Are You Powerless Over Your Addiction? Here’s How to Know

We don’t have the power over the obsession to drink, nor do we have the power to control how much we drink once we start. What we can do is turn to a Power greater than ourselves for help. We let this Power do what we are unable to do for ourselves. What https://ecosoberhouse.com/ does “powerless” mean when it comes to alcoholism/addiction? The dictionary defines powerless as being without the power to do something or prevent something from happening. Let’s think about this definition as it relates to alcoholism/addiction.

How Can You Reach Step 1 of AA?

My life was a mess, and I had no idea how to contend with the internal rubble. So, finally, after about a million tears, I humbled myself. I realized that I was really powerless over addiction and my emotional life was out of control.

“The first step towards change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.”

• “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.”
• This is part of our ongoing commitment to ensure FHE Health is trusted as a leader in mental health and addiction care.
• We let this Power do what we are unable to do for ourselves.
• By hijacked, I mean the brain’s reward center more quickly focuses on alcohol and other drugs as the primary source of pleasure.
• The 12-step road to recovery can appear pretty intimidating to someone who is just starting out, but solutions exist.

Drunk people also end up in psychiatric wards and jails. Taking a medication is designed to prevent self-endangerment, while there are no guarantees with an abused substance. That’s a warning sign that you may have a problem–if you can’t deal with life without the addiction in question.

Myth 2: Powerlessness Equates To Weakness

You may have noticed your life in chaos—maybe you’ve lost your home, your job, your family, your possessions, or your self-respect. You may have seen the inside of hospital rooms or jail cells. Regardless of how you got to this point, Step 1 of AA is merely realizing that your alcohol abuse disorder was interfering negatively with your life, and you need to change. So you understand the benefits of Step One and of admitting powerlessness, but the next question then is why is such emphasis placed on being reliant on others to get yourself out of addiction? The philosophy behind this thinking is that your judgment was flawed enough to get yourself into this situation, it’s too flawed to get yourself out of it. Further, by accepting that there are things that we cannot control, including our drug use, we open ourselves up to receiving the help of others.

Need Help With Alcohol Abuse? We’re Here for You

Admitting powerlessness in sobriety can empower you to get the help and support you need to manage your life. Ambrosia Treatment Center of South Florida is here to help those who struggle with addiction. In the long term, maintaining abstinence from alcohol and drugs requires a lot of effort. The most effective way to stay sober is by using the tools of recovery. This includes attending meetings regularly, getting counseling, practicing mindfulness, and staying connected with others who share similar struggles.

• Step 1 of AA requires a great deal of strength and courage as you accept that alcohol has taken over your life.
• Six hours later, the bar is closing as fast as your consciousness.
• Excessive alcohol use not only leads to more than 140,000 deaths nationally each year but can also cause lives to spin out of control.
• All you need to do is admit that Power overcomes powerlessness.
• It is a gateway to freedom and a proclamation of progress.

Spero Recovery Center is a peer-based residential recovery program. It is not a substitute for clinical treatment or individualized therapeutic services. As a brand, we prefer to use person-first language to avoid defining people by their condition and the stigma that may come with it. That said, we understand the language of Alcoholics Anonymous often does not avoid using the term “alcoholic.” Concerns over unmet mental health needs are beginning to generate essential conversations within the treatment… Feeling powerless makes us believe that there is nothing we can do.

What Are Some Myths About This Step?

There is an instructive, and important, wrinkle here, illustrated by the sibling Twelve Step program of Al-Anon. When the early recovering alcoholics met, their wives began congregating around the kitchen table wondering how the Twelve Steps might heal some of their wounds and often resentful behavior. They shared how each had pled, cried, demanded, shouted, withdrawn, over-controlled, and ignored their alcoholic husbands, but generally concluded that they too were powerless. In the wives’ case, they had to admit the reality of their absolute inability to force or cajole an alcoholic to change. Their lives too had become unmanageable if they tried to force solutions that had no chance of working. Many 12-Step programs are well-known groups that use the concept of powerlessness to benefit recovery.

It helps foster accountability and is a profound place of support. What happens in a group of people admitting powerlessness over addiction is a power in itself. The founders of AA understood that for alcoholics to truly take ownership of powerless over alcohol their recovery, they needed to accept that their life had become unmanageable due to their addiction. Excessive alcohol use not only leads to more than 140,000 deaths nationally each year but can also cause lives to spin out of control.

• The Serenity Prayer is a central mantra of many recovery communities.
• The most effective way to stay sober is by using the tools of recovery.
• Even in sobriety, many of us tend not to respect our limitations and we pay too high a price accordingly.
• So here are some ways to know if you are powerless over your addiction.