Just For The Day
Just For The Day
#7 - August 17, 2025 - Step 1: Admitting Powerlessness
Jay and Diane break down Step One of the 12-step program, exploring what it means to admit powerlessness over addiction and acknowledge life's unmanageability.
• Step One reads: "We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable"
• Customize this step by substituting relevant terms (alcohol, food, other people's behaviors)
• Powerlessness can be empowering by narrowing our focus on things that are within our control
• Recovery involves identifying "red behaviors" (the addiction), "yellow behaviors" (triggers), and "green behaviors" (addressing underlying wounds and choosing healing activities)
• People who are "white knuckling" their sobriety may be focusing on symptoms rather than addressing root causes
Join us next Sunday as we continue our exploration of the 12 Steps with more in-depth questions and nuanced discussion.
Question: What is the hardest part of admitting powerlessness for you and why?
Jay and Diane's Just For The Day podcast is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Just for Today, any 12-Step program, or any other recovery-based product or organization. They should not replace your regular group or sponsor meetings.
The views expressed are solely those of the hosts and guests. Take what you like and leave the rest.
Welcome back to another episode of Just for the Day. I'm Jay and I'm a recovering addict.
Speaker 2:I'm Diane and I am codependent. Today is August 17th and it is a Sunday, and we've decided that on Sundays we would like to tackle steps.
Speaker 1:That's right. So today we're going to start at the beginning. That's step one. So hope you enjoy and we're going to discuss what we think that step means both of us from our own perspectives, and then what it's meant for us over the course of our recovery and we'll take it from there.
Speaker 2:Does that sound okay? Sounds good. A little overview of step one.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So let's read it Step one, the 12 steps of Narcotics Anonymous. Step one is we admitted that we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love it because then it's over our addiction. In Al-Anon we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 2:They're a little bit different.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But that makes sense that they would be, and I assume if we were at Overeaters Anonymous. It would be we admitted that we were powerless over food and that our lives had become unmanageable. That's right, and so the fact that you can change that word out for so many things should tell you something I like that. We admitted we were powerless over other people's behaviors.
Speaker 1:We were. We admitted that we were powerless over sweets or over criticism or backbiting. You can literally substitute the, and that's probably I love that we're starting with that. You can. I have substituted these 12 steps for so many different things and.
Speaker 1:I treated all of my issues with it right. So what's occurring to me is that there are two main components to step one. One is actually there's multiple, uh, there's an admission, and that admission has to involve that I am powerless over something. And the second is that our lives have become unmanageable, and what that means to me is this is like why this is the most important step. We often, my mind is first called to the fact that many addicts have to hit the rock bottom, and part of the reason they have to hit the rock bottom until they hit their rock bottom, they won't recover, and the reason for that is that until they admit that they're powerless over it, they can't actually recover from it.
Speaker 2:Right. As long as they're managing, they don't see the problem. As long as we're managing to hold a job and show up at work and our family's not an absolute disaster, even though it might be it feels like we're holding it together Then where's the problem?
Speaker 1:Where's the problem?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly yeah. So what about you? What is that? What's coming up to you reading that stuff?
Speaker 2:Okay, well, there are three things for me, okay, um, admitting that we're powerless is one that's a super hard thing to do, right? I think that even before I started in the program, I knew there were things I was powerless over. Okay, like I knew that I couldn't control some people and some things and and their reactions. I knew that, but it was really hard for me. The night I decided to actually start working my steps was a night when you came home or you came to bed and you laid down beside me and the smell of alcohol woke me up and you were facing me and all I could smell was the alcohol on your breath.
Speaker 2:And I laid in bed for probably half an hour stewing and then I finally got up and I went and I found the workbook that someone had given me. Yeah got up and I went and I found the workbook that someone had given me. Yeah, and the first question was why is it so difficult to admit?
Speaker 2:that we're powerless over alcohol, yeah, and so I. Finally, I just sat down and I just started, you know, vomiting my answer onto the page and it basically was about how it's a thing, it's just a thing. How is a thing more powerful than me? Right, and I really struggled with the concept that I'm. I am, I am conscious, I am the dominant species, like I should have control over things, and no thing in my life should have control over me. And yet it does, and and and. That was the first part. The other part was I'm not the one that invited this in, so why do? It was unfair, yeah, why do I have to admit I'm powerless? When I do have power over it?
