Step 1 Recovery Meditations

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Step One
Recovery Meditations

To help you understand what the Scriptures say about admitting the unmanageability of our lives.

Step 1
We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and dysfunctions
--that our lives had become unmanageable.

Matthew 9:36
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Matthew 9:36 (NIV).

Matthew 9:36
Step 1 asks us to confront the chaos and the unmanageability of our dependent life-styles. The paradox of every addiction is that the more we try to compulsively control ourselves and others through the practice of the addiction, more out of control our lives spin.

In what counterfeit ways do we seek for interior security through co-dependent manipulation of the outside world? We may struggle desperately through our perfectionism or workaholism to win the praise and approval of our fellows. We may become preoccupied through hypochondria with health and bodily functions in pursuit of a kind of physical immortality and invincibility. We may strive to shore up our own fragile self-esteem by allowing a love partner to become the only source of affirmation for our worth.

In the depths of our dependency, we are like sheep, weary and scattered. Scripture assures us that the True Shepherd, Jesus Christ, views this human discord and fragmentation with deep compassion. Twelve Step recovery allows us to confront compassionately but firmly our own human unmanageability.



Romans 7:18-20
18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing.20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. Romans 7:18-20 (NIV)


Two indicators of addiction are the gradual loss of identity and the progressive violation of one's own values in the practice of the addiction. The gospel describes these addiction symptoms in the following terms: It is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me