The Step Working Guides
The narrative is meant to provoke thought about the questions but is not meant to be comprehensive.
The narrative is written in “we” voice in order to promote unity about what we all have in common: our addiction and recovery.
The questions are written in “I” voice so that each member using these guides can personalize the work.
The Step Working Guides is a companion piece to It works: How and Why.
There’s probably only one inappropriate way to use these guides: alone.
We can’t overemphasize the importance of working with a sponsor in working the steps.
If you haven’t yet asked someone to sponsor you, please do so before beginning these guides.
Merely reading all the available information about any of the 12 steps will never be sufficient to bring about a true change in our lives and freedom from our disease.
To do that, we have to work them.
“We Admitted that we were powerless over our gambling, that our lives had become unmanageable.”
~ Step One
A “first” of anything is the beginning, and so is the steps:
The first step is the beginning of the recovery process.
The healing starts here:
We can’t go any further until we have worked this step.
Our reasons for formally working step one will vary from member to member.
• It may be we are new to recovery, and we have just fought –and lost – an exhaustive battle with gambling.
• It may be that we have been around awhile, abstinent from gambling, but we have discovered that our disease has become active in some other area of our lives, forcing us to face our powerlessness and the unmanageability of our lives once again.
Not every growth is motivated by pain; It may just be time
to cycle through the steps again, thus beginning the next stage of our never ending journey of recovery.
Now it is time to engage in some concrete activity that will help us find more freedom from our gambling, whatever shape it is currently taking.
Our hope is to internalize the principle of Step One:
To deepen our surrender and to make the principles of:
• Acceptance
• Humility
• Willingness
• Honesty
• Open-mindedness a fundamental part of who we are.
First we must arrive at a point of surrender
There are many different ways to do this. For some of us,
The road we traveled to the First Step was more than enough to convince us that unconditional surrender was our only option.
Others start this process even though we are not entirely convinced that we are gambling addicts or that we have really hit bottom.
Only in working the First Step do we truly come to realize that:
• We are gambling addicts
• We have hit bottom.
• We must surrender.
Before we begin working the First Step, we must become abstinent – whatever it takes
If we are new
Our First Step is primarily about looking at the effects of gambling in our lives and we need to get clean.
If we have been clean awhile
Our First Step is about our powerlessness over some other behavior that’s made our life unmanageable, we need to find a way to stop that behavior so that our surrender isn’t clouded by continued acting out.
The Disease of Addiction
What makes us addicts is the disease of addiction – not the casino, football matches.
There is something within us that makes us unable to control our gambling.
This same something also make us prone to obsession and compulsion in other areas of our lives.
How can we tell when our disease is active?
When we become trapped in Obsessive, Compulsive, and Self-centered routines.
Endless loops that lead no-where but to physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional decay.
1. What does the disease of addiction mean to me?
2. Has my disease been active recently? In what way?
3. What is it like when I am obsessed with something? Does my thinking follow a pattern? Describe.
4. When a thought occurs to me, do I immediately act on it without considering the consequences? In what other ways do I behave compulsively?
5. How does the self-centered part of my disease affect my life and the lives of those around me?
6. How has my disease affected me physically? Mentally? Spiritually? Emotionally?
Our addiction can manifest itself in a variety of ways.
When we first come to gambler anonymous, our problem will, of course be gambling.
Later on, we may find out that addiction is wreaking havoc in our lives in any number of ways.
7. What is the specific way in which my addiction has been manifesting itself most recently?
8. Have I been obsessed with a person, place or thing? If so, how has that gotten in the way of my relationships with others? How else have I been affected mentally, spiritually, and emotionally by this obsession?
Denial
Denial is the part of our disease that tells us we don’t have a disease.
When we are in denial, we are unable to see the reality of our addiction.
• We minimize the effect.
• We blame others, citing too high expectations of families, friends, and employers.
• We compare ourselves with other addicts whose addiction seems “worse” than our own.