Speaker 2:I don't need to drink right but I had powerless over your drinking and I had powerless. I was powerless over your interactions with alcohol and the consequences or effects that I was having on the family. That that was hard for me to admit. But now, stepping back, I can see that it's not as scary because, it's true, I don't have control over anybody's behavior, right, and how you interact with something. I don't have control over that, versus how I interact with something. But that I really was powerless over the consequences of alcohol in our home, yeah, didn't matter who was drinking it.
Speaker 1:It was more powerful there there was.
Speaker 2:There were consequences that I had to deal with.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And that I couldn't control.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That was frustrating.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:And then the second part. I definitely see the same thing that you the lives becoming unmanageable. We go through the insanity of trying to solve all of our problems right, doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results. But we also do the. We also have a tendency, as codependents, to say, okay, I've tried this approach and I've tried this approach. They haven't worked, but I haven't tried. C, d, e, f, g. Go to the end of z.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, and as a codependent, I feel like something is gonna stick right something I can do, can control it, and that's the fantasy that I live in, is the idea that, you know, maybe this didn't work, but I can get him a different way, or I can solve the problem a different way.
Speaker 2:And until I see there that I'll find the one thing that'll make the difference, and until then I'm going to keep trying right, and until I've tried all of the ways, then I can't admit that my life is unmanageable, because I just don't know what I'm missing and as soon as I know, right and there's. So it's very hard to admit this one as well yeah, yeah and yet, if you look around at the mess of your life, it becomes really easy to say, clearly, I'm not managing. Clearly, I'm not on top of everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And things are slipping through the cracks and my mental health is not good and my physical health is not good and our relationship is not good and clearly it's not as functioning as it should be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's a scale there too. Like you don't not everyone has to take it to their rock bottom. Like your rock bottom can be earlier than total destruction of your family. Right, my rock bottom happened to be not fully divorced. I thank God every day that my rock bottom was living separately. Had it needed to go further? Had I needed to continue to drink? Right, I thank God every day that my rock bottom was living separately.
Speaker 1:Had it needed to go further? Had I needed to continue to drink? Right, if those of you who want to look at our story can go back to the qualifier episode at the beginning. Had I, instead of and made the decision to keep drinking, my rock bottom would have been farther down the road.
Speaker 1:And it would have been a destroyed relationship with my daughter and a completely destroyed financial relationship with my family and right. So luckily I avoided a lot of pain because my rock I decided my rock bottom was earlier than most and I thank God for that, and so that unmanageability doesn't have to be total destruction, I guess, is my point. I also think that there is something that's kind of coming to me right now is I'm sorry, did you have anything else in that rain before I jumped?
Speaker 2:No, I want you, I want you to address these two, and then I'll tell you the third thing that I, that I got out of this.
Speaker 1:No, no, go, let's do that, cause I've got mine. It can go later. I want to hear the third thing.
Speaker 2:Go, the third thing that stands out to me. In was going to say, yeah, we were. We admitted that we were powerless over our addictions and that our lives had become unmanageable. We are not alone in this. We we feel alone when we're going through it. We feel like no one could understand that there's no one we can talk to without tainting their opinion of the alcoholic in our life. And yet we're not alone.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Because we all share Maybe not the same story, but we all share the same problems. That's right, and when we listen to other people share their stories, it resonates with us. There's a reason it resonates with us.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That we are not alone. That, as unique as we may feel our experience is, it's not unique in today's society. It's quite prevalent. And we can find solace in knowing that there are other people who not have only felt and dealt with what we've gone through, but who've overcome, who figured it out that's right and who are now living in peace and serenity living, enjoying life with those who are not using drugs well, they're also living life with those who are enjoying drugs, but they found a way to lovingly detach yeah it doesn't matter yeah we to me, means to me means.
Speaker 1:That's the pivotal, that's one of the pivotal turning points. When your addiction then becomes weaker Because you are weaker than it. You are powerless alone. Right Together, you can, and that admission that we is almost like the first beginnings of the building of the community, that's going to help me get clean right so I really like that.
