beer in his refrigerator.

There was a part of me that wanted to be like John. To be able to have one beer in my refrigerator. Because I suspected that only a non-alcoholic could do something like that. Me? I always like to keep a twelve pack on the bottom shelf with a hole just big enough to pull one bottle out of the case....I didn't like opening it all up because the beers could be counted that way and others would know how many I drank. I didn't like people counting my drinks. That's why I started hiding my drinks from a very early part of my drinking career. Anyway, what's curious about my envy of non-alcoholics like John is that wanted to be able to take on certain behaviors of theirs so that I could prove that I wasn't an alcoholic, but what always prevented me from taking on those "normal" behaviors was that it would keep me from drinking like I needed to drink!

Therefore is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by constant vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people.

This is one of the lines in the book which I believe is factually incorrect. I was able to drink like other people! The only problem was the "other people" that I could drink like were those of you who join me regularly in AA meetings! Oh well.

But the important truth is, I really spent a lot of energy and time trying to think and to drink like non-alcoholics like John and others. Ultimately, there came a time for me when that simply wasn't possible and then the games and the lying and the deceit began to characterize more and more of my daily behavior and actions.

The insanity of this became utterly clear to me a couple of years ago when I read one of those research articles which seem to come out annually reporting that someone has discovered a "cure" for alcoholism. As I was pondering whether I'd take such a so-called cure, I realized that while a part of me would love not to be an alcoholic, the truth is that if I were able to start drinking again, I certainly would not want to drink like a non-alcoholic! While I want to be a non-alcoholic, I would only want to drink like an alcoholic! Non-alcoholic drinking seems very very painful to me---truly, if there was ever alcohol abuse, it's what non-alcoholics do to alcohol when they drink it!! I mean "sipping"!! Or leaving an unfinished drink! Or getting half way through a drink, saying "Wow! That hits the spot!" and then leaving the rest of the drink untouched. No, I think I'll remain content at being an alcoholic who tries to remain sober one day at a time. Much easier and certainly less painful.

The idea that some how, some day, he could control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.

Never was the word "and" so important: Alcoholics are people who can either control or enjoy their drinking. They can't control and enjoy their drinking. Non-alcoholics can do both...although I don't really think they exert enough energy or effort to really qualify their actions as "controlled". The alcoholic insane obsession seems to be essentially one of wanting to be a non-alcoholic but, at the same time, to drink like an alcoholic.

We learned that we had to fully concede to our inner most selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed.

Here's the crux of the first step spoken by those who had experienced their first step: We learned.... This isn't a statement made by a medical doctor or a scientific researcher or a priest. It's a statement made by a recovering alcoholic who learned, most likely the hard and painful way, that they were, in fact, an alcoholic. Recovery from this disease means recognizing and letting go of the delusional thought that we, as alcoholics, could be non-alcoholics. Such a thought, even if lingering or fleeting, is oftentimes a prelude to a first drink: Maybe I could have "just one" --- I mean, a non-alcoholic can have just one, why can't I?

Well, the answer follows...

We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control. But such intervals, usually brief, were inevitably followed by still less control which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.

I suspect that I was an alcoholic well before I lost the ability to control my drinking. I think the fact that I began drinking with the clear intent to drink "without becoming an alcoholic like my father" was an indication that drinking was more important to me than "not being an alcoholic like my dad." I mean, if it was really important not to be an alcoholic like my dad, the easiest and sure fire way to do that was to not drink!! Case closed. But that's not what happened. I drank in spite of the knowledge that this disease was a part of my family history and as my drinking progressed, I noticed each time I experienced something very similar to something that happened to my alcoholic dad. Usually, I'd react to those events by deciding to quit drinking. And I would quit. But then there always came a day when I would realize that "I'd quit!" --- therefore, I'm not really an alcoholic and I was off to the races again.

We are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period of time, we get worse, never better.

Here's the closing argument: These folks were convinced not only that they were alcoholics, but that alcoholism was a "progressive" illness or disease. And just in case the deluded newcomer wanted to run with the idea that this disease got progressively better in a "good" way, they nailed the last nail in the coffin of denial with, "over any considerable period of time, we got worse, never better."