• If we have been abstinent from gambling for some time, we might have compare the current manifestation of our addiction with our gambling, rationalizing that nothing we do today could possibly be as bad as that was!
One of the easiest ways to tell that we are in denial is when we find ourselves giving plausible but untrue reasons for our behavior.
Plausible: appearance of truth or reason; seemly worthy of approval or acceptance; credible; believable; pleasing or persuasive, rational, logical, acceptable, thinkable…
9. Have I given plausible but untrue reasons for my behavior? What have they been?
10. Have I compulsively acted on an obsession, and then acted as if I had actually planned to act that way? When were those times?
11. How have I blamed other people for my behavior?
12. How have I compared my addiction with other’s addiction? Is my addiction “bad enough” if I don’t compare it to anyone else‘s?
13. Am I comparing a current manifestation of my addiction to the way my life was before I got clean? Am I plagued by the idea that I should know better?
14. Have I been thinking that I have enough information about addiction and recovery to get my behavior under control before it gets out of hand?
15. Am I avoiding action because I am afraid I will be ashamed when I face the results of my addiction? Am I avoiding action because I am worried about what others will think?
Hitting bottom: Despair and Isolation
Our gambling brings us to a place where we can no longer deny the nature of our problem.
• All the lies,
• all the rationalizations,
• all the illusions
fall away as we stand face to face with what our lives have become.
• We realize we have been living without hope
• We find we have become friendless
• We are so completely disconnected that our relationships are a sham, a parody of love and intimacy.
(Sham: a thing that is not what it is purported to be)
(Parody in use: an imitation work created to imitate)
Though it may seem that all is lost when we find ourselves in this state,
The truth is that we must pass through this place before we can embark upon our journey of recovery.
16. What crisis brought me to recovery?
17. What situation led me to formally work Step One?
18. When did I first recognize my gambling as a problem? Did I try to correct it? If so how? If not, why not?
Powerlessness
As gambling addict, we react to the word “powerless” in a variety of ways.
Some of us recognize that a more accurate description of our situation simply could not exist, and admit our powerlessness with a sense of relief.
Others recoil at the word, connecting it with weakness or believing it to indicate some kind of character deficiency
Understanding powerlessness
– And how admitting our own powerlessness is essential to our recovery
– will help us get over any negative feelings we may have about the concept.
We are powerless when the driving force in our life is beyond our control.
Our addiction certainly qualifies as such an uncontrollable, driving force.
(One is too many, a thousand is not enough)
• We cannot moderate or control our gambling or other compulsive behaviors, even when they are causing us to lose the things that matter most to us.
• We cannot stop, even when to continue will surely result in irreparable physical damage.
• We find ourselves doing things that we would never do if it weren’t for our gambling, things that make us shudder with shame when we think of them.
• We may even decide that we don’t want to gamble, that we aren’t going to gamble, and realize we are simply unable to stop when the opportunity present itself.
• We may have tried to abstain from gambling or other compulsive behaviors – perhaps with some success -for a period of time without a program, only to find that our untreated gambling eventually takes us back to where we are before.
In order to work the first First Step, we need to prove our own individual powerlessness to ourselves on a deep level.
19. Over what, exactly am I powerless?
20. What have I done (I have done things) while acting out my gambling that I would never do when focusing on recovery. What were they?
21. What things have I done to maintain my gambling that went completely against my beliefs and values?
22. How does my personality change when I am acting out my gambling?
(Do I become arrogant? Self- centered? Mean-tempered? Passive to the point where I can protect myself? Manipulative? Whiny? – complaining a lot or protest in a childish or annoying fashion, especially in a high pitched sound and sad voice)
23. Do I manipulate other people to maintain my gambling? How?
24. Have I tried to quit gambling and found that I couldn’t? Have I quit gambling on my own and found that my life was so painful without gambling that my abstinence didn’t last very long? What were those times like?
