Entreat

As I waddle my way through my 12 step work, my meandery path continues to question what is assumed. For instance, what if the 12 steps were altered a tad?

1) We admitted we were powerless over food (that our eating was unmanageable).

2) Came to understand that belief in a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

etc.

In the second step I realized that

I cannot swallow the idea that God intervenes directly in my life. But I'm willing to believe that my devotion to Him is beneficial.

It's interesting that in the 12 steps it is never explicitly said that people are alcoholics, and also that they will be cured of their alcoholism. It just says that they are powerless over alcohol. Maybe at the time that meant that they are alcoholics, but nowadays there is more to that concept than that. I suppose the 12 steps are a shorthand for what is fleshed out in the big book.

But it basically evades the question of how to solve alcoholism. I wonder if alcoholics, of which I am not, understand that fact better than anyone else. You have to do and believe many things, but you aren't required to stop being an alcoholic, or even admit that you are one. You are just admitting you are powerless over that substance, and that God isn't.