I've come to believe that this last line brings "good news" to the recovering alcoholic who's completed their first step, but for those who are still harboring doubts about whether or not they've "crossed the line", these words are the worst possible news! However bad their life has gotten to this point in time, it's the collective opinion of these AAs that things are only going to get worse if I keep or resume drinking. No doubt about it.

I suspect this is the jumping off point for the fence sitting reader of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous: am I going to welcome this reprieve from the hellish prison I've been experiencing or am I going to continue to fight a battle against the idea that I'm an alcoholic? Surrender or Fight?

For me, it was to give up the fight and welcome the truth that I was indeed an alcoholic. I suspect that came easier for me because I'd seen my own 15 year old son come to his own sense of peace with this issue and begin a process of recovery that began ever so slowly to change his life for the better. I saw hope in him... I saw hope where only 5 months before, there there was no hope at all. And I'm eternally grateful that someone else was able to model that same hope for him when his father wasn't able to do that for him.

Take care!

Mike L.

Humility and the 7 Steps

As I'm sure I've mentioned in the past, I'm not a big fan of the Defects of Character Chorus in AA. In fact, the biggest challenge for me in recovery has been letting go of a habit of "self-hatred" that I picked up during my lifetime and all this supposed recovery talk of one's defects of character has been a somewhat of a dangerous experience for a sensitive one like me.

That said then, when it came time for me to deal with the 7th step--Humbly asked God to remove these defects of character--what helped me the most was how Dr. Earle defined 'humility' for me one day while we were waiting for a meeting to begin. Earle taught me much in those brief meetings before the meetings...

On that particular day, when I was only a few months sober, Earle told me that humility was not something to be possessed or "had" -- humility was simply a moment in time when we were willing to learn. In Buddhism, I think it's referred to as "beginner's mind". It's said that once we think we know, we've moved past humility....and oftentimes for me, that entails moving into some sort of "teaching" moment where I'm trying to convince others about what I think I know (but don't). I sometimes joke that it's almost impossible to talk about humility without violating it's basic essence. Humility seems to be more comfortable or possible in silence.

Anyway, that time before the meeting began, Earle said that humility was just a moment in time where we were willing to learn, where we were open to learning. I liked that insight and wanted to talk more with Earle, but the "real meeting" began...

Months later, well after Earle's death, I was able to apply Earle's definition of humility to my own work on the 7th step, a step which interestingly enough begins with the word, "Humbly". The 7th step begins then from a stance of humility, a decision to be open to learning more about who we are as human beings.

Humility seems to be vitally important in this particular step. In fact, I wonder if the previous 6 steps could really be successfully worked without such a humble approach. Without an attitude of humility, we might have blindly worked through the previous six steps with the mistaken ideas (1) that we had some choice about being/not being alcoholics and that as a result there was something "immoral" about us and our drinking problem; (2) that we were somehow mentally deficient, if not downright insane and that such insanity was the cause of our alcoholism; (3) that some Higher Power "out there" had some preset agenda about what we should/shouldn't do ("God's will") and about what we needed to go "if" we were to be worthy of that Higher Power's full albeit conditional acceptance and love; (4) that our inventory was an "immoral" one; (5) that freedom from the past involved confessional-like acts of self-hatred and self-judgments practiced through repetitive expressions of shame and guilt about the same prior acts and emotions again and again; and, finally, (6) that freedom would be achieved by some sort of outside Higher Power/Surgeon cutting out evil, pride, lust and all sorts of other darknesses within.

For those who do see these as their accomplishments from Steps 1 thru 6, then it is likely that you will then see Step 7 as a continuance of purification rite which involves some sort of outside and powerful force coming into your lives and removing something from you that was wrong, dirty and evil. Step 7, in such a scheme, involves us trying to let go of these "wrongs" so that God will be able to take them away. Hopefully, permanently.