25. How has my gambling caused me to hurt myself and others?
Unmanageability
The first step ask us to admit 2 things
One, that we are powerless over our gambling
Two, that our lives have become unmanageable.
Our unmanageability is the outward evidence of our powerlessness.
There are 2 general types of unmanageability
• Outward unmanageability, the kind that can be seen by others;
• Inner, or personal, unmanageability
Outward unmanageability is often identified by such things as arrest, job losses, and family problems.
• Some member have been incarcerated.
• Some member have never been able to sustain any kind of relationship for more than a few months.
• Some of us have been cut off from our families, ask never again to contact them.
Inner, or personal unmanageability is often identified by unhealthy or untrue belief system about ourselves, the world we live in, and the people in our lives.
• We may believe we are worthless
• We may believe that the world revolves around us –not just that it should, but that it does
• We may believe that it isn’t really our job to take care of ourselves, someone else should do that.
• We may believe that the responsibilities the average person takes on as a matter of course are just too large a burden for us to bear
• We may over or under react to event in our lives.
• Emotional volatility is often one of the most obvious ways in which we can identify personal unmanageability.
26. What does unmanageability mean to me?
27. Have I ever been arrested or had legal trouble as a result of my gambling? Have I ever done anything I could have been arrested for if only I were caught? What have those things been?
28. What trouble have I had at work or school because of my gambling?
29. What trouble have I had with my family as a result of my gambling?
30. What trouble have I had with my friends as a result of my gambling?
31. Do I insist on having my own way? What effect has my insistence had on my relationships?
32. Do I consider the needs of others? What effect has my lack of consideration had on my relationships?
33. Do I accept responsibility for my life and my actions? Am I able to carry out my daily responsibilities without becoming overwhelmed? How has this affected my life?
34. Do I fall apart the minute things don’t go according to plan? How has this affected my life?
35. Do I treat every challenge as a personal insult? How has this affected my life?
36. Do I maintain a crisis mentality, responding to every situation with panic? How has this affected my life?
37. Do I ignore signs that somethings may be seriously wrong with my health or with my children, thinking things will work out somehow? Describe.
38. When in real danger, have I ever been either indifferent to that danger or somehow unable to protect myself as a result of my gambling? Describe.
39. Have I ever harmed someone as a result of my gambling?
40. Do I have temper tantrums or react to my feelings in other ways that lower my self-respect or sense of dignity? Describe.
41. Do I gamble or act out my addiction to change or suppress my feelings? What was I trying to change or suppress?
Reservations
Reservation are places in our program that we have reserved for relapse.
They may be built around the idea that we can retain a small measure of control.
• We may think that we can remain friends with people we gamble with?
• We may think that certain parts of the program don’t apply to us.
• We may think that there is something we just can’t face / stay clean – a serious illness, death of a loved one – and plan to gamble if it ever happens.
• We may think that after we have accomplished some goal, made a certain amount of money, or been clean for a certain number of years, then we will be able to control our using.
• Reservations are usually tucked away in the back of our minds; we are not fully conscious of them.
• It is essential that we expose any reservations we may have and cancel them – right here, right now.
42. Have I accepted the full measure of my disease?
43. Do I think I can still associate with the people connected with my gambling? Can I still go to places where I gamble? Do I think it is wise to keep a betting account or paraphernalia around, just to remind myself or test my recovery? If so, why?
44. Is there something I think I can’t get through clean, some event that might happen that will be so painful that I will have to gamble to survive the hurt?
45. Do I think that with some amount of clean time or different life circumstances, I will be able to control my gambling?
46. What reservation am I still holding on to?
Surrender
There is a huge difference between resignation and surrender.
Resignation is what we feel when we realized we are gambling addict but have not yet accepted recovery as the solution to our problem. At some point of our life, we may have thought that it was our destiny to be a gambling addict, to live and to die like one.
Surrender on the other hand, is what happen after we accepted the First Step as something that is true for us and have accepted that recovery is the solution.
