AA Step One Isn't True. You Have Power Over Alcohol. And Over Alcohol Addiction.
- chphurst
- 6 days ago
- 8 min read
Anyone who has read my other articles knows that I am not a proponent of Alcoholics Anonymous for cessation of the addiction to John Barleycorn. How could I be when they have such a massive failure rate and have so since the program began almost a hundred years ago. The AA and twelve step method has failed most people. Most people who enter the doors of the rooms will not stay sober long term. That is just a simple fact. Myself and other content creators are beginning to gain traction on social media for calling out this failed program.
Now the members of the rooms who have been attending meetings long term will beg to differ. The usual standby is Alcoholics Anonymous has helped millions of people. First, there exists that majority failure rate that completely negates that defense. It isn’t just a slight majority who do not remain sober with AA method, it is well into the eighty percentile and other studies show an even higher failure rate, depending who you read. There was one study from Stanford, which was very flawed, that attempted to propose a much higher success rate. But the rest of the numbers remain to contend that in the long term, most will not remain sober using AA method.
And the more egregious defense coming from the minority of successful members is that the failure rate is fault of those who do not succeed staying sober. Now, one could declare this if the program had an eighty percent success rate, not when the overwhelming failure rate is eighty percent or more. When you have that low of a level of success, then the reasons on the why don’t really matter because the problem is the core of the program, not the vast majority who can’t stay sober with it. AA is not reaching people with their philosophy. That’s it and that’s all.
I find fault with their main method of “treatment” for alcoholism starting with the twelve steps, which the rooms are so obsessed with that the obsession resembles a cult more than a support group. And their error in premise starts with the very first one. Step 1: We admitted we are powerless over alcohol. That our lives had become unmanageable.
It is true that an alcoholic’s life becomes unmanageable. Now there exist many functioning alcoholics. There are CEOs who are high functioning alcoholics. I was an active Thai kickboxer during my addiction when it was in the moderate stages. I was in school run public bouts every few months for three years. Have you ever seen the training program of a fighter of any genre? You train three to four hours a day, five to six days a week. I hadn’t reached the critical mass level of late stage alcoholic yet but was coming home after workouts and drinking eight to ten beers a night and killing more than a case on the weekends. It remains to astound me today that I was strong enough to train at that intensity and duration with daily hangovers but not strong enough to just quit the bottle.
But the rest of my life was unmanageable, with much of that more on the emotional side. I dated chaotic women. I was in a state of depression most of the time. I failed the boards for the physical therapy licensure exam twice, largely because of this intense life that revolved around the kickboxing world mixed with alcoholism. I was working low level labor jobs when I should have been working in a clinic. The smart thing to do would have been to quit kickboxing until I got licensed as a physical therapist. I didn’t practice physical therapy for two years after graduation because I was under the influence of a coach who had made me an instructor in his school and was spending all of my off-work time around the ring instead of focusing on studying for the boards with a clear head. But you don’t have a clear head when you are a chronic drinker. So I spent those two years living in a ghetto instead of practicing my chosen craft. You can’t blame someone else when you shoot the big toe off your own foot.
But was I really powerless? No. I was never powerless over alcohol. Alcoholism was the root of bad choices that kept me from licensure for two years. If I hadn’t been an alcoholic, I probably would have passed the boards the first time and if not, I would have quit kickboxing for a few months and passed them the second round. But I was an alcoholic so more prone to be influenced by this coach instead of thinking for myself. For even as I continued to drink, I did eventually do the smart thing and left kickboxing when I failed the second time. Alcoholism kept me from seeing the light until then.
Telling people they are powerless on any topic is probably the worst advice that can be given. All the motivational gurus have a premise of philosophy that you have to believe in goals to make the goals come to light. Now there is more than just belief to achieve your goals. You have to have a good strategy and you have to work toward goals consistently. You have to own the ability to assess prior failure to turn it into success. But I have never heard any motivational speaker on any topic start off a seminar by telling their audience that they are powerless. As a matter of fact, tremendous human achievements are accomplished by defying great odds because of people who would not accept they were powerless and not even disadvantaged. Anthony Robles became a national champion in wrestling. He only had one leg his entire life. He never acknowledged this disability and certainly didn’t feel powerless. He outperformed top level athletes in his craft who had two legs and by all means should have been able to easily defeat him.
