There are page numbers quoted below. The number after the colon (:) is the paragraph number. '21:1' therefore means page 21, first full paragraph (any run-on paragraph from the previous page is counted as part of the previous page). Sometimes the reference is to a particular story (e.g. 'Jim'), where the story might extend across up to four pages.
The discussion below concerns alcohol. If your problem is sex, food, gambling, etc., just make the necessary substitutions.
To start off, quickly read through the book up to the middle of page 44, to get an overview. If you have recently read up to the end of Dr Bob's Nightmare, in order to get an overview, you can skip this step. Rereading these pages will not hurt, in any case.
Step One reads:
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
This breaks down into the following ideas:
Physical craving
Key idea
Once we alcoholics start drinking, we're (often, usually, or always) compelled to carry on and on, regardless of consequences. This is not because of circumstances or emotion; this is not because we're dumb or mad; it's because we're built that way. We might always have been like that, or maybe that's how we've become. In any case, that's how we are now. This means we cannot moderate, and we cannot drink safely. Once we alcoholics have had the first drink, we are powerless over how much we drink and what we do.
Relevant passage(s)
- Doctor's Opinion (in general)
- 21:1
- 21:2
- 22:4
- 31:3
- Man of thirty (32)
- 44:1
No such thing as a safe slip
Key idea
When we relapse, we might never stop drinking, even if we've stopped drinking before. Even one relapse could be fatal, because it could lead to us continuing to drink until we die. When we alcoholics relapse, we are powerless over the duration of the relapse. It could be a day, a month, a year, or forever.
Relevant passage(s)
Man of thirty (32)
Mental obsession
Key idea
The mental obsession is the persistently recurring, overpowering impulse to drink despite the consequences. We alcoholics, untreated, will experience this impulse, and sooner or later we will surrender to it. Then, the physical craving kicks in, and we won't be able to stop. We alcoholics—if untreated—are powerless over whether we drink the first drink. This is the insanity from which we are restored in Step Two.
Relevant passage(s)
- 20:6
- 23–44 (in general)
- Man with the hammer (23)
- Certain American businessman (26)
- 24:1
- 24:2
- 24:3
- 30:1
- 34:2
- Jim (35)
- 37:3
- Jaywalker (37)
- Fred (39)
- 44:1
Unmanageability
Key idea
To manage one's life means to manage one's schedule and actions. If we are powerless over the first drink and over subsequent drinks, we are not in charge of our schedule or our actions: the impulse to drink and the compulsion to continue drinking are in charge. We are not managing our life; our alcoholism is: it's in charge, rather than us. Terrible consequences are a good sign of unmanageability, but some of us have orderly lives and yet our lives are unmanageable, because we're not calling the shots; the mental obsession and the physical craving are calling the shots.
Relevant passage(s)
- 18:1
- 21:2
- Page 3 of Step One in 'Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions':
'Alcoholics who still had their health, their families, their jobs, and even two cars in the garage, began to recognize their alcoholism. As this trend grew, they were joined by young people who were scarcely more than potential alcoholics. They were spared that last ten or fifteen years of literal hell the rest of us had gone through. Since Step One requires an admission that our lives have become unmanageable, how could people such as these take this Step? It was obviously necessary to raise the bottom the rest of us had hit to the point where it would hit them. By going back in our own drinking histories, we could show that years before we realized it we were out of control, that our drinking even then was no mere habit, that it was indeed the beginning of a fatal progression. To the doubters we could say, "Perhaps you're not an alcoholic after all. Why don't you try some more controlled drinking, bearing in mind meanwhile what we have told you about alcoholism?" This attitude brought immediate and practical results. It was then discovered that when one alcoholic had planted in the mind of another the true nature of his malady, that person could never be the same again. Following every spree, he would say to himself, "Maybe those A.A.'s were right . . ." After a few such experiences, often years before the onset of extreme difficulties, he would return to us convinced. He had hit bottom as truly as any of us.'
Progressive, fatal, incurable
Key idea
Alcoholism gets worse as the alcoholic gets older. The mental obsession and physical craving strengthen. Alcoholics tend to die decades early. Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. Only abstinence can arrest the process. Self-will fails to do the job. Only a spiritual awakening can keep us away from the first drink permanently. Otherwise, the situation is hopeless.
Relevant passage(s)
- 24:4
- Certain American businessman (26)
- 30:3
- 31:2
- Man of thirty (32)
- 33:3
- 34:1
- 38:3
- 39:1
Necessity of a spiritual awakening
Key idea
The alcoholic's mind is fatally flawed: there's a part of the brain that seems hard-wired to want a drink. Unless we turn our will and life over to a Higher Power, we will drink again. That surrender to a Higher Power then enables the other underlying problems to be gradually sorted out. But it is the surrender that enables us to remain sober, even if the impulse to drink arises.
Relevant passage(s)
- 25:3
- Certain American businessman (26)
- 38:3
- 39:1
- 42:2
- 42:3
- 43:2
- 43:3
- 44:1
Exercise 1: Powerlessness
Take each key idea above, find quotation or two from the book that helps you remember this, then write a couple of examples of where you have observed this in yourself. Be specific and brief. With most questions, you'll have recourse to your experience. With the question of fatality, you're looking for situations that were potentially fatal or how fatality might play out.
Exercise 2: Unmanageability
Write a list of the top ten things that resulted from drinking that you would prefer not to have happened.
Extra reading
Here are some links to the blog:
https://first164.blogspot.com/search/label/Step One
https://first164.blogspot.com/search/label/Physical Craving
https://first164.blogspot.com/search/label/Mental Obsession
https://first164.blogspot.com/search/label/Step One (insanity)
https://first164.blogspot.com/search/label/Unmanageability
Some people find these articles helpful. If they help, great. If they make things more confusing, don't worry. They overlap a lot, so maybe just read articles until the ideas are clear. If you want to read them all, that won't hurt, so be my guest.