Speaker 2:Like you brought that up we have talked before about the, the strength in numbers. Right, there's that actual object lesson where you take a stick and you break a stick and how easy it is for someone to break a toothpick or a straw or a twig, but then you put 10 twigs together or 10 toothpicks together and it becomes much harder to break. Yeah, because there is strength in the group. Then there's that's the object lesson there. There's also in the Righteous Mind, the book the Righteous Mind. He talks about he's specifically talking about religious groups but the energy that is created among religious groups. He talks about how each of us carries energy with us. And you can actually there are machines that can measure the amount of energy that a person is emitting, I guess. And when a group gathers together, I think it's a group of three or more. When a group of three or more gather together, the energy that is emitted is not the sum of the individual parts, it's added on to.
Speaker 2:It's added on to, and so when we gather as a group, we do literally feed off each other's energy.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that can be the strength that we need to get through the next week, before our next meeting or whatever.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's why the solution to addiction is connection. You know, so, like I often, and I believe this firmly now. Now and I might be wrong, other people might feel differently, but I believe addiction is a symptom of an underlying issue of isolation, of increasingly of increasing isolation during difficult times, and that difficult time is usually some sort of drug or maladaptive behavior that then causes you to isolate and increasingly and then you have to ramp up the drug or whatever it is as you become increasingly more isolated.
Speaker 1:And what's interesting is, as people connect and they connect with people who are trying to live clean they recover. The symptom is less powerful. So I really like that, that you brought that up, that we is super important. So I really liked that, that you brought that up, that we is super important. Yeah, um, something that also came up to me and I want your thoughts on it is there is a layer aspect to the addiction. I love that you brought up. The first thing you said was is that you can substitute that word out for anything else? It's. We admitted that we were powerless over our eating addiction, drinking, other people's drinking and as I was reflecting on that, I was like you know, my initial addiction that brought me to the room was initially the focus, but then I learned later that I was actually powerless over other things that were really at the core root. It wasn't the addiction, it was something else.
Speaker 2:I'm interested if you had the same experience yeah, I mean I already shared the example of when I first sat down and was addressing this and how upset I was about being powerless. Yeah, but there was another time at a meeting, probably a little while afterwards, when we were talking about powerlessness and it reframed the idea of powerlessness for me, was it basically said since you?
Speaker 1:don't have control over a, b, c, d to j, whatever um to j. Sorry, that was funny that's a good one.
Speaker 2:Sorry, um, because I don't have control from a to j, a to j I.
Speaker 2:I need to give up that control, yeah, and recognizing that I'm powerless over that allows me the freedom to stop trying to control it, and when I finally embrace that that's not my responsibility, that it's outside of my power, that it actually frees me or liberates me, because then the scope of what I'm responsible for is not nearly as overwhelming and I'm not going to fail as often because I can narrow my vision and say I'm actually only responsible for my responses to situations, my thoughts and feelings, and how I respond to my thoughts and feelings and attitude. Right, and when I just get rid of all of the people in situations around me and say I can't actually control any of that. I'm just focusing on how I handle the interactions I have and the places I am and the people that I go like. All these different things. As soon as I focus on this is all I need to worry about. It's a burden that comes off my shoulders and it becomes powerlessness is not a terrible thing. It's just it has this negative connotation, but it doesn't need to.
Speaker 1:Right, well, I guess that's my point. I really I really liked the way you're saying it, because what I realized was, as I peeled back the layer of okay, I clearly can't control alcohol or drugs, and I'm trying to. Then I started to work on my behaviors, my character defects, and found out oh, I'm trying to control the relationship I have with my boss and my job performance metrics and my grades, and sometimes I can control those and sometimes I can't. Right, and I quickly found out oh, I'm not just trying to wrestle with my powerlessness over my drug, I'm also wrestling with the powerlessness over my wife's reaction to me and her criticisms of me, and I can't control that either. And so what ended up happening is you have this ever increasing shrinking of like control. In an effort to get to what you're talking about, which is, what do I have control over? Right, okay, I don't have control over the drug. Great, I tried to have control over my wife's reaction, which me drink what didn't make me drink?
Speaker 2:maybe want.
Speaker 1:It increased the likelihood that I wanted to drink and reach for the drug right or my or my boss's reaction to me, or a bad whatever or bad grade whatever, but I can't control that either. What I can't control is my studying. I can't control my speech when I'm talking to her. I can't control whether I do my chores and I contribute to the home right and those are the things I actually have to be taking control of.
