G.R.P.
Richmond, Indiana
Beyond Step One
July 1957
It has been my contention for some time that AA is not merely a fellowship of ex-drunks gathered together for the purpose of staying sober. It is a program for better living, in which the gaining and maintaining of sobriety is merely the first step—to alcoholics a “must” and all-important one.
The AA program centers on better living rather than sobriety. In the Twelve Steps the words alcohol and alcoholics are each mentioned only once. I think it is logical to assume that they are used in Steps One and Twelve simply because we are a Fellowship of alcoholics and sobriety is our first problem, not our last; nor can they all be solved by sobriety alone.
The other ten Steps do not refer to drinking but dwell on improving our way of living. I will concede that these other ten Steps would help a person stay sober if he saw fit to use them for that purpose and they are no doubt an indirect asset to sobriety; but they are a direct benefit to a better way of life.
The “Definition of AA,” as many have seen fit to call it, is for me a complete explanation of AA.
The last sentence in the so-called “Definition” says: “Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.” It does not say “Our purpose”—it says “Our primary purpose.” In other words, not the whole purpose but the first.
First of what? My answer is—the first of a series of things we must do if we want a better way of life.
R.B.
Addison, New York
Slow Learner
March 1962
Stupidly, my great downfall—after nearly two sober years in AA—came about because of a misconception of the First Step.
In 1945 I had suffered very little from my chronic alcoholism. Sheer luck had saved me from jails, and a loving and patient family spared me from many humiliations which I richly deserved. I had lost several jobs, but each time moved on to better ones.
Early in 1945 when I had just lost a particularly good job with a rosy future because of a month-long binge, I came to AA. In meeting after meeting I heard fellow members tell of gruesome experiences in jails and “booby-hatches”—of wrecked homes, destitution and skid row, and each time they prefaced their remarks by saying, “My name is Joe, and I'm an alcoholic.”
Because of staying sober in AA for a while, I prospered in business. And the more I prospered the more I wondered about my experience as compared to my fellow members who kept saying they were “alcoholics” and had been so much worse off than I had been.
At the same time I heard it frequently said that “in the First Step we admitted we were alcoholics.” And I began to wonder whether, by comparison, I was really an alcoholic, or had just been using a wrong mental attitude in my drinking. In other words, I was doing a lot of silly rationalizing and dwelling on the comparison of myself and fellow members.
Naturally this led to a “blow-off” in less than two years, and I reverted to drinking, but with increased consumption. My whole object for the ensuing six years was to escape from myself—to bury my shame—as I felt I had failed in AA as I had failed my family, my employers and my Higher Power.
During this six-year interval I lost everything I possessed, not only all worldly possessions, but family, friends and respect in my field of work. I went heavily into debt, well into the five-figure bracket.
Early in 1953 I had reached a low “bottom,” and crawled back to AA. This time I read the First Step with definite understanding for the first time. I observed that it said, “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol”—nary a word about being “an alcoholic”! I was not sensitive then—or before—about the word, but before my interest had been in whether I qualified as “an alcoholic” as I heard it referred to in meetings.
Now I suddenly realized that all I had to do was ask myself a simple question: “Am I or am I not powerless over alcohol?” I didn't have to compare myself or my experiences with anyone, just answer a simple question. In 1945 I had had ample evidence in twenty-four years of irrational or “alcoholic” drinking to prove I was “powerless over alcohol.” But, I had wasted valuable time wondering whether a certain adjective applied to me.
In 1953, having lived through all of the things I had heard related in closed meetings, and having been beaten right down to the gutter, nothing mattered to me but the hope of sobriety, which I wanted more than anything on earth. In fact, at this point I had to have sobriety to live. A few months before, in a large hospital to which I had been admitted suffering from chronic and acute alcoholism and a liver enlargement more severe than had ever been seen in that hospital, I was given just two weeks to live.
God must have had other plans for me, as I pulled through to come back to AA, free from worry over definitions, and dedicated to helping new members who haven't been hurt too badly. I want them and their families to be spared all of the suffering that will come if they revert to drinking as I did. I will urge them to read the First Step literally, and ask themselves the simple question contained therein—Are you or are you not “powerless over alcohol?”
J.L.S.
Miami, Florida
I Was My Problem
August 1966
There has never been any doubt in my mind that I am an alcoholic since I found out about alcoholism. I think I could best describe myself in the early years by looking at the First Step and just taking the last half of it. I think that from the time I was born my life was unmanageable. I didn't know why and I didn't know that it was. I had a problem from the very beginning and the problem was myself. And that's the reason I think this program works for us, because it helps to remove “I”—I was my problem—and the practice of the AA program helps me to change myself so that I am no longer a difficulty to myself.
When I first came to AA I was told that I should not bother to try and find out why I became an alcoholic, but rather I should accept my alcoholism as a fact and begin to do something about it. I was terrified of what I was going to find in AA but when I got here I "came home.” When I walked into AA I felt that feeling of friendship and fellowship and warmth and all the things that we come to know as part of an AA group. I sort of fell in love with AA right from the very beginning and I have felt that way about it ever since.
E.M.
Wellington, New Zealand
100 Percent
August 1988
I have wanted to take the First Step for almost two years now. In Step meetings some of you said that the First Step was the only one which could be taken 100 percent. I could not take it that fully, though, and I envied those of you who could. I envied you for your DUIs and jail sentences and DTs. You had gone so low you had taken the First Step before your first AA meeting. You weren't fighting alcohol any longer.
For me, however, I thought about drinking a lot. It was still an option.
I used to plan on going to a bar, but one of our chips says, “Call your sponsor before, not after.” So I would call, and each time she would suggest not drinking for the next twenty-four
