Admin Blog

[TheBlueWolf]

Step 1 - The Problem

I am powerless over alcohol. For many years I suffered from a mental obsession, an insanity if you like, which convinced me that I could control my drinking and drink like a normal person. However no matter what I drank, where and when, I ended up drunk. That is because I also have a physical allergy to alcohol. By allergy I mean an abnormal reaction to alcohol in that once I start drinking alcohol I crave more alcohol. The brand was irrelevant; if it was alcohol I wanted more.

Sometimes my intentions were good and I honestly only intended to drink a couple. Time and again I awoke with no memory of what had happened, shaking and hoping I had enough alcohol, and money, to get me through that day. I could never moderate and despite all the promises, apologies and excuses would repeat my drunken behaviour daily. I wouldn't hit my hand with a sledgehammer more than once as it would hurt yet each morning I woke with the shakes, the terrors and yet convince myself today would be different. I tried quitting several times under my own power but did nothing other than not drink. I was irritable, restless and discontent and it was inevitable that I would find a reason to drink again.

Drinking made my life more and more unmanageable. I lost jobs because, when I did turn up, I was unable to do it properly. Friends family and partners ended up disowning me as I sought solace at the bottom of a bottle. Full of fear, anger, misery, resentment and false pride I blamed everything and everyone else for my drinking.

I often said that if the right reasons came along I would moderate or quit drinking. The right reasons came and went and became the reasons why I drank ever more. By the end I was sleeping on the streets, a broken, hopeless alcoholic.

Step 2 - The Solution

For me Step 2 meant the start of crushing my self centered, egotistical, resentful, pride driven insanity. A power greater than me? Could restore me to sanity?? I drank on what I believed were wrongs done against me by the universe and those that occupied it. In my drunken insanity I blamed all but my self and my crazy behaviour for my lost jobs, broken relationships, life under a sleeping bag in shop doors and other horrors. I wrongly believed that I was the power, the wronged party and, if there were a God, He was no power greater than me. It took the mental and physical breaking of my mind, body and spirit before I would change my mind.

The man who took me to my first couple of meetings gently suggested the idea of a Higher Power. He didn't preach just asked me to consider the idea of a power greater than me. I am neutral regarding religion but I realised that I lacked any real power and being told I could chose my own conception of God appealed to me. I especially liked the concept of a Creative Intellect, or Spirit Of The Universe talked about in "We Agnostics". I may not be religiously inclined but I believed, and still do, in something and this became my first baby steps into having faith that a power greater than me could restore me to sanity. Surely it had to be better than the drunken and sober insanity that I had previously encountered. So with a certain amount of trepidation I began to develop a faith in a power greater than myself

Step 3 - The Decision

As I began working through The Big Book, and The Steps, with my sponsor, he kept asking me through the first three chapters if this was my experience as an alcoholic. Reluctantly at first, but with ever increasing certainty, I had to agree that I was the alcoholic described in The Book. Although I'm not perfect I could behave like a fairly rational person in all other matters. Regarding alcohol I was utterly insane and totally powerless. I had no power over my obsession for alcohol or any control once I started drinking.

So if I was powerless then there must be a power greater than me. Life did not, and would never, run according to my will either.

At first I referred to this power as my 'Higher Power' but I also call it the God of my understanding. I consider God, as I understand Him, a kind, loving Spirit Of The Universe and if it was He who was to be the one I would hand power over to then I would, as hesitant as I was to begin with. My ego and selfish pride would have to be crushed to fully accept this new found power. I figured that with guidance from a forgiving, loving, caring caretaker of the universe I may solve my alcoholism. So I decided to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understood Him. I humbly knelt on the floor and recited The Third Step Prayer out loud in the presence of God and my sponsor.

Afterwards I felt the first flash of hope but I was to learn that the real work was about to start with a lot of action on my part.