A talk on Step 01, Powerlessness over others ...

... can be found here.

Readings:

At the same time, there were those of us who came to our first Al-anon meetings after our loved ones had stopped drinking.  In the first glow of sobriety, some were unrealistically certain our lives would now be perfect.  For others new fears and resentments as the alcoholic sought his or her solutions without us.  We, too, had to realise the futility of trying to control.  When we found ourselves continuing to try to direct others, we reminded ourselves that we had no power and no right to exercise power over anyone but ourselves.

Once we accepted these facts, we discovered an important and inspiring secret;  how to free ourselves from frustration and confusion.  We set ourselves on the way to becoming contented, well adjusted people.

When our eyes, ears and hearts were opened, we could free ourselves from our rigid determination to have things the way we wanted them.  Then we began to grow.

We began this growth when we overcame the impulse to criticise or blame, even when we thought we had reason to do so.  We reminded our ourselves that we would probably only be making matters worse.

The feelings of release, of yielding or letting go, when we acknowledged that no change in others could be forced, helped to loosen the suffocating grip of our destructive emotions:  guilt, fear, self-pity, and resentment.  We found to our surprise, a new feeling of relaxation, as though a weight had been lifted from us.  In Al-anon we learned to express our emotional detachment from our problems in slogans such as “Live and Let Live” and “Let Go and Let God”.

Al-Anon 12&12 Step One

“This is the how and the why of it.  First of all, we had to quit playing God.  It didn’t work.” 

Big Book, Page 62