Over the course of this last year, I really learned about my power and a power greater than myself.  A little over nine months ago I was promising my wife in tears that I would never touch heroin or anything else again.  I meant it with all of my heart and soul.  A lie detector test would have proved me to be telling the truth. 

I had just gotten out of a detox and had exchanged numbers with one of the other patients. He called me to come pick him up for a meeting that same evening. So, no problems, right? I tell my wife I’m picking up another addict to go to a meeting.  The guy gets in my car and has two loaded syringes ready… there was no second thought.  Within moments, I was high.  This after truly believing I would never use again.  That’s my power.  I really learned the definition of powerlessness that night.

After that, there was two weeks of hotels and living in my car and then ending up in another detox.  Then two half-way houses.  Many of us have been through these journeys.  This was definitely not the first time. I had about five years clean and sober in the past, but for the last five years I’d been struggling to put time together.  I had been in countless detoxes, half-houses, and rehabs.  I just could not stay stopped.  That obsession always dogged me.  It was the devil.

It was not until the second half-way house that something amazing and profound happened. Although, I was sleeping on the floor, there were ten other guys, there were roaches…  There was a lot to complain about, something just struck me.  I was in the shower praying because that is about the only place I could get some peace.   

While praying I felt a total peace and then I just felt broken.  It was as though I was letting everything out.  All of my sorrow, pain, and despair… I was giving over to God.  That day, I stepped out of that shower a free man.  Everything was not going to be alright.  Everything was alright! I felt joy.  I’d not felt joy in five long years.  To this day too, with action, the obsession is gone.  It was a cleansing and an awakening.  My wife even saw something different and after time I moved home.   

When I was newly sober, I heard the cliche that "alcoholism has very little to do with alcohol" many times. As I have stayed sober longer, I have found this statement to be extremely true. Alcoholism comes in a person, not in a bottle.

The First Step of Alcoholics Anonymous has two distinct parts. The first part states that we are powerless over alcohol (and drugs), and the second part states that our lives had become unmanageable. When I first saw this, I read it as "our alcohol abuse had become unmanageable." The truth is that our lives are unmanageable without alcohol as well. In my experience and opinion, my life became even more unmanageable without alcohol than it was with alcohol.

Alcohol was the solution. It worked. It helped me manage. Getting sober and admitting I was powerless over alcohol, I no longer had my chief form of comfort. Alcohol allowed me to not feel, and I wasn't sober frequently enough to fully experience the path of my unpleasant emotions. Suddenly I found myself in a world where I had no buffer between me and my emotions.

This unmanageability to me means that I cannot healthily and safely manage my life sober or drunk. My mind does not by default know how to appropriately respond to life. Alcoholism carries on just as well without the alcohol. As the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says, we have a physical allergy, mental craving, and spiritual malady. When I stop drinking, the physical allergy is no longer an issue. The mental craving is caused by my spiritual malady. It is for this reason that the focus of eleven of the Twelve Steps is on this spiritual malady.

As I work on my spiritual malady and get in conscious contact with my Higher Power, the mental cravings begin to dissipate. However, if I am not working on my spiritual malady, the mental cravings overpower me. The unmanageability is a direct result of my lack of a contact with a power greater than myself.

In recovery, we go through the steps with our sponsor.  However, the steps also must be worked in our daily lives.  As the Twelfth Step of Alcoholics Anonymous suggests, we must practice these principles in all our affairs.

Powerlessness

In everyday life, powerlessness is constantly affecting us.  Specifically, we must always remember our powerlessness over our addiction. Keeping close the memory of what happens when we indulge helps drive us every day to work the steps.  Remembering what our addiction looks like is a great motivator.

After working the steps and gaining insight, we discover that we are powerless over much more than our addiction.  Essentially, we are powerless over everyone and everything except ourselves.  We must stop trying to control outside events.

Dr. Paul O. said, "When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation- some fact of my life- unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment... When I complain about me or about you, I am complaining about God's handiwork. I am saying that I know better than God."

Unmanageability

Unmanageability affects our daily lives as well.  With the powerlessness over other people comes the unmanageability.  Other people, external events, and anything else outside of ourselves is certainly unmanageable.  When we don't recognize our powerlessness over these things, unmanageability grows even stronger.  Trying to exert power over external phenomena creates distress and anxiety.  Recognizing our powerlessness, we must see that everything is unmanageable to us.