Step 1B Issues

[boleon]

I often suspected that step 1 was a compound statement meant to combine two steps into one. That the
“- our lives had become unmanageable” is a step within the step.

I mentioned it to my sponsor but he told me that until I could reconcile that idea with the Big Book, it was just an opinion. My suspicion was that there were some issues associated with the “ism” of alcoholism that were present with or without alcohol. I finally found what I was looking for on page 52:

“We were having trouble with personal relationships, we couldn't control our emotional natures, we were a prey to misery and depression, we couldn't make a living, we had a feeling of uselessness, we were full of fear, we were unhappy, we couldn't seem to be of real help to other people”

This is the part of alcoholism that continues on long after putting the drink down. This explains why we need 11 more steps. This is why it says on page 64: “Our liquor was but a symptom. So we had to get down to causes and conditions.”

I now realize that one of the reasons that I drank in the first place was to sweep these problems under the rug. Alcohol was my way of burring my head in the sand. In some delusional way it was my solution for 35 years. Until I addressed my “causes and conditions” I was still suffering from untreated alcoholism.

[sioux]

The "bedevilments."

I would like to offer reading the second step in the 12 x 12 and see if you can't make a connection to what you wrote and what you read. More is constantly being revealed, and I appreciated the opportunity to get my book out.

[BIG AL]

I was tought by my sponsor that step 1 has 2 parts the powerlessness and unmanagebility.The umanagability is often mistaked for being powerless.See we can say I was powerless becouse my wife left me,I lost my job,I had hot checks,I went to jail,But that is the unmanagabilty of our lives.Those dont have anything to do with us being powerless they are results of you drinking.You see all those things happen to normal folks divorce,jails,hotchecks,and lost jobs.We need to find out what seperates us from those others who do go out get a DWI and say oh **** and never have a drink again.What do we do?We hit the corner store on the way back home after posting bail.Why becouse our thinking.The thinking that this time I will not get DWI or lost job or etc.I shal handle myself like a gentleman.The big book talks about persuing this to the gates of hell and insanity.Doing the same things over oand over expecting different results.Anyway thats my take on things.As we sober up we learn home to manage our lives that we were unmanagable.We start to balance our checkbooks pay our bills and hopefully stay out of jail.We manage our lives like a bissiness that you want to make a profit.If you run IT INTO THE GROUND IT WILL CALLOPES.

[Craig A.]

Yes for me it is a two-part step, I admitted long time ago I was an alcoholic and addict why I was using. I did the same thing I tried to escape reality through whatever was there, alcohol, herion, cocaine, crack, the list could go on; the consequences of losing my jobs, family, friends, places to live, that did not matter to me. I was sad, and angry but to do something about it I would have to look at myself, I tried to avoid that at all cost! Through the grace of God in the woods by my self I finally asked for help and admitted I can't live my life I need help! For me the second part was harder to understand or admit, funny though losing job after job, place after place, and still think it is everybody elses's fault but mine. Drugs and alcohol were nothing but a symptom of a bigger problem---ME!

[Rocket2d4]

Lmao... Step 1 is about honesty, acceptence and self acceptence.

It's a simple program for complicated people..
There's all kinds of words or stories in the Big Book, 12&12 and other recovery literatures. A "jurgurnant" for example.

Look ma...I'm freaken sober now and why the hell are you so sad?
Bwt ..what the hell happened to the barn?...That must have been one crazy storm.lol

Drugs and alcohol kills brain cells and have all kinds of side effect.
Poeple generally run thier lives into the ground when drunk , stoned or buzzed out of thier mind.
Making bad decisions after bad decisions. Living problems gets compounded.

Living in denial, sweeping it under the rug and just plain don't want to admit
there's an elephant in the living room. So..on gose the manipulations, blame
shifting.

It said...no one (an alki) is going to make it RIGHT unless thier backs are againts the wall
or until our life depends on it.....in step #1 in the 12 and 12.

It say striaght up in the AA book.." Above all else, get rid of self-fishness or it'll
kill us...God allows it."

There's other books that say....some of us knew long before we ever took
a first drink or drug that we wern't rigth in the head meantlly, emotionally and spiritailly.

There's a lot of issues that a person needs to work through in recovery aside from
not drinking or using : abandenment , violence, abuse, OCDP or PTSD.
The drugs and alcohol just mask a lot of problems a person have already.
Cuasing more pains on top of pains

you know..some people just say " it stopped working"
" no matter how much I tried to run from the pains, it didn't work"

That's why peaple say " Face Everything and Recover"

Yes there's a lot of pains and suffering

The 12 steps bascailly will clerify a lot for a person.
Being accountible at the core.

I hurted poeple that loved me and was closest to me the most.
I dragged my ex-wife's emotions through the mud.
I held her mentally and emotionally hostage.
I hurted her in ways that I didn't even understand....becuase it was all about me.
My pains. What I want, when I want it, how I want it.

She didn't adandenment or abused me when I was a child.

I can admit to that today...I don't have an excuse. I don't have an exucse the get drunk or high.
I hope and pray that somehow she can heal from all that I put her through.

Just becuase the program will teach me to let go of the guilt and shame I was carrying around
growing up in a dysfunctional enviorment, by no means it dosn't hold me accountiable or
learning to be considerate of others.

Becuase the truth of the matter is, I hurted alot of people around me beside myself.
When I hitted bottom. I dragged a lot of people with me. It wasn't just a straight drop.
It had all kinds of chaos and insanity before we bottomed out.

By no means just becuase a person stops drinking that god render them white as snow.

People arn't afraid of GOD or a spirtual program...they don't want to clean up the mess and wreackage.

We all have our excuses.

Drinking and using never solved any of my living problems...It was more fuel into
the fire...

Or
Don't pour old wine into a new bottle. (bad analogy ..lol) Rule #62 :-P

Apply the same principle as not picking up a drink to not picking up my old behaviors, thinking, and living.