Powerless over other people

this was my AA email for the day, but felt it fits here as well..

In a way, I had hit another bottom, an emotional, spiritual one this time. I remember every bit of it, and it was rough. I wouldn’t recommend my way to anyone, but finally one night, alone and lost, eaten up with old jealousies, old fears, I was fighting to hang on to the one thing I had, my sobriety. I was near an old panic that many of us know about. I couldn’t, I wouldn’t let myself take a drink, but I had to find a way to overcome the battle inside, to quiet the tensions. Then this happened: I knew I had to admit I was powerless over other people. I had to admit this just as, in order to keep sober, I had to admit I was powerless over alcohol.




I cannot make anyone love me, or even like me.




Oh, I still have some of my active drunk’s talent to create a scene and twist a conversation so someone may be forced into saying what I want to hear, but I have no power to make anyone feel anything. All I can do is work to make myself worthy of love.




As these thoughts came to me – and they came almost in the words I’ve written out here – I felt a great relief. It was Armistice Day - after all these years.




AA Grapevine, January 1961, “People Are Like People”


© 1986, AA Grapevine, Inc., The Best of the Grapevine [volume 2], pages 104-1