Another example of lying is when we exaggerate stories to make sure we keep our listener’s interest.
At the same time we’re lying to the people
All the While We Believe we Can Stop or Change at Any Time
All the While We Believe we Can Stop or Change at Any Time
Our Lives Had Become Unmanageable
The truth is just as we deny our powerlessness; we hide from our selves our unmanageableness. We experience
exaggerated feelings that threaten to over whelm us. But we can’t own these feelings.
Inner Signs that our lives are unmanageable.
Loneliness.
There are at least two reasons why power isolates people.
First, when people are concerned with power, they can’t reveal there true agenda, because part of that agenda
involves controlling people, having power over them.
If we where to tell people that, they would get angry and resentful, so we have to hide our true intentions and often
withdraw from intimacy with the people around us.
The second reason power is lonely is that this control – disease makes us think of the people around us as objects,
materials for “building our kingdom.” We assign to one family member the “cooking and housekeeping.”
We don’t consciously try to run people’s lives, but we subtly try to shape their behavior to look good for us, and if they
don’t meet our needs, help fulfill their part of our program as we envision it, we can get irritated and angry with them.
We also become increasingly lonely, because it is difficult to relate to people as objects in a way that satisfies our
human need for contact and intimacy.
Loss of Feelings.
The process of trying to control all these people and keep all our expectations going at once may also work a
narcotic to numb our feelings.
People with plenty of material possessions often do not experience many deep feelings.
We can’t have joy because we can’t stand pain, but pain evidently comes into the heart through the same doorway
as joy.
When we use something – from a vacation, to buying new clothes, to tranquilizers – to blot out the pain of life, we
block out the joy as well.
We are therefore often numb people, who have plenty of everything but can’t feel the love for and from those
people with whom god has given us to live.
Broken Relationships and Resentments.
Because the primary symptom of the control - disease is denial, we do not know that we are Controlling,
yet we can pick up the slightest hint that someone else is trying to control us.
Because many of us are almost obsessed at an unconscious level with being right, being perfect, being number
one, or otherwise in control, we have a kind of radar that picks up on every slight, every subtle put-down, every
criticism. We can pick them up instantly, often even when they are unintended. Other people might miss these
attempts to control – but not us.
When other people challenges our control, we pick up every subtle hint that it might be a criticism of us. In righteous
indignation and resentment we begin to collect injustices they have perpetrated against us, injustices we can see
quite clearly. We know unquestionably when they are wrong, even though we can’t see the shortcomings of our own
that may have led to their “attack” on us.
STEP ONE FOR HOLISTIC RECOVERY
No human creature can give orders to love.
--George Sand
If we're trying to get others to love us, all we're really doing is trying to be in control. Trying to control others can be
a powerful drug. Remember, we can't control others. We can't make others love us. Our Higher Power has control,
not us.
So, what do we need to do? Turn things over to our Higher Power and just be ourselves. Sure, it can scare us to just
be ourselves. The truth is, not everyone will love us. But if we're honest about who we are, others will respect us.
We'll like ourselves better. And we'll have a better chance of loving others and being loved.
Prayer for the Day
I pray to have my need for control lifted from me. I pray to be rid of self-will.
Action for the Day
Today, I'll list five ways my self-will -- my need to control -- has gotten me in trouble.
WORKING STEP ONE
You may wish to use a separate notebook to record your responses to the questions and issues that follow the
discussions of each step. Begin to examine your life as it is. Be as honest as you can about each issue listed.
Continual or Excessive Feelings over which I am Powerless
1. List your recurring fears (e.g., about finances, family members, authority figures, sex, God).
2. List resentments or anger (e.g., about family members, job, government, church, other institutions and
people).
3. Describe guilt or shame (e.g., about specific past actions, not being perfect in some area).
4. Describe sadness or self-pity about at least three things.
5. Describe pain about three situations, people, or thoughts.
6. Describe jealously (e.g., about material things, love relationships).
7. Describe how frantic excitability manifests itself in you.
8. Describe how loneliness feels.
9. Describe in what areas you experience numbness or lack of feelings (or confusion) and how these feel.
10. Describe distressing physical symptoms over which you are powerless (e.g., indigestion and/or upset
stomach, allergies, trouble sleeping, headaches, skin disorder, muscle or bone problems, sexual dysfunction).
Behaviors over Which I Am Powerless
1. List foods, drinks, medicines that you keep eating, drinking, or taking even though you do not want to.
2. List and describe other compulsive behaviors – things that you keep doing though you know it is not in your
best interest to do so. These may include sexual behavior (e.g., excessive masturbation or use of pornography
and/or sexual fantasies, having affairs, continual or excessive demands on your partner for sex), gambling or taking
risks you can’t afford, exaggerating stories, making excuses, lying, justifying yourself (give examples). Giving advice
or controlling where people don’t want you to.
People over Whom I Am Powerless
List the people (1) in your family, (2) at work, (3) at church and other places whose behavior irritates you and what it
is they do that you can’t get them to quit doing.
Summary Statement and Taking the Step
If after considering the issues set out in the past few pages, you can see that in fact you are powerless and that in
one or more areas your life is unmanageable, then you may be ready to take Step One.
If you are ready to admit your powerlessness you can do it by writing out the following statements and/or telling it to
your sponsor or the members of a twelve-Step meeting (if you have no sponsor).
“I, _______________________, admit that I am powerless and that my life has become unmanageable.’
Copy the statement in your notebook either as it is or in your own words (being sure to use the words powerless and
unmanageable).
You have now taken Step One. It will be helpful to you and others in the program if you will begin to share in
meetings these ways in which you have discovered that you are powerless. This will help you find the reality and
humility essential for progress and may help others to see their own denial and powerlessness so they too can
begin this phase of their spiritual journey. If there is something that seems too “shameful” or threatening to share in
a meeting, don’t share it. Or you want to talk with your sponsor before sharing it. The idea is not to become a
“stripper,” but to begin owning and sharing your reality as a part of the healing process.