Twelve Steps: 1. Admitted Our Powerlessness
During the first weekend of month thru 2004, we will do a series based
on 12-Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. While the 12 Steps are non-sectarian,
they reflect a deeply biblical approach; and can be viewed as spiritual
discipline for growth in Christ
Bill W., the co-founder of AA, was involved in something called the
“Oxford Group” a Christian renewal movement that shaped
core concepts of 12 Steps. Since then, the 12 Steps have provided a
framework for recovery for people struggling with alcohol, other drug
addictions, compulsive gambling, sex addictions, overeating; broken
relationships--the human condition in general!
How might this series benefit you? (First off, it’s not intended as a replacement for the support alcoholics receive thru participation in a support group.)
1. If you are struggling with an addiction and don’t know what 12 Steps are all about, this will serve as an introduction.
2. If you are working a 12 Step program, will help you integrate recovery & transformation in Christ. Especially helpful if you are struggling with the issues of surrender to a “higher power” or the more spiritual implications of the twelve steps.
3. If you are child-spouse-friend of an alcoholic or someone in grip of an addiction, this will help you understand what it takes to recover. Help you support loved one in recovery, rather than simply supporting their addiction. My original interest in the Steps lies here…
4. If you are a sinner (a condition that affects a few of us) 12 Steps are an awesome spiritual discipline to undertake. Even if a Christian for years, engaging 12 Steps can facilitate a spiritual re-awakening.
5. If you are part of a small group, the series can provide a framework for discussion and more personal sharing.
The Twelve Steps
[Surrender (1-3) Reconciliation (4-10) Prayer (11) Mission (12)]
1. “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.”
2. “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”
3. “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”
4. “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”
5. “Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”
6. “Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.”
7. “Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.”
8. “Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.”
9. “Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.”
10. “Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong
promptly admitted it.”
11. “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for the knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.”
12. “Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps,
we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles
in all our affairs.”
“We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives
had become unmanageable.”
No one likes to admit defeat, but paradoxically, it’s the starting point of recovery. Admitting complete defeat. Unconditional surrender.
“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” Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
Not just first step in recovery from alcoholism; for any spiritual awakening. Before we can surrender to God, have to first give up on ourselves: that we have what it takes to manage our own lives. Bill W.: “ego deflation at depth.”
Early in his ministry Jesus gathered his disciples and a crowd of the curious to present his program, kingdom of God. Instead of 12 Steps of Recovery, 8 Blessings of Kingdom—who it is that’s blessed as he freely gives the kingdom to all takers.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven” (Mt. 5:3)
2 words in Gk. “poor”: penes, simple poverty ; other, ptochcos
= abject poverty, poorest of poor; brink of extinction. In Jewish society,
powerless class: people who had nothing to claim but God.
Religious nobodies. Dallas Willard translates sense of it this way:
“Blessed are the spiritual zeroes—the spiritually bankrupt,
deprived & deficient, the spiritual beggars, those without a wisp
of ‘religion’—when the kingdom of the heavens comes
upon them.”
(from The Divine Conspiracy)
These were the people most drawn to Jesus. Not just poor in financial terms; poor in spirit, whether down & outers or up & outers.
Opposite of ‘poor in spirit’, spiritually proud Contrasted in a parable
“To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable”(Lk. 18: 9)
Those who gather in ‘right thinking’ ghettoes--liberal, conservative, christian, muslim, New Age, agnostic, secular, doesn’t matter—any self congratulatory clique specializing in contempt for “everybody else” will do.
“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.” Lk. 18:10 Wealthy (Levi’s party) Up & Outer.
Lk. 18: 11-14 Spiritual poverty ain’t pretty. Not someone putting on a pious humility act. Someone who’s bought his last self-help book, because the self doing the helping is no help at all.
Step 1. “We admitted we were powerless [over alcohol]—that our lives had become unmanageable.”
It’s called First Step, because it comes first. Like me when I get lost on a drive with Nancy…my infernal reluctance to admit defeat and ask for directions.
As long as you think you can manage yourself, you will try manage yourself. And God will be relegated to observer status in your life.
God feels very distant under this arrangement. We can be pious (Lord I love you, I want to be like you, blah, blah, blah); we can even be committed…but we can’t be close —because we are keeping him at arms length. “I can manage this myself.” And God respects our freedom, so he will leave us to manage our lives ourselves.
How do we come to this self understanding? “We admitted we were powerless over _______ --that our lives had become unmanageable.
1. Mostly, we come to this understanding thru some experience of profound & personal failure.
Profound: Brick wall failure. Where “try try again” doesn’t cut it. Personal: Something at core of who we are, not just what we do. Failure that threatens what we hold most dear. Alcoholic, alcoholism, unraveling his life. Marriage failure. Failure to find purpose-meaning.
2. We also come to this self understanding by revelation. Heaven opens and we see. Source: Christ crucified. Jesus understood himself as Israel personified, representative Man; “Son of Man,” becoming, taking on, bearing, revealing our humanity, to see what we’ve become apart from God.
Truest picture of sin is not whatever guilt you feel or don’t feel inside, but sinless One, experiencing God-separation on cross.
Also truest picture of ourselves in our God separation: a picture of compete defeat, ego deflation at depth, complete powerlessness!
Crucifixion is not something you manage. “How you doing?”
“Oh, managing, thanks!”
Crucifixion is not managing at all—not managing to move, to breathe,
not managing to live. And of course, it is no accident that the cross,
the sign of complete defeat, of utter powerlessness, was transformed
through the resurrection, into a sign of great victory.
But we can only appropriate the victory if we’re willing to embrace
the fact of our own powerlessness.
How to admit your powerlessness so it’s meaningful:
1. Say it out loud to yourself and to God.
2. Write it down and keep what you’ve written.
3. Tell someone else who is likely to support you in road to recovery..
The first word of the first step is that pesky pronoun “we”
“We admitted we were powerless…that our lives had become…”
A spiritual awakening is a very personal thing, but it can’t be powerful if it remains private.
Bill W.: in hospital bed, “struck sober” by a vision; afterwards his wife Lois “knew” that he would never drink again…
Months later, in hotel lobby in Akron, within earshot of bar, felt first powerful craving for a drink…realized instinctively he had had to talk with another alcoholic seeking recovery (Dr. Bob)
A bondage, imprisonment is empowered by solitary confinement.
Part of setting captives free, ending solitary confinement.
Ministry
For those carrying the burden of someone else’s addiction.
Can’t surrender for them, but can surrender for yourself…
If you’ve grown up with an alcoholic, for example, Step 1 is an invitation to admit your own powerlessness over their addiction.
You do not have the power to admit powerlessness for another person, only for yourself. So the first step toward sanity, is the acknowledgement that this is not a burden you can carry for another person. (Some burdens we can carry for other people; but some burdens we can’t. This is one of those burdens that we can’t carry for our loved one. See Galatians 6: “Carry each other’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ” and “Each person has his own load to carry”)
Addiction is not a burden we can carry for anyone. Once we stop trying (once we admit our powerlessness), our minds will be clearer about what we can and should do.