Speaker 1:And once I started to take control of those things, I stopped having some of the out the, the issues, and it's like a journey of trying to like okay, there's a, it's not just drugs, there's a variety of things I don't have control over, and then it's taking stock of.
Speaker 2:What I do is that making sense it is, I'm kind of wondering. The first thing that you were, the first example you gave was that you don't have the, the control over the drugs and the alcohol, and then you also included your wife, the boss, all these other things, and I wonder if, by focusing on trying to control the alcohol and the addiction, are we missing the underlying thing we should be controlling, right, right. And so I'm just thinking of these listeners who might be white knuckling or who might be constantly fighting the desire or the action of drinking or taking a drug or whatever, and that's what they're fighting. What should they be fighting?
Speaker 1:You know, and this is I love that you brought that up because I think that's the back half and no one ever pays attention to that. Remember the serenity prayer Okay, god, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the powerlessness, the courage to change the things I can. That's the second half is some. A lot of people just focus on giving up their powerlessness over the drug, but they fail to do the second half, which is what we're describing, is carefully document. Okay, where am I not deploying control where I should be? That's why you have the addiction right.
Speaker 1:And I wonder if it's that simple honestly, like a part of me feels that's the truth of the program, because the third statement in that serenity prayer is know the difference right.
Speaker 1:And the ability to know right and the wisdom to know the difference and the wisdom to know the difference right, because I wonder if fundamentally, at its core is an addict, is someone who is trying to control something they have no control over. Part one, which means they're deploying that energy somewhere that they should be deploying it where they should do have control, and that would solve the problem. Is that making sense?
Speaker 2:Right, be deploying it where they should do have control, and that would solve the problem. Is that making sense right? And so then the question is what are those things that they do have control in when you're talking about addictions, and would that be the target that you were talking about? What two readings ago, where you talked about exactly that? There's the red behaviors the.
Speaker 2:You know, you imagine the target, and the red is the actions we don't want to be doing. And then around that are the trigger behaviors maybe the people were hanging out with, or the geography where we are or things I live my house, things I listen to right yeah, and so it's the yellow behaviors that we're looking to try to control, to say I have control over who I spend time with.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I have control over where I choose to go and not go.
Speaker 1:Let's use a concrete example, okay Pornography.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Many times people trying to deal with a pornographic addiction will start to focus on okay, I can't be near my computer late at night. That's dealing with the symptom.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Right, or the actual acting out behavior, okay. Well then they realize, wait, okay, my yellow behaviors. That's my red behavior, right, which?
Speaker 1:is on my computer late at night when I'm alone. That's it, that's gonna be, you know, or it might be inappropriate, or going to a massage place that I know is a massage parlor, or going like. There are different versions of that right. The yellow behavior to that is okay. What type of media do I consume? Do I watch movies that have sexualized images of women? Do I spend time doom scrolling on X or Facebook that puts images in front of my eyes that make me algorithms that make me more incentivized to look at pornography.
Speaker 1:Right? So the yellow behavior, you know, might be doom scrolling on algorithm or watching having a favorite TV show that I watch. That's a little racy, a little bit right so right.
Speaker 2:So you need to be honest with yourself and say, okay, it's not just I do this at this time at this place and if I just get rid of this thing, then I won't be able to do that. That's right. It's no, I I do this at this time at this place because something earlier has triggered me. Let's look at that thing that triggered me and then let's say, okay, what do I have control over for that? If it's the algorithms that come from youtube or facebook or whatever, maybe you do need to stop doom scrolling right, but exactly so.
Speaker 1:And those are areas where you should be deploying control. That you're not right. Think about that. But it goes a step further in the green behaviors where one day, as you wrestle with it, you you'll realize oh, I'm much more likely to look at pornography when I feel devalued by my spouse or in a job performance. Or do I in my head? Am I my own critic and am I actively devaluing myself? And what you're not doing, the control you're not taking, is building yourself up, taking the time and attention to find out what's good about you, define your identity and believe in yourself.
Speaker 1:Those, are the actions that I'm actually not taking that actually lead to the pornography use, and so what I'm doing is I'm taking all of my attention, all of the energy I have, and I'm placing it on not on my computer at night and then controlling the algorithm, look and, and making sure the media is clean, right, but all those things you don't have a ton of control over right, well, and as soon as you get one thing under control oh, suddenly there's an algorithm in this app now, like it's but fundamentally it's going to come after
Speaker 1:you in a different way, but fundamentally, what I'm not doing is taking control of what I should, which is my own identity right too many men have not done the work to decide oh, who is Jay? Where does Jay want to go? What kind of a person is Jay, and do I like him? And if I don't like him, then I need to deal with that. And how do I build him up?
