SESSION 3

Listen to Joe Hawk's third tape.

Second half of the first step - "Our lives have become unmanageable." What does this mean?

Is my life unmanageabie only when I am actively drinking? If so, why do I start drinking after a period of sobriety?
Am I at a point where I can truthfully say that I am powerless over alcohol, drunk or sober?
Am I willing to accept that when alcohol is in my body it causes a physical craving that I cannot control?
Is it possible that if alcoholism is an illness, I'm suffering from it whether I'm drunk or sober? Active or abstinent?

When there is not a drop of alcohol in my body, what causes me to pick up a drink?
Why, when after a week or a month or a year, I can get an obsession to drink which is so powerful that it overpowers all other thoughts, all memory, all self-knowledge?
Can I accept that I am an alcoholic without trying to figure out why I became one?

• POWER
  Strength
• CONTROL
  Ability
• CHOICE
  Two or more reasonable options

Can I admit to, or at least recognize the delusion that I think I am like other people? Or presently may become like other people?

The Assignment

Go through Chapter 3 sentence by sentence. Rewrite, in the first person, each sentence that applies to me. If the sentence does not apply to me, I won’t write it down.
Example using the first paragraph:
I have been unwilling to admit I was a real alcoholic.
I do not like to admit I am bodily or mentally different from my fellows, except in flattering ways.
My drinking career has been characterized by countless vain attempts to drink like other people.
The idea that somehow, someday I could control my drinking was an obsession.
The persistence of this illusion is astonishing.
Since I'm not dead or locked up yet, I didn't think the last sentence applied to me. But then, that's just me.

I will not spend a lot of time thinking on whether the sentence applies to me. It either does or it doesn't. Again, remember to look for similarities, putting aside differences.
These sentences do not have to be chronological to my story. Did this sentence ever apply to me?
The important thing is to record some more information about myself.

What are we doing?

We are beginning to finish roughing out the first step.
We are writing a chapter in our own book that could be titled "More About My Own Alcoholism."
We are mixing the powerful cement that we will later use to build a solid foundation for recovery.
At this point we are answering two very important questions about ourselves.

1. Am I powerless over alcohol before I take the first drink?
2. Can I control how much alcohol I take after I start to drink?