That was not my experience of the 7th step, nor were those my experiences of the prior 6 steps. What I learned in the first six steps was (1) that I just happen to be an alcoholic and it's perfectly OK...now I just need to focus on staying sober today; (2) that my insanity was the result of trying with all my might to be something in was not: I was an alcoholic trying to be a non-alcoholic; (3) that when I let go of my death grip on the idea that I could force myself to not be an alcoholic or to escape any other realities of my life, that I would be OK; (4) that with this understanding of "me as alcoholic" my whole past life became clear: that's why I did what I did!!!; (5) that when I disclosed this "truth" to myself and to others I found and experience freedom to be me, today; and finally, (6) that this same healing process which first happened to me in terms of discovering my own truth as it relates to alcoholism, could happen in all other areas of my life where there was darkness, guilt or shame. Despair/Hopeless led to Awareness. Awareness led to Acceptance. Acceptance led to Self-Disclosure. Self-Disclosure led to Freedom.

For me then, the key was a willingness to learn. To be humble. When I listen other other people's stories, their bottoms involved "humiliation" which is similar to "humble" except that it is where the learning happens when we weren't really quite yet ready for the learning to happen in a softer gentler way. Humiliation happens when we discover Truth by falling flat on our face into that Truth of who we are. The so-called "pitiful incomprehensible demoralization" experience talked about on the first page of More About Alcoholism.

The 7th step then begins for me by continuing with an attitude or predisposition of "not knowing," of not having set and strongly held beliefs about who I am or what and why I've done what I've done. It begins with wonder. It begins with a willingness to learn. And it takes time. Ever so much time. In fact, if there ever was a step which I believe in reworking on a daily basis, in addition to Step 1, it would be Steps 6/7.

As I've said before, my 7th step process was helped a great deal by means of a line from Maya Angelou which has been greatly responsible for my coming to be kinder and more gentle with myself and what I've done in the past: "We did then what we knew how to do; when we knew better, we did better." In my 6th Step, what I became entirely ready to do was to treat myself with the kind of unconditional love and acceptance that many attribute to their understanding of their Higher Power. What I was becoming entirely ready to let go of was not "parts of myself" but rather, the labels and judgments about me that condemned and ridiculed me. Nothing was removed per se, the labels/judgments just fell away from disuse. Like the tree leaves in Fall. They'd served their purpose.

For me, this stance of humility in the 7th step was one of learning more about the Mike of my past and why he did what he did. What happened was that the labels I placed on my past actions, what others like to call "shortcomings" or "character defects" --- began to lose their damning edge and flavor. Selfish and self-centered really don't shed any light on who I was or who I am. I personally don't share the belief that these or other such neat and tidy labels were the underlying foundation of my drinking problem.

The underlying foundation of my drinking problem, and I'm just talking about and for me, was not character defects. The source of my problem was that I was physically different from non-alcoholics/drug addicts in terms of how my body processed certain chemicals like alcohol, pot and all the other mind altering drugs I didn't partake in before I got sober. Once I accepted that fact (my first step), I experienced a freedom to be me: an alcoholic. For me, that freedom released me from the obsession to drink that had plagued me on an ever increasing basis for a period of about 30 years.

That being true, then, why work anything more than the 1st Step? Well, for me, I kept going in part because I wanted to be a full member of this weird organization, but also because being "dry" didn't hold much attraction for me. I'd seen dry drunks and suicide was a far more attractive option than that. The rest of the steps presented me with the possibility of going beyond "non drinking" dryness: it held out the possibility that there was life above and beyond both drinking and simply not drinking.

And in terms of the 7th step, that came in the form of embracing my imperfect, wounded, "torn-to-pieces-hood" (thanks Ernie Kurtz, author of my favorite book, The Spirituality of Imperfection!) humanity.

For my entire lifetime, I thought I knew what my defects of character were: all the bad things about me, including my alcoholism. But I was truly ignorant. On the day my 7th step happened to me, I realized that all the things I thought wrong with me were simply one side of a coin: the so-called "bad" side.

For me, the 7th step involved looking at both sides of these coins, including the one called "alcoholism". Alcoholism was a dis-ease, but it was not a death sentence that I thought it was. It has in fact been the primary reason I have achieved the level of happiness and serenity that I've been able to achieve by this point in my life. Were it not for this "defect" I wouldn't be the wonderful, kind, and loving father and husband I've started to become over the last six years... And if that's true, why would I refer to alcoholism as a "defect" of mine?