Speaker 2:That's right. Does that make sense? Yeah, substitute your name for Jay.
Speaker 1:You don't all need to figure out who Jay is and whether you like him or not. I just assumed most people would do that.
Speaker 2:But thank you, for, in case any reader was saying that, I was not suggesting that you need to like me. So yeah it's. It's very true that, understanding the underlying thing, are you escaping something? Are you, are you numbing something? Are you trying to meet a need that you're not getting somewhere else? And you give a good example. Pornography is often fulfilling a need for self-worth. The idea of being chased, the idea of someone bending over backwards to give you what you want, right? The idea of having somebody at your whim or at any moment.
Speaker 2:It's not usually about the sexual acts that take place. It is about the, the power and the feeling of importance and dominance the fantasy of being pursued? Yes, because men attribute value by what's being pursued in the marketplace important for women to know that as well, and I imagine that women who have pornography issues are probably similar.
Speaker 1:Maybe Theirs might be different. Now, we're speaking in general terms here. From my own personal experience, there are always going to be those people who are slightly different.
Speaker 2:That's right, and so, if you want to work on your green behaviors that's what I'm saying is that you need to look at what is the underlying wound, that you're putting this bandage over.
Speaker 1:And to Diane's point if you find that you're white knuckling, it which by definition, by the way, we would define a white knuckler by someone who has been in the program for a long time but still struggles with the obsession Is not making the progress that they should be making I don't know how would you define it well, I don't know that they have to have been in the program for a long time, but it's somebody who is not partaking in the addiction, but it's.
Speaker 2:They're trying their hardest not to yeah sure maybe it's the person who's you know less than 30 days in the program, but they're trying not to partake, but it is is eating at them. The obsession is there and they want it and they're becoming restless, irritable and discontent.
Speaker 1:I'm really glad you brought that up, because that's an important distinction. You're not wrong, so let me correct that. I agree with you as well. Those people who are early in the program would also qualify for, because you are often white knuckling it right in the beginning.
Speaker 2:I know I did for sure.
Speaker 1:The reason why I gave it a time stamp is that I find, personally, that the program is built in a pretty ingenious way to help people work through that and chances are, if you're, if you're not stopping at a step and you're pushing through despite your resistance, you're going to stop white knuckling it at some point. That's's been my experience right. I didn't have the answers, but the obsession left and. I got relief and it was beautiful, and it is beautiful today.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But. But the reason why I put a timestamp on it is is that what I was talking about white knuckling is not just the early addict. I was referring to those people who can't quite figure it out and find themselves still struggling, and to them I would say what you basically brought up, which is chances are you're resisting the drug but you're not deploying your agency like the back half of the serenity prayer suggests us to do to have the courage to change the things you can.
Speaker 1:And actually that's a really good description, because I can't tell you the number of people who are still struggling who, when you finally start talking to them, started to do their fourth and got scared and didn't want to face it. They literally shrunk out of fear from completing.
Speaker 2:Or they skimmed it as quickly as they could without going any deeper than they needed to, or they made excuses and didn't make their amends because they were worried.
Speaker 1:There are some conditions where you shouldn't make amends when it might do damage, but too often people justify that away, and there's something beautiful about relieving yourself of the pain by making amends, and oftentimes those people don't even care about it. Right, You've been carrying it so anyway, this was a great overview. Do you have anything else that you're thinking of? In regards to step one, this is all under. You know, admitting your powerlessness over whatever it is that you're focusing on, connecting with a program we our, and then acknowledging that your life has become unmanageable. So anything else? Any thoughts from you?
Speaker 2:No, I think those things really set us up to be prepared for step two, okay, which we've talked about before. Step one is I can't. I can't remember, you can't do it alone and you can't do it all but together we can.
Speaker 1:So this was great, this was a great discussion. When we come, we're gonna to circle back and we'll do another step, one at some point, and next time we'll do, we'll do questions we'll kind of dive into a little more of the depths and the nuances yeah, sounds good, sound good.
Speaker 2:Thanks for joining us we'll talk to you tomorrow.
