After we got plowed we got smashed

We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed. - Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 30

I my last post I quoted a dictionary definition of "delusion." Actually, that paragraph never uses the term. I guess I was getting ahead of myself. There is a difference between illusions and delusions, but it's really not important in this context. In both cases, Bill is talking about a state of mind that denies reality. And in addressing the stronger term "delusion," Bill uses a very vivid image: it has to be smashed!

When I persisted in the belief that I was like other people or soon (presently) would be, I was laboring under a self-inflicted break with reality. I never was like other people in regards to alcohol. Well, I was like some people, namely other alcoholics. But I think Bill means temperate drinkers here. And this persistent and astonishing illusion was not going to melt away slowly. It was not going to gradually yield to the force of logic. No, it would have to end with a bang.

I have heard many times around meetings the truism "as long as I don't take the first drink I am working the First Step perfectly." I don't believe that, not in light of what this paragraph clearly says. There were many times in my drinking career that I was not taking the first drink, but I could not have been further away from the First Step if I tried. I had not even begun admitting to my outermost self that I was anything like an alcoholic.

What does Bill mean by "our innermost selves?"  To me, it implies that we operate in varying degrees of self-awareness, that our sense of self can be more or less deep at any given time. We've all heard stories of people who have had life-changing experiences. I believe these are occasions in which the innermost self is exposed by some experience, either traumatic or ecstatic. That's why I think that "hitting bottom" is often the result of some crisis. The innermost self is forced to confront reality. That's probably why very few people make it to Alcoholics Anonymous because it was a nice day and they thought they would try something new.

So, for me, the First Step is really a radical upheaval of self-perception, the world turned upside-down, if you will. External circumstances (like the flashing blue lights in your rear-view mirror) can precipitate it, but in the end it is really a crisis of self.

It is a crushing victory.