1.We admitted we were powerless over alcohol--that our lives had become unmanageable.

1) "We admit that we are powerless over the intoxicating influences of life and that our lives are beyond the control of our limited ego consciousness; that through a mistaken reliance on our false self we are overwhelmed by the complexities of life."

As man thinks that happiness is something which is acquired, he continually strives in every direction to attain to it. In the end, after all his striving, he finds that the real happiness does not lie in what he calls pleasures. Pleasures may be a shadow of happiness; there is an illusion of happiness, because all the illusion which stands beside reality is more interesting for the average man than reality itself. - THE PURPOSE OF LIFE - CHAPTER 5

"For me step one is very much about atonement.  Or At One Ment (not to be trite).  It is both the Alpha and the Omega for
me.  How else does one enter upon a path, a way, a tariqa but powerless, humble enough to have one's hands empty and
one's heart as deep as the well Rumi tossed his magnum opus into knowing that all his knowledge meant nothing in the sun lit
face of Shams. There is of course as we all know the plural We used in this step - and I know we have all heard that there is
the idea put forth that we "USED" to be powerless and it is all past tense.  But for me it is very present tense this business of
powerlessness.  This Qadir is an attribute which belongs to Divine Intelligence alone and then is shared because that
Unknowable Essence is in all our hearts and is what resonates between us so that we can listen  to one another without cross
talk, with complete respect, and with wonderful love (Ishq).  So this first and last step for me is a stripping away of the
ignorance the arrogance, it demands that I diminish and put aside the ego which runs my insanity, It demands that I admit my
insanity and any way out accept The Unknowable Essence it is La il la ha il Allah - There is nothing but Allah."  Jabriel

"Step One is a gate really. It is a gate of opportunity. The way to this gate is usually paved with crisis conditions of some sort.
It could be the bitter recognition of our inability to control our enslavement to an addiction, but it could just as easily be a crisis
caused by an event such as an accident or illness or the loss of a loved one. It is the only gate that there is to this twelve step
process and most people spend the major part of their enery and time avoiding it, perhaps for an entire lifetime. Normally most
people try other techniques first such as running away, denial of the situation or burying one's self in busywork of some sort
assuming that the problems are outside of ourselves and that if we cover our eyes long enough they will go away or disappear
(which normally they do not). Nobody in their right mind would ever want to get to the threshhold of the Step One gate
because it is pretty much a garrentee that your drowning in a crisis that is over your head and you can't, for all your effort, pull
yourself out of it. But the good part is, once you pass through this gate and come out the other side it is so obviously right that
you realize just how crazy you were when you were on the other side. The recognition of our ego poverty and powerlessness
before God is a key realization in Sufism upon which all subsequent work on the Path is predicated."  Hamid

"I bear witness, O my God, that Thou hast created me to
know Thee and to worship Thee. I testify, at this moment,
to my powerlessness and to Thy might, to my poverty and
to Thy wealth.
There is none other God but Thee, the Help in Peril, the
Self-Subsisting."  Bahá’u’lláh - Daily obligatory prayer in the Baha'i Faith

STEP ONE STUDY

The Interdependence of Life Within and Without  Hazrat Inayat Khan Vol. 6
The Intoxication of Life (1)  Hazrat Inayat Khan Vol. 6
The Intoxication of Life (2)  Hazrat Inayat Khan Vol. 6