and even by our latter-day friends, the psychiatrists.”
Members sometimes view the Twelve Steps as therapy, perhaps the best therapy available for alcoholics. “Outward problems in our lives are produced by conditions within ourselves. Persistent use of the Steps removes the inward conditions that cause the problems,” a 1976 contributor to the Grapevine wrote. “As we experience changes in ourselves, we live our way into a new understanding, and we gradually stop creating difficulties in our lives. We find answers and solutions that we could never see before, and they all come from the program. It's so simple that it's sometimes tough to believe!
“Regardless of where we are in sobriety, you and I have a specific method of dealing with what happens to us each day—by simply renewing our work in the program. Unless I do this kind of continuing work, I'll never know what the AA message really is or how to help another person experience it.”
This book shows how AA members of all ages, from all lifestyles and from around the world, followers of mainstream religions and atheists, newcomers and old-timers, have recovered and found a new way of life by working the Twelve Steps. The Steps are a very popular submission topic, with a great deal of manuscripts on Step topics submitted each year. Every issue of the Grapevine since its redesign in 2007 has included a Step story. Here is a variety of experiences that AAs have written about the Steps and sent to the Grapevine over the course of its existence, from the 1940s to the present.
STEP ONE
“We admitted we were powerless
over alcohol—that our lives had
become unmanageable.”
Bill W.'s description of Step One in the “Twelve and Twelve” is rife with metaphors. There's “John Barleycorn,” the personification of the grain barley and the alcoholic beverages that are made from it—beer and whiskey. There's the image of the “lash of alcoholism” driving drunks into AA, and the “life preserver” that the dying seize with fervor.
Perhaps the most important metaphor is the image of the “taproot”: “The principle that we shall find no enduring strength until we first admit complete defeat is the main taproot from which our whole society has sprung and flowered.”
According to an online encyclopedia, a taproot is a large root that grows straight downward and forms a center from which other roots sprout laterally. “Plants with taproots are difficult to transplant … and uproot.”
Admitting defeat is the taproot of the rest of the program, the one Step that AAs must take 100 percent before continuing with the rest of the program. Some AAs realize their lives are unmanageable and that they can't handle alcohol years before entering the program. Others accept the first or the second half of the Step before taking it in its entirety.
“When I first came to AA I was told that I should not bother to try and find out why I became an alcoholic, but rather I should accept my alcoholism as a fact and begin to do something about it,” writes the author of a 1966 Grapevine story. An earlier piece in 1944, calls the admission of unmanageability and powerlessness the “first success on the road to well-being.”
On the following pages, AAs talk about Step One.
On the First Step
November 1944
The first of the 12 Steps in the creed or philosophy of Alcoholics Anonymous is, “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.” By such an admission any alcoholic, provided he is sincere, has achieved his first success on the road to well-being.
Such an admission is usually very difficult for the alcoholic to make. The very nature of his disease makes him shun the knowledge of his inability to cope with the problems of everyday life. Hence his desire for something that will rapidly create whatever he thinks he lacks as an individual. With a few drinks under his belt he can fashion the most wonderful dreams about himself. These dreams can become his real characteristics—but only when he recognizes that he must dominate alcohol rather than have alcohol dominate him.
The sincerity with which the newcomer takes the First Step is the gauge by which his recovery through AA can be measured.
Over the years the alcoholic develops a three-dimensional ability at picture building, which is a kind way of saying that alcoholics are adept liars. So that by really taking the First Step—admitting freely and without reservation that he is an alcoholic—a person starts to build a new pattern of thought. The whole, at last, is fabricated from truth rather than wishful thinking or fantasy.
John B.
New York, New York
I Had Lost the War!
November 1952
It didn't take me five minutes to admit that I am an alcoholic. It's true that I had always rationalized that I had lost a battle, when in reality I had lost the whole war. Yes, at long last I surrendered unconditionally.
A while ago a speaker said that it was no use admitting that one was an alcoholic unless the admittance was accompanied by a realization of what being an alcoholic really meant. The next time I heard the speaker he persuaded me that I wasn't finished with the First Step yet. He said there was no use my making the admission even in the full realization of what it meant, unless I accepted the fact that I was an alcoholic without resentment. That took a little longer; but finally, after having the resentment removed I thought I could honestly say I had fulfilled the three conditions he laid down. Admission, realization, acceptance. From now on, all I had to do was to take this Step each day, and then devote my thoughts to the other 11. All sweet naiveté! To think that a mind soaked with alcohol would so easily change its habits of thinking and rationalization. John Barleycorn dropped the direct attacks like an experienced campaigner and started a flanking attack coupled with some smooth fifth-column work.
I began to read some other works on alcoholism as well as the Big Book. A natural interest, you might say, for an alcoholic. In all sincerity some of these books as well as seeking a “cure” were also hoping to learn something about “prevention.” I began to ask myself—How and when did I become an alcoholic? Did I become an uncontrolled drinker five years ago? Or was it ten? Could I have been born with alcoholic tendencies? These and many more questions surged through my mind.
The same speaker now told me that there was no use in my wondering why or when I became an alcoholic for the very simple reason that it wouldn't change my condition; even if I did find the answer, I would still be an alcoholic.
The clergy, the scientists, the medical profession, the social workers, all have good and legitimate reasons for seeking the answer to “how and when,” but do I? The Twelve Steps told me “to try to carry the message.” They didn't mention my becoming an expert on alcoholism, its prevention and cure. Actually do I really care about the future generations? Perhaps I should, but truthfully, my charity hasn't developed to that extent yet.
Why then, was I concerned with how or when I became an alcoholic? I know now. Subconsciously or otherwise, I was making a last desperate attempt to get out from under. Somebody else, or something else was going to accept the responsibility for my plight. My fault? Perish the thought. Wasn't it enough that I admitted my condition, realized what it meant, and accepted the fact without resentment? Did I have to accept the blame too?
Apparently I had. Funny thing—it doesn't seem to matter much to me now, “how or when.” My interest in future generations is confined to wishing well to those who legitimately seek the answers. I still have too many “selfish” things to look after before I can become “unselfish” enough for that.
Anonymous
Toronto, Ontario
I Was Just Run-of-the-Mill
March 1953
To all outward appearances, many things and circumstances in my life are much the same as they were three years ago: same husband, same house, same economic standard, same community interests. But to me