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.