There is an old saying: Whether you believe you can do something or can’t do something, either way you are right. Believing in the concept of powerless in anything is damaging. This doesn’t mean that you can do anything you want. I’m fifty-seven at the time of this writing. If I believe that I am going to take up saxophone and become a world-famous jazz musician, I’m am wrong. I also didn’t make it as a Thai kickboxer of any real significance, outside of the unsanctioned realm, which no one really cares about. I was good, but I was never great. If one were to compare my ability to football, I would have been mid-level college, second string. Nothing to be ashamed of but Oscar De La Hoya isn’t going to be impressed.
But in terms of anything in personal self-improvement, no one is powerless to accomplish progression of any type. This includes resolving other addictions as well as alcohol. One primary flaw in AA premise is this idea that one was a born addict. That is simply not true. Now, does one have a higher propensity to become an addict if he grew up in that environment? Or maybe his DNA is more prone to become addicted to alcohol? Yes. But it is still a choice. The person who has cancer didn’t have a choice. You always have a choice to drink or not. No one bends your arm behind your back, forces you into the liquor store, pulls your mouth open and dumps the bottle’s contents into you. It was a choice to have that first drink, it is a choice to continue to build the tolerance and it is a choice to become addicted to alcohol. It is also a choice to quit it—anytime you want.
As I stated in a previous article, Alcoholics Anonymous wasn’t formed with the intent of recovery from chronic alcohol abuse. It was formed as a religious group that focused on abstaining from alcohol. And that religion was Christianity, derived from the zealots of the Oxford Group, which brainwashed Bill Wilson. The concept of powerless comes from other Christian fundamentalist groups as well. These people live on a premise that everything in their lives is directed solely by God. I once had a friend who lost a quarter of a million dollars on speculative stocks because he thought God would take care of him. I believe in a Magic Elf as well, I’m just not sure who He is or how much He concerns Himself with his modified monkeys.
But that is the premise on which Wilson established his program for alcoholics. He took the twelve steps directly from the Oxford Five C principles and created the first step of admitting of this powerlessness, which was followed by the second step of turning it all over to God to restore ourselves to sanity. And apparently his God isn’t that effective as again, the vast majority in his program failed and continue to do so today.
If one is told in the first meeting that he is powerless then that will set the tone for the rest of his days. We now have the access to study neuroplasticity. In essence, how the brain develops patterns of thinking, whether good or bad. The late Wayne Dyer pontificated on this subject as core to his philosophy in his self-help books. If one believes he is destined for chronic depression, then the brain will certainly be happy to oblige this thought process by creating a chemistry in the brain that will create depression. And if one believes in powerlessness then one sets himself up for the victim status. It also keeps him from claiming true responsibility for his substance abuse. It is ironic that the rooms claim they keep people accountable but then state they were powerless over their addiction.
This is what Alcoholics Anonymous should have been propagating all these years. That alcoholism is not a disease and alcoholics were never powerless. That they picked up the bottle by choice and became addicted because of this continual choice. It was not a sleight of hand that the universe played on the poor alcoholic. Whenever your hand can put the bottle to your lips, then you are engaging in a choice, which is every single time that bottle is in front of you.
The only way to reinvent your life after alcoholism is to build a foundation of strength. Starting a recovery program with an excuse that you were powerless will only insure a future weak mindset. And with a weak mindset there is a far greater risk of returning to alcoholism.
Which would explain the complete failure of Alcoholics Anonymous. It starts with the fallacy of Step 1.
And to reinvent all of your planes to progress forward check out:
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For the condensed and orderly version of how I beat the addiction of alcoholism check out: THE SMALL BOOK: HOW I BEAT ALCOHOLISM AND WHY ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS DOESN'T WORK
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To journey on a tale of epic transformation on a 2,660 mile trail check out: THE SHEPHERD AND THE RUNNINGWOLF: A PATH TO FORGIVENESS ON THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL
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John Barleycorn: taken from Jack London's memoir of his alcoholism. John Barleycorn: First published, 1913
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