Someone said today that they like going back and talking about the 1st Step regularly. I couldn’t agree more. Just reviewing that Step brings back a lot of things to mind.
After all, that 1st Step was the beginning of sobriety. Every time I read about it or talk about it reminds me and reinforces the truth about alcohol and myself. I am truly powerless over alcohol. I, like so many, spent years attempting to stop drinking to no avail. Faced with alcohol, my will failed me.
What did work was my bottom. It broke the barrier between sobriety and alcohol. It allowed me to do something I never could before. It gave me the opportunity to not only surrender, but to place myself in the hands of my higher power and the program of AA.
That’s exactly why I never seem to tire over a discussion of the 1st Step. I get an opportunity to hear others discuss the process of going through this Step. Listening to others always seems to open my mind and strengthens my resolve to stay sober.
It also renews the hope within me that came with that first surrender. The promise of a new life, when I walked through the doors of AA and met all these sober people, who were once just like myself. I heard their stories, just as I did today, and remembered what it was like at that first meeting. It was like coming home. I never want to forget that.
There’s something else that comes from such a discussion. That’s the new people and those in early sobriety. It gives all of us the opportunity to practice the 12th Step. To hopefully open their hearts and minds up, just as mine was on that first night.
Anyway, I couldn’t help but think about this, when I got home. It always reminds me of those first two promises in the 9th Step, that we will know a new freedom and a new happiness. Freedom from alcohol and how happy that always makes me, when I think about the 1st Step.