We don’t want our lives to be the way they have been.
We don’t want to keep feeling the way we have been feeling.
47. What am I afraid of about the concept of surrender, if anything?
48. What convinces me that I can’t gamble successfully anymore?
49. Do I accept that I will never regain control, even after a long period of abstinence?
50. Can I began my recovery without a complete surrender?
51. What would my life be like if I surrender completely?
52. Can I continue my recovery without complete surrender?
Spiritual Principles
In the First Step, we will focus on honesty, open-mindedness, willingness, humility, and acceptance.
Honesty
The practice of honesty from the First Step starts with the admitting the truth about our gambling, and continues with the practice of honesty on a daily basis.
When we say “I am a gambling addict” in a meeting. We begin to be able to be honest with ourselves and, consequently, with other people.
53. If I have been thinking about gambling or acting out on my addiction in some other way, have I shared it with my sponsor or told anyone else?
54. Have I stayed in touch with the reality of my addiction, no matter how long I have had freedom from active gambling?
55. Have I notice that, now that I don’t have to cover up my gambling, I no longer need to lie like I did? Do I appreciate the freedom that goes along with that? In what ways have I begun to be honest in my recovery?
Open-mindedness
Practicing the principle of open-mindedness found in Step One mostly involves being ready to believe that there might be another way to live and being willing to try that way.
It doesn’t matter that we cannot see every detail of what that way might be or that it may be totally unlike anything we have heard about before
What matters is that we don’t limit ourselves or our thinking
Sometime we may hear things that sound crazy to us like “surrender to win” or suggestion to pray for someone we resent.
54.What have I heard in recovery that I have trouble believing?
Have I asked my sponsor, or the person I heard say it, to explain it to me?
In what way am I practicing open-mindedness?
Willingness
• When we begin to think about recovery, many of us do not think it is possible for us
• We don’t understand how it work
• We go ahead with the first step anyway
That is our first experience with willingness.
Taking any action that will help our recovery shows willingness,
Etc. Going to meeting, getting members phone number and calling them.
56. Am I willing to follow my sponsor‘s direction?
57. Am I willing to go to meeting regularly
58. Am I willing to give recovery my best effort? In what ways?
Humility
It is expressed most purely in our surrender
Humility is most easily identified as an acceptance of who we truly are – neither worse nor better (than we believed we were when we were using, just human).
59. Do I believe that I am a monster who has poisoned the whole world with my gambling?
60. Do I believe that my gambling is utterly inconsequential to the larger society around me? Or something in between? In society as whole? What is that sense?
61. How am I practicing the principle of humility in connection with this work on the first Step.
Acceptance
To practice the principle of acceptance, we must do more than merely admit that we are gambling addict.
When we accept our addiction, we feel a profound inner change that is underscored by a rising sense of hope. We also begin to feel peace.
We come to terms with our addiction, with our recovery, and with the meaning those 2 realities will come to have in our lives.
62.Have I made peace with the fact that I am a gambling addict?
63.Have I made peace with the things I will have to do to stay clean?
64.How is acceptance of my disease necessary for my continued recovery?
Are we ready to move to Step Two?
Have we work Step One well enough
Are we sure it is time to move on
Have we spend as much time as others may have spent on this step?
Have we truly gain an understanding of this step?
Many of us have found it helpful to write about our understanding of each step as we prepare to move on.
65.How do I know it is time to move on?
66. What is my understanding of Step One?
67.How has my prior knowledge and experience affected my work on this step?
We have come to a place where we see the results of our old way of life
and accept that a new way is called for, we probably don’t yet see how rich with possibilities the life of recovery is.
It may be enough just to have freedom from active gambling right now but soon we will find a void that we have been filling with gambling and other obsessive and compulsive behaviors. This void begs to be filled. Working the rest of the steps will fill that void.
Next on our journey towards recovery is Step Two.