Monthly Archives: July 2016

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I believe the language in the first step, "admitted we were powerless..." is really another way of saying we are ready for a change.

In my book I mention that when we reach this point in our lives, it means we have a quality of life that sucks.  Historically in the 12 step world, one has to reach a point of hopelessness before one is able to work that first step perfectly.  A perfect working of the first step means that one is free.  It is both an ending and a beginning.  It's an end to a sucky lifestyle, and a beginning of a way of living which is usually unknown, but....as I said to myself in my early recovery, "anything has to be better than this!"

James Hollis, in his book "What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life," says, "something in me had to die before the rest of me, the larger part, could live."

In New Thought, the teaching is that what we think manifests, and that our thoughts have power.  In what has been called a First Step Promise in the text book of Alcoholics Anonymous, it declares, "they have solved the drink problem."  And, "there is a solution."  What it is speaking to is the solution to a quality of life that sucks.  But the focus needs to be on what one would like their new life to look like, not on not wanting the old life anymore.  As James Hollis says, the old life must die.  As they say in meetings, we must give up our old playmates and playgrounds. I don't know about you, but when I want to release something, it simply does not work to tell myself I don't want it anymore.  I must instead ask myself what I do want....and focus on that.

If we want anything to change in our life, we must first be willing to give up the old way.

Unfortunately it can be extremely scary to give up a way of living when the option is to step into the unknown.  All those "what ifs" and "yeah buts" come up, and our ego, whose job is to keep us safe, steps in to talk us out of stepping into the unknown.

And....this happens not just with addiction and alcoholism, but with everything.  Ways of thinking and believing that used to serve us quite well sometimes stop serving us.  Yet we cling to those old ways in spite of them not working, because it means stepping into the unknown.

If you are experiencing unpleasantness, or a quality of life that sucks, you may want to consider that the call is to release an old way of being or thinking, and step into the new.  In my experience that has always worked extremely well.