step 1

When we first enter recovery the program seems difficult to swallow. While we get used to participating with the kind of people that genuinely want to help us, stay sober and focused on being better we slowly start to take a look at the steps. The first step has layers for me because, at first it was difficult to admit that I was powerless, I had to hit bottom to accept the truth, It was all a part of the dark night of the soul.

It was difficult for me to admit that I was powerless. I thought I was completely responsible for all of my successes and that somebody else’s actions were to blame for all of my failures. I was convinced that even my drinking and drug use was a sane reaction to an insane world. What i couldn’t admit was that I was responsible for creating my world, that somehow all the madness and all the success was due to my own expression of life and in my current state I was powerless to change it. I would just keep creating an unmanageable life with no hope of ever escaping the cycles of my material existence without first correcting this deeper “spiritual malady” I had been afflicted by.

It is suggested that we must hit bottom, that when we realise the seriousness of our malady we will cling to the program like a drowning man seizes a liferaft. This is important in every spiritual school of thought. It is important to be as prone to a conviction and willing to listen with an open mind like only the dying can be. (12 steps and 12 traditions, P. 21-25)

I have heard this referred to as the dark night of the soul.

“INTO this dark night souls begin to enter when God draws them forth from the state of beginner which is the state of those that meditate on the spiritual road and begins to set them in the state of progressives which is that of those who are already contemplative to the end that, after passing through it, they may arrive at the state of the perfect, which is that of the Divine union of the soul with God” (John of the cross, 1959)

This utter failure even to the brink of death is the beginning of rising from the ashes of our old life. It is said that the dark night of the soul is the death that leads to the rebirth that is spiritual awakening. In the doctor’s opinion it says that a vital spiritual experience would be required for the worst alcoholic to have a hope of becoming sober, for real lasting change to occur.

The first step was an amazing realization that I was on death’s door and it was by my own doing. It was the beginning of a process of transformation that created a life beyond my wildest dreams. It can and will work like this for anyone who chooses to apply the spiritual principles laid out in this simple program. Now that we have admitted defeat and begun the process of this leveling of pride “There was nothing left to do but pick up the kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet.” (Big Book of alcoholics anonymous, 4th edition)