For 30 years, I attempted to avoid my potential and actual alcoholism by trying to keep my drinking and my behavior outside of the definition of alcoholism. For most of those 30 years, the definition was that an alcoholic was someone who couldn't stop drinking, even when stopping was required in order to be the kind of person, the kind of father, I so wanted to be. That definition worked for me for most of those years, until the day came when I couldn't stop drinking when I was asked to do just that to be supportive of my 15 year old son's recovery from this same disease.

Looking back, I wasn't interested in the truth behind the question, "Was I an alcoholic?" No, I was only interested in the answer being "No!" Ultimately, I couldn't keep my drinking within the bounds of what I knew to be non-alcoholic drinking -- but by then, I'd lost the ability to stop drinking "on demand" or by willpower. And then, I woke up and realized that the inability to stop drinking was a disease called "alcoholism" and that that was just a physiological disease and that I had it. Luckily, after seeing my son begin his recovery, I knew there was a solution and I began going down this path. Alcoholism wasn't a defect of character for me, it was part of who I was, who I am. It's not something that God or anyone else took away from me: it's still a real part of me. What happened, and I think this was by means of a sliver of humility, is I became aware of the truth about who I was and that truth gave me freedom.

Ok, this has gone on way too long. I suppose that my worst fear, Blogger's Block, has gone the way of most feared things.

Take care!

Mike L.

Ahhh, The Good ol' Days....

An AA friend passed on to me an email that's circulating around the Internet by some AAer going on at some length about how AA has gotten corrupted as a result of treatment centers and the influx of their graduates into the rooms of AA and that, as a result, our proven "success rate" (whatever that is and however anyone could ever measure that!) has dwindled to unacceptable levels. The email basically concludes that the only solution is to get back to the basics, go back to doing it that way they used to do it in the good ol' days of early AA. Ahhh, then things will be as they should be!

I think not.

The email resulted in my own counter-rant email to my friend --- a rant against the position espoused by the forwarded email's anonymous author. I even forwarded my AA friend a link to a previous blog of mine on this dangerous theme of some old timers that we need to get back to the way it was done when they were getting sober. I mean, why not get some more mileage out of that previous rant of mine? Anyway, apparently, I've still got some steam in me over this, so I thought I'd let it go here.

First of all, one of the cornerstones of early AA (at least as I read it...) is their humility. They didn't claim to have found a conformist or dogmatic cookie cutter kind of a program that would work for everyone in exactly the same way. They knew that such a dogmatic approach wouldn't work for alcoholics like them. I suspect if the early timers in AA heard the dogmatic "back to basics" chanting of some of the folks I hear in AA meetings today, they'd stand up and tell these "I Know the Way" gang of folks to sit down and shut up. They want to hear more about what happened to these folks who found part of their answer by means of a treatment center....

They might remind us to re-read that paragraph toward the end of the first part of the Big Book, on page 164, where they closed this section with the most clear statement of their humble, not know-it-all approach to a program of recovery: "Our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us."

Why is it these "Beware the end of AA is near-sayers" don't consider that treatment centers are part of this "more" that would be disclosed to us?

Why is it they don't consider that the reason AA stopped doing things like they did in the good ol' days---like having newcomers get down on their knees and saying/doing their 3rd step prayer before ever being allowed into an AA meeting---is that this shit didn't work? They adapted and looked for ways that worked more effectively at allowing people to come into the rooms of AA and to stay as long as they wanted.

Why is they seem to be fighting a never ending battle against the trends currently being seen in AA where we are more and more tolerant of others and their paths into the rooms of AA? Weren't we supposed to get to a point where we ceased fighting everyone and everything? Isn't that one of the "basics" old time AA? The grumpy old men and women who chided new and not so newcomers for identifying as "andas" (alcoholic and a addict) seem to be dying out now and it just doesn't seem to bother most folks how other folks identify themselves in an AA meeting. Personally, I don't see a distinction between alcoholic and addict. Alcohol is a drug. A recovering addict will not do well in their recovery if they consider alcohol "less than" any other drug. A recovering alcoholic will not do well on any sort of marijuana maintenance program. We all know that. I really have more important things to do in my life than concern myself with these semantic nonsensical pissing matches.

