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Alcoholics Anonymous Blog & Video | January 5 | DonInLondon | Step 1 "Powerless" |

"We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable." I don't know about you, when I first encountered AA, it did not seem to be at all professional and I was confused. There was a pamphlet called: "where to find," which gave details of the AA meetings in my area. It was given to me at my second meeting, a guide to find meetings. Going to a meeting was very confusing, a group of people turned up at a local hall and things started to happen beyond my comprehension.

January 5 Video

Step 1 "Powerless" |

Step One Video 12 & 12

Step One

DonInLondon January 5, 2014: it can be very fearful to turn up to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting for the first time. All these people jostling, pleased to see each other, bouncing about as if they haven't got a care in the world. Chaos and confusion, and nobody particularly interested in me! Somebody was making teas and coffees, so I went over and somebody shook my hand and asked me if this was my regular meeting. No was my reply and then they asked me if I was new and I agreed I was. I was still shaking because my last drink had only been a few hours before. And I was really suffering. I took the plastic cup of tea and went and sat down, afraid to drink the tea in case people saw me shake uncontrollably.

I need to remind myself just how bad it can be to walk into an AA meeting for the first time, because it is confusing, nobody seems to know what's going on and then we start to bump into people who seem horribly cheerful. How on earth can they be so cheerful? It didn't seem right for sober people to be so happy not drinking. Of course I wasn't the only one shaking and totally confused, but I did not see the confused ones, I was just angry at the cheerful ones.

There was a very kind man who came shake my hand and offer his telephone number, to give him a call if I felt like a drink. Now that's more like it I thought, somebody to go to the pub with and drown our sorrows. I was a bit deluded and confused about the whole process of telephone numbers being given so freely. I would have preferred a woman had given me her number, and as I mentioned, I was confused, deluded and totally uninformed.

The following day I did ask at another meeting why I needed to have so many telephone numbers to somebody I had never met before. He just said, "It’s good to have a lot of telephone numbers because one telephone number is not enough as the person who has the phone is probably very busy most of the time and cannot answer just because you are ringing." And the time I sort of knew this was the answer, but didn't these people realise that I was quite important, because that is what they said, the newcomer is the most important person in the room, so why don't they answer the phone to me? Anyway, reluctantly I went round a few people who seemed to be okay, and asked them for their numbers. Some quite freely given, some people said no. Bastards! These days I realise why, I was a wreck and a liability.

Anyway it might seem like a rocky start, trying to understand what it is to be a newcomer in the Fellowship of AA, and how difficult it is to make any sense of what is going on. As this was my second visit in five years, I expected too much, I was still in a horrible detoxing situation and as anybody knows, detoxing is physically and emotionally painful all the time for most people. And the best advice was to curl up and accept the pain for as many days as the detoxing took, somebody said with medical help if you need it, and I did. And the other suggestion that I ought to take it easy, just felt like madness to hear, then another person said that I might like to take the cotton wool out of my ears and put it in my mouth. Bastard! He was right though, I did need to listen.

It may have been my own self will to keep on going to meetings with these horribly cheerful people, but I could not see any other way of getting along with anything without them, because nobody else would talk to me. Bastards! And why was I so angry? Nobody told me about the anger, bastards! I fell in with a group of three or four people, who seemed to be interested in me, my cigarettes and my very small amount of money, poncing bastards, and it took a while to shake them off. They were nice to me and quite friendly. Like anywhere in society, there are good people and bad people, and a few others suggested I hang out with them, and they were good people. Not bastards at all!

I started to realise that early days in recovery is just like anywhere else in society, we can meet good, bad and ugly people in various stages of decay or growth. The absolute truth? I did not know my arse from my elbow. And I was definitely in the category of not very well people. But after a few days I recognised most people in recovery are the most loving and cherishing people I could ever meet back in the day and always every day. Real humans, being human to each other.

DonInLondon 2005-2013

January 5 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 1 "Powerless" | Alcoholics Anonymous How am I feeling today? I feel good and I feel frustrated by technology! I want my computer to be efficient and up-to-date, but it seems to have developed some bugs over the previous few weeks. Not to worry, I am working round the issue, and learning how to make videos and write dialogue to go with them. It is frustrating, and I need not worry about fixing everything at once. And my living space is in chaos as a result of a new printer and conflicting software…

Around 7 o'clock last night, I felt a night in without any connections to the outside world was a bad idea. I trundled off to a meeting close by and just got there in time for the start. It's beautiful to see friends who are now years in recovery and also see good friends coming back after a bit of research out there in the land of alcohol. The news about life with alcohol for an alcoholic is most often horrible. And so often we never see people come back, some die quite quickly and others simply trudge an unhappy road, and only when the time is right, can they return under their own steam…

Listening intently to the main speaker, it covered everything about recovery, that it is normal life with good, bad and ugly bits. And when life gets ugly, dealing with this reality is as difficult as it need be. Usually we can cope with anything without a drink inside us and if we are not able to cope, we have plenty of friends in recovery and maybe sponsors as well who can be a listening post, and sometimes offer advice about how to process the issues. There is never a guarantee of an answer, an immediate answer to the problems we face. Or we would have found it already. The answer is to be open, honest and willing to ask for help when needed from the right people in the right place at the right time. Not always in fellowship…

I also shared how good it was to hear a true story of recovery, and everything shared, make complete sense to me. And one of the things on my mind at the moment when it comes to newcomers is the fellowship and its religious connotations. Some people, they are put off by any reference to God in the twelve steps of AA. Listening to a Buddhist share about their recovery recently, they picked a passage from as Bill sees it, which says one fellowship with many faiths. And that is the absolute truth of it, one fellowship all about sobriety and people of many faiths and beliefs who are able to live the twelve step principles in all their simplicity, one day at a time…

Meanwhile, back to the chaos I have created and gently sorting out where things will go. I don't have to make things perfect and cover-up to try and make things look perfect in my own space, I've learned that untidiness is as good as tidiness, it just depends on how I feel about it. If I feel comfortable in chaos, it is not an issue, if I feel discomfort and uneasy about anything, there is always somewhere to go to share and ask for help. Not necessarily about my immediate living space chaos, simply about the immediate chaos which might ensue in my head on any given day, there is always someone to ask the help these days…

Our daily reflections in AA, is all about acceptance and the jumping off point, where we have nowhere to go and no way to go back. How many times did I get to the jumping off point? I planned it, nearly did it, and if it hadn't been for the impact it would have on others I would have jumped…

I needed professional help, and some direction. At first it seemed I could blame everything else, overwork, anxiety, impossible deadlines I had imposed myself. I admitted over indulging in alcohol but never accepted it had a part to play in my breakdown. A mountain of unresolved feelings kept at bay by drink. Total acceptance of my alcoholism was years away…

"It could not be happening to me" I would be stronger and tougher and I would overcome this problem. The idea of powerlessness never occurred to me until family asked for help on my behalf. And even then I rejected and raged at interference in my life, it was up to me to sort my own life out. It took another five years of trying to do the impossible, battle and beat addiction on my own...

When it was suggested I try to do 90 meetings in 90 days, and stop trying to go it alone, I accepted it was worth a go. And I went a lot more than 90 meetings in those 90 days, fearful of a drink and fearful of my own company. In the company of sober people for that length of time I saw it was possible to change…

Sober Life in action ~ "Tennessee Williams "Success is blocked by concentrating on it and planning for it... Success is shy - it won't come out while you're watching." And gratitude is a reflection on what has happened and being alive so it may happen again...

AA Big Book Video | Chapter 1 | Bill's Story |