Power Bar

Power. That’s one of those words that just has a good feel to it. It sounds like it has some weight and heft. When I hear that word I think: “Yeah, I want some of that. I want a lot of that. Everything would be OK if I could get some more power.”

 I want to be in charge. I want to be calling all of the shots. I was terrified to hear that our lives improve when we give up control to Somebody or Something else. I was afraid that They or It wouldn’t do as good a job as I was doing. I mean, with the joblessness and lack of money and legal troubles and living with my parents as a 30 year old and all that. How could I give that up?


I have heard the suggestion that if I’m struggling with my program then I should figure out what step I think I’m on and go backwards, one at a time, until I get to the step that I’m actually on. It’s obviously not the step I think or I wouldn’t be in so much pain. Invariably, I end up back at Step One: powerlessness. I’ve tried to take control of some person, place, or thing and it’s not working out to my satisfaction. So I get frustrated and angry. I get burned up.

 I’m not crazy that I have to start at the beginning again although I should be used to it since it happens all of the time. I believe that by now I should have graduated to the Phd program, the secret club with the funny handshake and weird hats where nobody has to do any of the hard work any more. I want to be in the Advanced Sobriety Program. I want to be on Step 47.

 But powerlessness is the crux of the problem; it’s the key to recovery. Our whole program is based on a foundation of giving up control of people, places, and things. We don’t go anywhere until we manage this trick.



I don’t like to fly because I’m not the pilot. That and the terrible seats and bad food and screaming babies, I guess. No one will give me a ride any more, especially my wife, because I’m such an insufferable back seat driver. Control. I’m not in control. I think I know best. Why in the world would I think I know best? I don’t have a very good history of predicting good outcomes. When I make the decisions about anything people get hurt and things blow up.



At the very beginning people would ask me: “What is it that you so afraid of losing? What are you going to be giving up?” Now I’m quite the talker when I want to justify what I’m doing but I had trouble defending my position. I’m the guy standing on the edge of the smokestack as the boat starts to sink below the waves, water lapping at my shins, shouting over to the Coast Guard: “Hey, thanks for the offer but I’m good here. I think the pumps are starting to really kick in.”

 “Lack of power, that was our dilemma.”


Alcoholics Anonymous – page 45.