In fact, I think I'm done with this rant. Feel better now.

Take care.

Mike L.

Blogger's Block?

I tried with all my might a few nights ago to write a blog--but everything I started out to write all sounded like crap. I feared that this might be the beginning of a trend. Maybe this was just the end of this blogging attempt. Leave it to a drunk to take one instance as a permanent never-ending fact.

The following morning, the same thing sort of happened at the 6:30am meeting at the Concord Fellowship: after his chair the guy gave a topic that could easily expound upon for hours. But that morning? Nothing. Nada. Zip. I was afraid that he was going to call on me and for the first time ever, the words "thank you for your chair, but I think I'm just going to listen today..." were going to pass my lips.

No such luck, he left me alone to my blank thoughts. It was good to listen.

Tonight, I'll start trying to put into written word what's occupying my gray matter as it relates to recovery. We'll see what happens.

Take care!

Mike L.

Interrupted by Life

Recently, I've felt more and more pulled in all different directions. What's weird is that I'm relatively calm with this awareness. I've got a six different project schedules running at work and seem to walk into the office day these days "triple booked" most of the day. My wife's developing a long and ever expanding "to do" list of things I need to accomplish before our daughter's wedding in September. I'm continuing my regular meeting routine pretty much, although my average numbers of meeting per week is probably slipping below ten a week now. I meet regularly with my sponsees and feel relatively good at my ability to listen to them and do my best to offer a helpful story or word.

I have been cutting back on some activities just by necessity and one of those is blogging. I've done this now for almost 8 months and have really enjoyed it. It's added a great deal to my recovery and over this time, I've actually connected up with several "anonymous" folks along the way that I would not have touched were it not for my decision to try this blogging out. But it's been hard to find a few moments, like this one now, where I can sit down without much interruption and write.

My interruptions though are my life. Blogging, somewhat like my meetings, involves stepping back for a brief moment to reflect on that life and find a moment of replenishment. In addition, blogging and meetings are both places where I most frequently encounter other suffering alcoholics with whom I can share what I've found and can find what I'm most looking for...

That's it for now. Back to life.

Mike L.

Hope: The Contagious Message of Recovery

I've been immersed in life the last couple of weeks, so I've been remiss in blogging. I've missed it, but I've just not had time to blog. Even now, I'm sneaking in this blog between a couple of chores left me by my wife. She's out getting her nails done with my soon to be married daughter. I deserve this blog!

At one of my favorite meetings earlier today, the chair offered "Hope" as the topic and it was a perfect fit to her story. In fact, it is a perfect fit with every one's stories in AA! It dawned on me me today that Hope is one of the essential ingredients for recovery. Every time we tell stories in AA, they are filled with all sorts of horrendous tales which include shame, hurt, guilt, failure, betrayal and pain. Strangely, when we hear these stories, we often laugh with one another and I've often thought that laughter to be odd and maybe even inappropriate. But I can't help joining in anyway! Why do we laugh (and sure, we cry too!) at these stories??

I think it's because our stories, by definition, contain hope. They contain hope for all of us because while these stories tell all sorts of hellish events from our past, we have all apparently lived to tell and share our stories. They are all stories of survival. Somehow we survived. Where life was nothing but hopelessness and isolation, we somehow survived. We got sober. Even if someone was sitting in the meeting today still with alcoholic flowing through their veins, for some reason, they were there in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Even if they were there at the behest of a lover, the command of a lawyer/judge, or the pain of a swollen liver, they were there sitting amongst others who also could simply not stop drinking and/or using. And not only had these people experienced the same hell of not being able to stop, it appears that many of them had figured out a way to stay sober one day at a time for many days.

That meeting really gave me a renewed spirit of hope. Reconnected with a bunch of people I now get to honestly consider friends. And am now able to go back to my chores with a certain lightness and calm. Pretty amazing.

Take care!

Mike L.