A Literal Interpetation of the First Three Steps of AA

As a recovering alcoholic and addiction professional I have learned a few things they forget to tell you in early recovery. The first is your preconceived notions of the world are a obstacle in recovery. Today I look at the Twelve Steps of AA. Our experience and perceptions drive our interpretations and like all things the Twelve Steps are misinterpreted as much as any other book. Take any book and give it to ten random people and then after they read it discuss it you will have ten different interpretations. One of the biggest problems people have with AA or any other A for that matter is that it is a cult or religion. It is a matter of interpretation based on your understanding of words. Let's look at the Literal interpretation of the Twelve Steps as they are written. Very few people have a hard time with the first step. "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and our lives are unmanageable." Pretty straight forward. Most Alcoholics and Addicts do not come to recovery because they are managing life. When I was a counselor there was a easy test I would give clients at my facility. If they didn't believe they had a problem they should get in they're car, go home and kiss the wife and kids and get a good night sleep before going to work. Never had one do that. We come to recovery because we are have a allergy, a disease or a moral deficiency depending on the school of thought we subscribe to.

The second step is the one where people begin to begin to have a problem. Let's look at it literally. "Came to believe that a power greater then ourselves could restore us to sanity." Once again we find a lot of misinterpretation. All this step really says is we CAME to BELIEVE. Not that we did believe but we were working on it. A truth in recovery is 7-10% of Alcoholics and Addicts are able to recover with no help at all. Give it a try if you can't do it on your own you need a power greater then your addiction to help you. The automatic response to this is our ego's say no I am all powerful. There is no power greater then myself. What exactly does it mean. Well look at it this way if you take a knife to a gun fight you will have met a power greater then your self. In my experience the biggest obstacle to recovery is our ego. When we get sober we need to replace our ego with self confidence. What is the difference? Ego tells us how great we are without anything to back it up. I remember a hooker in the Tenderloin in San Francisco she said she was the best I would ever had. She was maybe 90 lbs, with abscess scars all over her from shooting Meth and Heroin. But in her mind she was a model. That is Ego. The longer we stay sober the further away we get from that state of mind. Self Confidence tell us what we can do and allows us to so it. The second step allows us to start this.

Now the big one once we change our minds about the Third Step we will find things go a lot smoother. "We became willing to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him." Yep there is the word that scares everyone. God. This is were we need to be literal. Most people believe in God. Pagans have the spirit of the universe, that's God, Christians have Jesus, that is God, Druids, Wicca all have s spiritual identity that by definition is God. AA is often referred to as Christian based. It isn't. If you go to the library and get 3 books on living the Christian life and red the first 164 pages count the number of times Jesus is mentioned. Then read the first 164 pages of the Big Book. Christ is mentioned once in passing on page 11 of Bills Story. He says, "To Christ I conceded the certainty of a great man not to closely followed by those who claimed him. His moral teachings most excellent for I adopted those parts which seemed convenient and not to difficult, the rest I disregarded." Religions all over the world say the same things in different ways. Don't harm others, respect yourself and try to live a life that is beneficial to you and your fellows. So if we take this step literally we will find nothing offensive about it. As Addicts and Alcoholics we are the epitome of selfishness when using. Nothing matters other then our score. Removing the drugs and alcohol and unlearning years of selfish behavior takes time and energy. The reason AA has stayed around as long as it has is because it gives us a road map to recovery but it is still our car to drive, either fast or slow, with music or without it is still our car.