You’ve likely heard the old Chinese proverb that “A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.” But as an A.A. member and a fellow traveler on the great 12 Step journey, I’d be quick to add a cautionary travel advisory to anyone just starting out: If your First Step in the Program points you in the wrong direction, there’s no telling how far from your intended destination you may wind up! Approaching 40 years in recovery, I’m so very grateful for my early teachers who passed on their hard earned knowledge and wisdom that pointed newcomers like me in the spiritual direction, I believe, Bill Wilson intended us to travel.
Many of those early teachers noted the important difference between two key words Wilson uses in Step One: the words are POWERLESS & UNMANAGEABLE. They said Bill chose each word carefully having learned from those who had guided him and wanting to pass on the essence of their understanding to us. In the Big Book, Wilson describes alcoholism as a combination of two distinct conditions simultaneously present in the body and in the mind of the alcoholic. One condition he saw as purely physical and he called this being “POWERLESS;” the other condition he distinguished as being purely mental, the “obsession of the mind” that makes the alcoholic’s life, “UNMANAGEABLE.” A clear understanding of what each word means and seeing how these two very different conditions interact with one another is key to pointing us in the spiritual direction we need to travel in recovery.
POWERLESS: Bill gained his understanding of the physical aspects of alcoholism from his own physician Dr. William Silkworth. Forever known as “the little doctor who loved drunks,” Silkworth had developed what he called his “allergy theory.” He lacked the knowledge we have today of the brain chemistry at work in addiction, but he keenly observed and treated thousands of alcoholics through his pioneering work at Towns Hospital in New York City. In 1937 Silkworth wrote, “… true alcoholism is an allergic state. The result of gradually increasing sensitization by alcohol over a more or less extended period of time."
Silkworth saw that physically, the many alcoholics he treated reacted far differently to drinking than did their non-alcoholic counterparts. He wasn’t exactly sure where in the body their differing reaction lay, but he likened its effects to the physical reaction a person might have to pollen or to hay fever, although with far more devastating consequences. He said when an alcoholics drinks, it triggers an insatiable physical CRAVING that dooms him or her to drink so much more than they ever intended. The ensuing drunkenness and sprees bring ever-deepening PROBLEMS into their lives as well as to those around them. These include physical problems, family and legal problems, job problems as well as emotional and spiritual problems. Silkworth said these latter two often leave the alcoholic feeling: “restless, irritable and discontented.” To cope with this, the drinking cycle repeats itself over and over again until the alcoholic finally makes a sincere and determined effort to quit. It is only then that the second part of the illness is experienced.
UNMANAGABLE: What a strange word Wilson chose to describe the second part of the alcoholic’s illness: namely, the mental obsession every “real alcoholic” experiences. It’s likely a word we had never used before coming into the Program. But if we remember that both Bill and Dr. Bob initially got sober through their participation in the Oxford Group, then the choice of this strange word may become clear. Oxford Group members tried to work a spiritual program to overcome a vast assortment of problems they faced in their lives. Their program was based upon the four moral principles of honesty, purity, unselfishness and love. Whether their problem was stealing or infidelity, smoking or drinking, lying or harboring deep felt resentments, they found it impossible to achieve lasting success in overcoming them without God’s help.
Many in the Group became fond of a simple prayer formulated, they said, by a young boy named Victor who lived somewhere in the Himalayan mountains. Like so many in the Group, its young author had faced an insurmountable problem that had thoroughly defeated him. So one day Victor knelt down to ask God’s help in doing for him what he could not do for himself. He prayed, “God, manage my life for I cannot manage it by myself.” Like Bill Wilson, Victor’s life had become unmanageable; and like Victor, Bill Wilson admitted his own complete defeat and finally knelt down in his detox room to ask for God’s help. The rest, as they say, is A.A. history.
I believe the lesson Bill Wilson tried to pass on to us through Step One goes something like this: We alcoholics are POWERLESS over alcohol – that means when we drink alcohol, it triggers within us an allergic reaction that results in a physical craving – this carving leads inevitably to yet another drunken spree and to all the attendant problems that go with it. But these many problems are not the thing that makes our lives unmanageable – they are only the consequences of our destructive drinking and they do make life one helluva mess!
But when we finally make up our mind to quit – it’s only then we discover that our lives have become UNMANAGEABLE – that we are afflicted with a mental obsession – that “we have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called will power becomes nonexistent. … We are without defense against the first drink.” When the physical allergy of the body (POWERLESS) is coupled with the mental obsession (UNMANAGEABLE) the Big Book says we are suffering from “a hopeless condition of mind and body.” If we want to sum up the lesson of Step One in a single word, that one word is: HOPELESS!
Today in meetings I hear people say, “I’m POWERLESS over people places, and things.” If alcoholics think they’re as POWERLESS over Albuquerque as they are over alcohol I worry about where their recovery journey is likely to lead them. And when alcoholics list all the problems they have in their lives and equate those problems with their lives being UNMANAGEABLE, I worry for their ultimate destination as well. But if an alcoholic knows that when he or she drinks they get drunk and when they try their very hardest not to drink, they do it anyway, then they understand the real hopeless of their alcoholic condition – then they understand the real meaning of Step One - then they’re ready to put their trust in a Power greater than themselves and ready to start their recovery journey through the next 11 Steps. Until then, they’re either stuck at the train station or heading down a set of tracks that lead to nowhere. “All aboard for Step Two!”
Fr. Bill Wigmore is Chaplain at Austin Recovery.
Send comments, questions, speaking requests, or treatment scholarship donations to:
Judy Haney /Austin Recovery / 8402 Cross Park Dr. / Austin, Texas 78754