What Is Powerlessness? Step One of the 12-Steps of AA

The mental obsession and physical cravings increase after the first drink, causing the person to drink more. Recovery is a journey that can seem intimidating if you’re just beginning, but in AA, you just have to take it one step at a time. Asking for help seems like such a simple concept, but admitting powerlessness is a humbling, courageous act. In recovery, we learn that it takes far more strength powerless over alcohol to surrender and admit powerlessness than it does to try to control addiction by ourselves. To admit powerlessness over alcohol (or drugs) means accepting the fact that you have lost control over your substance use. You accept that your life now largely revolves around maintaining your addiction and that your addiction is now the driving force behind all of your thoughts and actions.

• When we start, we believe it is fun (the extra dopamine that kicks in makes us believe this).
• In my active addiction, alcohol frequently caused more problems than it helped me forget.
• When I started not giving a damn if I could recall and celebrate important milestones.
• Of course, as time goes on and our tolerance to substances builds (making our body more and more dependent on drugs or alcohol), and fun begins to lose meaning.

But if it puts you in the hospital, you have a problem–normal people don’t drink themselves into the hospital. However, if you closely examine Step 2, the source of that greater power is open to interpretation. Defining that source of power is less important than accepting its ability to move you beyond your powerlessness.

What Groups Use Powerlessness to Benefit Recovery?

Hope is very possible, but it must begin by realizing how much is at stake. One drink or drug hit could send you back into a state of powerlessness. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable. Recovery Connection is the ultimate addiction recovery resource portal for information on the latest treatments, centers, and programs.

After all, when one family member struggles with alcohol abuse, family relations become characterized by dishonesty. Your inability to assert power over alcohol forces you to lie about your use of alcohol and even your whereabouts. This can lead to a cycle of lies, both for you and for the family members who attempt to understand or excuse your behavior. If you have an alcohol use disorder (AUD), you’re not alone. The Gooden Center is licensed by the state of California to deliver mental health and substance use disorder residential treatment. Alcoholism and addiction are sustained through denial, or a lack of awareness of how severe your problem is.

Powerless Over Alcohol

Rather than pushing you to believe in spiritual power, Step 1 of AA gets you to the point where you trust in the possibility of recovery. Then, you’re ready to believe you can manage your AUD with help from outside sources. Our society places a lot of value on trying to look as good and “in control” as possible, and so it can be scary to admit that you are not as in control of yourself as you would like to be. But it is an important step, to realize the severity of your powerlessness.

By relinquishing control over your addiction, you are now free to get help and support from others. Have you or your loved one lost power to substance use? If you have been able to admit it, the next step is finding someone who can help. At First Steps Recovery, we are able to take your call and assess the situation.

What Is Powerlessness? Step One of the 12-Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous

This is different from the inability to manage one’s life, which is what most people think of when they hear the word unmanageable. In fact, many people who struggle with addiction feel like they have little power over their disease but still want to change. Understanding powerless, that I had no choice, changed my life. It wasn’t until I had a full understanding of this word that my spiritual journey really was able to begin. It also made me realize that I’m not a bad person or a weak person.

Sometimes substance use puts you in the hospital by causing legal problems and the cops take you there for a blood draw or to dry out. Sometimes substance use puts you in the hospital by causing physical problems such as alcohol poisoning or liver damage. And sometimes it puts you in the hospital by causing mental problems such as suicidal ideation.

How many times have we had these kinds of thoughts and believed them? Because we are unable to produce these desired effects. Let’s face it when we control it, we’re not enjoying it, and when we’re enjoying it, we’re not controlling it. There are criticisms to the benefits of a person claiming a state of powerlessness. However, millions have benefitted from a clear understanding of in finding recovery.

Acceptance includes taking responsibility for our actions and accepting that we cannot change what has happened in the past. It’s so easy to blame other people for our problems, but recovery requires us to take personal responsibility, and that’s exactly what Alcoholics Anonymous teaches. It’s your responsibility to stay engaged in your recovery and work with your sponsor.

The Powerless Aspect

And we are committed to putting you on the right road to the help you need. The person who can finally admit to a lack of power over their situation has actually https://ecosoberhouse.com/ started to regain that very power. It may be lost from them at the moment, but they can start to reclaim it when they admit that it is no longer theirs.