Powerlessness and Limitations

If someone tested us on our capacity for carrying the 12-steps anywhere, much less to someone in trouble, how would they measure our competency? I measure my strength by how much I can deadlift; my endurance by how far I can run without keeling over. I measure the state of my marriage through a convoluted and mostly intuitive set of data points honed through decades of marital trial and error. How do I measure my recovery? In AA, the only qualification for attending a meeting is a desire to stop drinking. Each mutual aid group has its own particular dependency it hopes to eradicate. But is “stopping” the only criteria for measuring progress and fidelity to the principles the program teaches? Is the “desire to stop” our only necessary decision?

Remember Step 1 when we had to wrestle with powerlessness and unmanageability? Powerlessness over ______. Hopefully by Step 12, we are not misled by the common misperception that the 12-steps require us to renounce all our power (whatever that means). Powerlessness as a principle is really saying that whenever we do _______, we cannot do it safely. I cannot go on a diet safely. Others cannot drink alcohol safely. Some struggle with using opioids safely. We are not powerless in every dimension of our lives. But the principle here requires that we have the capacity to know where we are truly powerless.

Our powerlessness reveals itself via a particular kind of symptoms and dis-ease. In the first step we tied our powerlessness to our unmanageability. We identify unmanageability often as external factors - DUIs, divorce, debt, loss of jobs. But the heart of unmanageability is the internal emotional state of restlessness, irritability and discontentment.

The twelfth step is not about getting powerful and leading a manageable life. Qualifications do not include a perpetual state of bliss. It is about allowing the process of recovery to alter us in a way that grants us the capacity to give a restless, irritable and discontent person a little compassion. How does that happen? We practice our principles and we learn that compassion is the most sacred expression of any principle worth applying.

I think about the people who have helped me in my life; they were never the loudest voices in the room. They were the ones who showed up with a presence that radiated trustworthiness. They did not present me with answers or suggestions, they offered me compassion and empathy.

When Weakness is Empowering

In recent years, criticism has been directed toward mutual aid societies that practice the 12 steps. In particular, they find fault with first step’s phrase “we were powerless over…”. Critics say that this perspective is wrong, too negative and needs to be replaced with the concept of empowerment.

Here is what I know to be true for me: it was really hard to quit using what my brain thought it needed to survive. Willpower is overrated and was ineffective for me when I was struggling with compulsive behaviors that turned into a physiological dependency.

This is what powerless means to me: There is something in my life that is so powerful, cunning and baffling that I am unable to comprehend that this thing that I think is making me powerful and in control is actually killing me. IN SPITE OF MUCH EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY, I am unable to see the writing on the wall and read its message. At the worst of my using, I was absolutely completely powerless over the denial and self-deceit that served as sentries, blocking the obvious truth that I was dying. Both served at the pleasure of my survival instincts, which were compromised and confused as a result of my eating disorder.

However, none of this made me a powerless person; it did mean I was powerless over the effects my Substance Use Disorder was having on my capacity to reason. In fact, the recovery process teaches me how to take responsibility for my recovery. It has EMPOWERED me by giving me a new, inspired way of seeing God, myself and others. It has provided me tools to manage the issues that drove my substance use. It has given me the support I needed as I regained my footing and found my capacity for taking the next right step.

If you are fretting over the word “powerless,” maybe it is because, to you, like me, the word feels shaming. Who wants to be powerless? Instead, consider it as an acknowledgement that you have figured out that your willpower and good intentions are not enough to treat what ails you.

For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:10 (b) NIV