Man's Struggle!

Men are in a restless pursuit after satisfaction in earthly things. They will exhaust themselves in the deceitful delights of sin, and, finding them all to be vanity and emptiness, they will continue their fruitless search. Though wearied, they still stagger forward under the influence of spiritual madness, and though there is no result to be reached except that of everlasting disappointment, yet they press forward. They have no forethought for their eternal state; the present hour absorbs them. They turn to another and another of the earth’s broken cisterns, hoping to find water where not a drop was ever discovered. My brothers this is who I was, a man in a restless pursuit after satisfaction in earthly things. 

By the time I reached this point, I had become utterly powerless over my life. The fact was that I had lost the power of choice in my ability to use. My so-called “will power” had become non-existent. The Big Book says that we are unable at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week let alone a month. I realized that I had no defense when it came to the disease of addiction. As I stated earlier, I was under the influence of spiritual madness, the only goal being an everlasting disappointment, I pressed forward. Confusing as it seems it all makes sense. When my moment of clarity ceased to be a moment and started to become my hour of power, I was able to see with careful reflections how I ended up in such a precarious situation.      

Step 1 began to make perfect sense. If we honestly take the time and look at our lives, we discover some pretty interesting truths. Let us look at a few and see if you can relate: People who are powerless lose control of their behavior. They do things that they would not normally do when clean and sober. They may get in a fight. They may hit or yell at someone they love, their spouse, child, parent, or friend. They can say things that they do not mean. People are powerless when they are not safe. What convinces you that you can no longer use drugs or alcohol safely. People are powerless when they know that they should do something, but they cannot do it. They may make a great effort, but they just cannot seem to finish what they started out to do.   People are powerless when they do not know the truth about themselves. Addicts lie to themselves about how much they are drinking or using. They lie to themselves about how often they use. They lie to themselves about their problems, even when the problems are obvious. They blame others for their problems. If we do not come to the reality that we are powerless, we will continue to ride addiction to the end. 

How about unmanageability: The second part of step one talks about unmanageability. We know that a person’s life is unmanageable when the plans that they have made for living fall apart because they are too occupied with their sinful lifestyle. People's lives are unmanageable if they cannot work or play normally. Addicts miss work and recreational activities because of their drug use. They make excuses, but the real reason they missed these events was they were too intoxicated or hung over.   People's lives are unmanageable if they are in trouble with other people or society. Chemically dependent persons will break the rules to get their own way. They have problems with authority. A person's life is unmanageable if they cannot consistently achieve their goals. Chemically dependent people reach out for what they want but something keeps getting in the way. It does not seem fair. They keep falling short of their goals. Finally, they give up altogether. They may have had the goal of going to school, getting a better job, improving the family problems, to get in good physical condition, to go on a diet. No matter what the goals are, something keeps going wrong. The chemically dependent person will always try to blame someone else, but they cannot work hard enough, long enough, to reach their goal.

A person's life is unmanageable if they cannot use their feelings appropriately. Feelings give us energy and direction for problem solving. Chemically dependent persons medicate their feelings with drugs or alcohol. The substance gives them a different feeling, a chemically induced feeling. The chemically dependent person becomes very confused about how they feel. An individual's life is unmanageable if they violate their own rules when they violate their own morals and values.

Chemically dependent persons compromise their values to continue using chemicals. They have the value not to lie, but they lie anyway. They have the value not to steal, but they steal anyway. They have the value to be loyal to their spouse or friends, but when they are intoxicated or hung over, they do not remain faithful. Their values and morals fall away, one by one. They end up doing things that they do not believe in. They know they are doing the wrong, but they do it anyway. People's lives are unmanageable when they continue to do something that gives them problems. Chemicals create physical problems, headaches, ulcers, nausea, vomiting, cirrhosis, and many other physical problems. Even if the chemically dependent person is aware of a physical problem caused by chemicals, they keep on using anyway. We only need to reflect on our lives to see that we have been powerless to living and our lives unmanageable for a long time. You know what is deep we even develop a powerlessness to being helped. We can be so down in our lives that we start to believe that there is no way out. When we reach the point of no return, there are two things left to do one is we can continue the way we are living and die, or we can surrender. One way or the other your living will come to a resolve. For those of us who surrender. There is a promise that will take place. In Step two it says that we come to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Only at the point of total surrender can this take place. God will come into our lives and do for us what we could not do for ourselves. He will restore us to a right way of thinking and change our direction from death into life. I know because he did it for me. 

My prayer is that you will surrender and allow yourselves to be helped. My two favorite phrases out of the Big Book of Alcoholics are: “We of Alcoholics Anonymous are more than one hundred men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.” We can recover if we would just get out of the way and allow God to have his way in our lives. Most of Man’s problem is getting out of his own way. Sin nature makes this a tough task. Nothing short of being obedient to the principles outlined in the Word of God can bring any relief to the struggle. Without His word, man will continue in his struggle to be free. Dr. Darrell Wright “Setting the captives Free!!!