I think this part of the steps is probably one of the most under played or overlooked part.  The Steps say: “ …..that our lives had become unmanageable” the big Book of AA says: “ Is he not the victim of the delusion that all will be well if only he manages well. This why in Step Two you admit you need to be restored to sanity. Delusion is insanity.

People say to me: “Well, I was (or am), Paying my bills, holding down a job, and keeping my house and clothes clean, I just have a drinking problem” or the come back is: “yeah, sure my life was un-manageable, so let get on to step two.”

These people are building a house without checking the foundation quality, or checking the routing of plumbing and electrical. Just get me get on to the step four framing, where I can legitimately stall because: “It is just so hard” or “I am just not a person that writes”

I often think , most people view the wording of the first step as some kind of a paraphrase language saying: “I must stop drinking, because things have just got too bad” just as I said in an earlier blog. I think, I expected step one to say: “Never, never drink alcohol again,… My last half would have been: “because you are out of control.”

There is a good reason the first step is worded the way it is. (And it is not because it was the inspired word of God) It is because it was written by a very intelligent, well educated man of great concern and consternation. And the edited by other intelligent men, all of which had GREAT deal of experience with alcoholism. For the person who really gives themselves to a true study of the steps, it becomes clear, that the words are precise and spark greater understanding for the reader, If you take the time to journal, not only about powerlessness, but the true depth of the unmanageability, you will realize a person who is imbibing poison that will do brain damage till it does enough physical damage to kill them: has a real management problem. If you can’t manage drinking poison, what is depth of you problem? What are these suicidal roots of this disease?

Of course if you take this a step further, you have to ask, just how delusional is the human race as whole. But that is a subject for my other blog.