JANUARY 2021 I am responsible Volume 45, #1 when anyone, anywhere, reach- es out for help, I want the hand of A.A. always to be there, and for that I am respon- sible. life·line | \ ˈlīf-ˌlīn : 1. A rope or line used for life-saving, typically one thrown to rescue someone in difficulties in water. 2. A thing on which someone depends for a means of escape from a difficult situation. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com tured recovery “Rock bottom” is one of group, you’ve likely heard those phrases most of us a distinction drawn be- heard long before we even tween low- and high-bottom considered getting sober. people. The tales of low- This term holds several dif- bottom alcoholics and ad- ferent connotations for dicts typically include har- each of us, but it’s not al- rowing prison accounts, ways clear precisely what hospital stays, and home- rock bottom is supposed to lessness. These people be. have often been at death’s For many of us, the image of rock bottom is that door several times, and probably fit a more stereo- of a homeless person begging for drinking money typical conception of rock bottom. outside a liquor store. We may also think of a person High bottoms, on the other hand, often have no dying from an opiate overdose or doing irreparable experience with these things. Instead, these are peo- damage to their internal organs. Chronic severe ill- ple who managed to hold down a job while drinking nesses like cirrhosis or hepatitis-C are, for many of and using, and generally did okay for themselves. us, linked with our conception of rock bottom. Each They may have been able to keep their substance of these mental images, of course, represents a abuse a secret from their families. Even when they worst-case scenario. We think that a person has to were under the influence, these people were often lose absolutely everything in life before they could able to continue functioning at work and in life – at possibly commit to a large, aggressive life change as least well enough to keep it from all falling to pieces. recovery. Young people are often lumped in with the latter For better or worse, however, rock bottom is a category, as well. Broadly speaking, young people much broader category than we might think. It also tend to lack consistent access to alcohol and hard has a much more important definition, for the pur- drugs. As such, the damage they suffer is generally poses of recovery. In recovery, rock bottom is often less than those who have been drinking or using for considered to be the point in a person’s life at which decades. While this isn’t always the case, of course, they’ve become genuinely willing to do the work substance abuse disorders do require time to effec- necessary for long-term sobriety. tively destroy your entire life. After all, it is a progres- LOW BOTTOM/HIGH BOTTOM - If you’ve been sive illness, and if we catch it early enough, we can in A.A. meetings or participated in any other struc- avoid years of pain and suffering. (continued on page 16) SOUTHERN MARYLAND INTERGROUP 1-800-492-0209 www.somdintergroup.org Inside Step One: Admit the Problem Almost everyone has a problem with the word alcohol, and that limiting phrase, that tight focus on "powerless." It drives people nuts, and for good the substance, is critical. Here's the great para- reason. No one likes to think of themselves as dox. In order to gain power over our disease, we powerless or vulnerable. Some people actually have to admit our powerlessness over alcohol. take offense to the word, saying it's demeaning Sounds weird, doesn't it? Sounds like we're giving and oppressive. They even use the word up and falling into a bottomless pit. But that's not "powerless" as an excuse for not trying to work the the case. Steps at all. We have to change our focus. We can't fight But Step One doesn't say people are power- the addiction head on, if for no other reason than less. It doesn't say they can't take charge of their we've been doing that repeatedly without success. lives, or they don't have the ability to change; quite In order to break this pattern, we have to admit the opposite. What Step One does do is unlock a that we can't change what it does to us. It affects great paradox. The first Step, in its puzzling but our brain, our body, and our spirit; and there's no simple language, introduces us to a source of pow- sense in denying it. We're powerless over the ef- er we didn't know we could find. If you or some- fect that alcohol has on us. We're not going to get one you know is struggling with alcohol, Step One good at drinking, we're not going to get more ra- is the key that unlocks the jail cell. It's not what we tional about it. We're not going to get better at con- expect when we first encounter Twelve Step pro- trolling. We've tried it a hundred times already. If grams. In fact, for most of us it was maddening. we want to get a grip on our problem, we have to "I thought you were going to tell me how to stop admit we're powerless over drinking, that we have drinking? How does being powerless help me do a medical condition called alcoholism, and get to anything? This is stupid." work on remission. It's like admitting that we have I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard tooth decay, and we need to go to the dentist. It's that one. Working as a counselor for many years, just a fact, we're powerless over that fact, and now I've heard every form of resistance you can imag- we need to take action. ine, and then some. But as simple as the language Consider the star athlete who's just lost a big of the Step might game. She's crushed, over- seem, it calls for a whelmed, dejected. But closer examination. there's another big game In AA, the first half next week. How can she of the Step says: "We get over the loss? admitted we were Welcome to Step One. She powerless over alco- has to put the loss behind hol." It does not say her. The loss happened, we were powerless and she has to admit she's over our choices, over powerless to change that our life, or over our fact. Whatever she does, relationships with oth- she can't afford to bring er people. It says we that fact into her future. By were powerless over admitting she's powerless (continued on page 3) SOUTHERN MARYLAND INTERGROUP 1-800-492-0209 www.somdintergroup.org 2 (INSIDE STEP ONE - cont.) to change that loss, she re- and that there are real consequences which prove leases herself from its shackles and walks freely it's going to continue beating us—if we don't into her future, fully empowered to do things differ- change. ently, and not repeat the same mistakes. As long We can't afford to play the blame game and we as we try to control anything, we're bound to keep can't afford to make excuses. If we want to get bet- losing. Step One puts it succinctly: "We admitted ter, we have to get honest. It's not my parents' we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had fault, it's not my spouse's fault, it's not my boss's become unmanageable." The second phrase is im- fault; in fact, it's nobody's fault. I've got a medical portant: "our lives had become unmanageable." problem called alcoholism, a potentially fatal dis- Unmanageability is one of the ways we learn ease. But at the same time, I'm lucky, because this we have a problem. There are consequences to particular condition can be put in remission. It can't our disease that are driving us crazy (not to men- be cured, but it can be put in remission. Nothing tion other people). A businessman alcoholic may can be done about my problem until I admit I've got say, "I don't have a problem! I manage 250 people a problem. Change doesn't begin until I accept the and make a huge salary." But his wife is ready to fact that I can't control it, and that it's costing me divorce him, his kids don't respect him, and he's dearly. The other eleven steps will show me the just been arrested for a second drunk-driving way out of this mess, but none of them are mean- charge. The confusion arises from the fact ingful until I internalize Step One. The flip side of that everything isn't unmanageable. He may be the coin we call acceptance is something holding on to his job, but if he's honest with himself called surrender. We have to stop fighting the bat- (which he won't be, at first), he'll see that his addic- tle. There is a way to beat this thing, but, paradoxi- tion is making significant parts of his cally, it's not by fighting it head on. life unmanageable. The great paradox tells us that As stated in the Twelve Steps and Twelve we don't need to wrestle with those facts.