Step 1
Who cares to admit complete defeat? Practically no one, of course. Ever natural instinct cries out anginst the idea of personal powerlessness. It is truly awful to admit that, ciggarette in hand, we have warped our minds into such an obsession for destructive smoking that only an act of Providence can remove it from us.
No other kind of bankruptcy is like this one. Nicotine, now become the rapacious creditor, bleeds us of all selfsufficiency and all will to resist its demands. Once this stark fact is accepted, our bankruptcy as going human concerns is complete.
But upon entering A.A. we soon take quite another view of this absolute humailiation. We perceive that only through tutter defeat are we able to take our first steps toward liveration and strength. Our admissions of personal powerlessness finally turn out to be firm bedrock upon which happy and purposeful lives may be built.
We know that little good can come to any addict who joins A.A. unless she has first accepted her devastating weakness and all its consequences. Until she so humbles herself, her sobriety--if any--will be precarious. Of real happiness she will find none at all. Proved beyond doubt by an immense experience, this is one of the facts of A.A. life. The principle that we shall find no enduring strength until we first admit complete defeat is the main taproot from which our whole Society has sprung and flowered.
When first challenged to admit defeat, most of us revolted. We had approached A.A. expecting to be taught self-confidence. Then we had been told that so far as nicotine is concerned, self-confidence was no good whatever; in fact, it was a total liability. Our sponsors declared that we were the victims of a mental obsession so subtly powerful that no amount of human willpower could break it. There was, they said, no such thing as the personal conquest of this compulsion by the unaided will. Relentlessly deepening our dilemma, our sponsors pointed out our increasing sensitivity to nicotine--an allergy, they called it. The tyrant nicotine wielded a double-edged sword over us: first we were smitten by an insane urge that condemned us to go on smoking, and then by an allergy of the body that insured we would ultimately destroy ourselves in the process. Few indeed were those who, so assailed, had ever won through in singlehanded combat. It was a statistical fact that addicts almost never recovered on their own resources. And this had been true, apparently, ever since man first gathered tobacco leaves.
No other kind of bankruptcy is like this one. Nicotine, now become the rapacious creditor, bleeds us of all selfsufficiency and all will to resist its demands. Once this stark fact is accepted, our bankruptcy as going human concerns is complete.
But upon entering A.A. we soon take quite another view of this absolute humailiation. We perceive that only through tutter defeat are we able to take our first steps toward liveration and strength. Our admissions of personal powerlessness finally turn out to be firm bedrock upon which happy and purposeful lives may be built.
We know that little good can come to any addict who joins A.A. unless she has first accepted her devastating weakness and all its consequences. Until she so humbles herself, her sobriety--if any--will be precarious. Of real happiness she will find none at all. Proved beyond doubt by an immense experience, this is one of the facts of A.A. life. The principle that we shall find no enduring strength until we first admit complete defeat is the main taproot from which our whole Society has sprung and flowered.
When first challenged to admit defeat, most of us revolted. We had approached A.A. expecting to be taught self-confidence. Then we had been told that so far as nicotine is concerned, self-confidence was no good whatever; in fact, it was a total liability. Our sponsors declared that we were the victims of a mental obsession so subtly powerful that no amount of human willpower could break it. There was, they said, no such thing as the personal conquest of this compulsion by the unaided will. Relentlessly deepening our dilemma, our sponsors pointed out our increasing sensitivity to nicotine--an allergy, they called it. The tyrant nicotine wielded a double-edged sword over us: first we were smitten by an insane urge that condemned us to go on smoking, and then by an allergy of the body that insured we would ultimately destroy ourselves in the process. Few indeed were those who, so assailed, had ever won through in singlehanded combat. It was a statistical fact that addicts almost never recovered on their own resources. And this had been true, apparently, ever since man first gathered tobacco leaves.