When the Twelve Steps were first formulated in the 1930s, its founders didn’t have the understanding of many aspects of alcoholism and the human condition that we have today. Nevertheless, they did have a very accurate and intimately personal understanding of the experience of alcoholism, its destructive progression, and a nascent grasp on a very effective program of recovery that has endured for almost 90 years.

In that era, alcoholics experienced powerlessness over their addiction no differently than we do today. In the current millennium, the chemical formulation of alcohol remains unchanged, and the human experience of alcoholism continues to be progressive, chronic and, ultimately, fatal.

In Chapter 4 of the Big Book, the basic text of Alcoholics Anonymous, the authors lay down the fact of hitting bottom (p. 45): “Lack of power, that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves. Obviously. But where and how were we to find this Power?”

And here, the capital-p Power makes its appearance, followed by the arrival of God in the next paragraph. But powerlessness is a real thing. I have experienced it and so too has almost every other recovering alcoholic I have met as well. While the physiological experience of alcoholism hasn’t changed over time, our understanding of power has.

Power, as understood in Twelve Step recovery lexicon, carries many inherent assumptions and is loaded with implicit meaning that both writers and readers take for granted. Whenever the subject of power comes up in recovery, those who address power also perpetuate those assumptions.

My aim here is to introduce one particular contemporary understanding of power, and perhaps challenge readers to review the Steps and their own experience of recovery through this alternative lens.

Three kinds of power

Scholar, author and ecofeminist, Starhawk, proposed that there are three kinds of power:

(1) power-over, which appears as domination and control of people, places, and things;
(2) power-with, which we find in peer groups, with mutual support and common purpose; and
(3) power-from-within, referring to the human spirit and capacity for creative action. If we turn back to the first three Steps and examine each through this three-part understanding of power, the results are fruitful.

Step One: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable.

The first kind of power makes its appearance right in the wording of the first Step! To be ‘powerless-over’ something is exactly the same thing as that something having power-over us. There won’t be any argument here from me or any other person who has come to accept the fact of their addiction. The admission of powerlessness is a necessary first step in order to begin the journey of recovery.

Step Two: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us the sanity.

As I have touched on above, the authors are preparing ground to bring the powerless alcoholic around to consider a Higher Power, a God of their understanding, to solve their dilemma of “lack of power”. Step Two is commonly referred to as the first of the ‘God Steps’. The authors of the Twelve Steps continue to work within the paradigm of the first kind of power: power-over.

For those engaged in secular recovery, my suggestion is that we follow Starhawk at this juncture and look instead at ‘power-with’ as a solution. We have already found mutual support and common purpose within the Twelve Step fellowship. A great power (with!) lies in the collective willingness of the fellowship to stay sober and help others stay sober. Many a nonbeliever has found an enduring and flourishing sobriety by relying on their peers, learning from those who came before them. When we say that the opposite of addiction is human connection, we’re talking about being lifted up from hitting bottom by the second kind of power—power-with.

Step Three: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

As you have probably already guessed, this Step is an experience of shifting to the third kind of power: power-from-within. I found a power within myself that seemed to grow organically from my experience of the power-with among my peer support group. I not only gained power from the collective, but I also found that the love and compassion I found in the fellowship was more than ample enough to fill the hole inside me that addiction created. By continuing the Steps, in particular the ‘action’ Steps of Four through Nine, the ‘Promises’ (read in most meetings, from pages 83-84 of the Big Book) did in fact begin to come true for me. I felt power coming into me from both the collective of the fellowship and also from a flame within, at long last lit after decades of its wick being soaked by booze.

Higher power, greater power, or a fuller power?

These three kinds of power enrich the lexicon of Twelve Step recovery by setting aside matters of theology in favour of focusing instead on secular ways to solve the problem of powerlessness and regain the power to recover. Of course, those who choose to rely on a God of their understanding have found their own path to the three kinds of power. Power-with comes from their Higher Power expressed in the group conscience of their peer group; power-from-within arises from opening to that chosen Source of power and allowing it into their heart.

Through the lens of the three kinds of power, I see a lot more in common between theistic and secular approaches to the Twelve Steps than I see separating them.

I do know that there is one thing for sure that both approaches can fully agree on: there is no hope for recovery unless the alcoholic stops playing God.