"We admitted we were powerless over alcohol ... that our lives had become unmanageable".
That simple declaration, Step One in the Twelve-Step Programme, is almost impossible for the drinking alcoholic to make. He thinks he is powerful, and that he can control his drinking. He could stop any time he wanted, he just doesn't want to! Add to that a terror of what might happen if he were actually to give up his alcohol, and he simply can't bring himself to utter Step One.
When I was still drinking, I believed against all the evidence that alcohol was the only way I could cope with my chaotic life. If I were to stop drinking, I would fall apart! No matter how many friends and family members told me I was an alcoholic and needed to go to AA, I refused to consider the idea. Me? An alcoholic? How could that be true? I had a good job, fine house, nice car, expensive clothes, a maid and a gardener. In counselling speak, I was FINE (F----d up, Insecure, Neurotic and Egotistical).
Alcoholics stop drinking only when they reach their rock bottom. Yet, waiting for that catastrophic event, whatever it may be, is exactly what may kill them. And it does kill millions of alcoholics, all over the world, those who never find their way into the AA rooms, and those who do, but relapse.
If you're wondering about someone you know whom you suspect of being an alcoholic - or perhaps you're thinking about your own alcohol consumption and want to check whether you can really control it - there's a simple test.
For two weeks, you have either one, two or three alcoholic drinks every evening. You pick the number before you begin the test. And then for fourteen consecutive evenings you must stick to that number, no more and no less. For me, that would have meant two glasses of wine each evening. Someone larger and used to greater alcohol consumption would probably be able to have three, but it's a good idea to discuss the amount with your doctor first. (It was my own doctor, an addictions specialist, who suggested this test to me when I first began to admit my secret drinking habit).
You must not have more than the number you choose, but neither must you have less. You must consume the drink of your choice every evening, with no nights off. And if you can manage to do this for two whole weeks in succession, you may well not be an alcoholic.
If you succeed, take the test for another two weeks. Anyone who can manage to control their drinking for an entire month, drinking every night with no abstinences or excesses, is almost certainly not an alcoholic.
I didn't make it past the first four days.
An alcoholic finds it much easier to abstain from drinking altogether than to control their habit. This test is not a scientific experiment, but it does give a very good indication of someone's drinking status. If he fails (and please note I'm using the masculine gender only for convenience, because it applies just as much to women), he may consider that just possibly he might be an alcoholic. If he then begins to go to meetings and work the Steps, he can avoid much heartache and perhaps even save his own life.
But most alcoholics carry on drinking until that terrible rock-bottom hits them, and they're forced to assess their own drinking behaviour from a hospital bed, a divorce court or a prison cell.
It's not only the alcohol that we alcoholics can't control: it's our entire lives. When we sober up long enough to see the messes we've made of everything, our broken family relationships, our lost jobs, our financial and emotional bankruptcy, we begin to get a glimpse of what powerlessness means.
And paradoxically, it brings with it a gleam of hope.
The moment I began to think that I might be an alcoholic was after a botched, drunken suicide attempt. Afterwards, I couldn't remember why I'd felt so anguished, what had happened to precipitate it; I'd had an alcoholic blackout, and all memory of that night had vanished.
Coming round the next day, I picked up the AA Big Book and read it through, cover to cover. And then I went to a meeting. That was 25 years ago, by the grace of God, and I'm still sober. I wouldn't get my "control" back for anything! I'm really, really happy to acknowledge that I'm powerless over alcohol and over people, places and things. Because that means I don't have to try to control it any more - any of it.
I couldn't control it anyway, but how I tried! I switched from one type of drink to another, from wine to beer to vodka and back to wine. I tried only drinking with meals. I tried staying sober for one day a week. I moved to a different apartment. Nothing worked. As counsellors say, "Wherever you go, there you are". And there I was, in a mess of my own manufacture, full of self-pity and resentment, and I would drink again, and I'd be back at square one, all control gone.
These days, I never try to control anything except my own state of mind. That is where the Work comes in. For alcoholics, the full Twelve Steps will take us to the level of what the Work calls Good Householder. We will be able to manage our feelings, and our circumstances will begin to improve as we apply our newly sober minds to solving our very real problems.
Although I was in the Work before I began drinking, the Work alone was not enough to help me stop. My Work teacher wasn't an alcoholic, and I needed practical advice from people who were. Once I began to climb back up towards the Householder state, I could put all that I'd learned about the Work into practice, but first I had to be free of the killer addiction that had gripped me.
Denial, as everyone now knows, is part of the disease of addiction. It's the only disease which tells you that you don't have it. That's where the rock-bottom event kicks in, because when we're brought face to face with the dreadful consequences of our drinking, the wall of denial begins to be breached. A chink of daylight is let in.
Powerlessness is real, and for the sober, recovering alcoholic it's a huge relief. I don't have to try to control the world any more! God didn't make me the general manager of the Universe, after all.
What a blessing!
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