First

STEP ONE: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable. "Why this insistence that every A.A. must hit bottom first? The answer is that few people will sincerely try to practice the A.A. program unless they have hit bottom. For practicing A.A.'s remaining eleven Steps means the adoption of attitudes and actions that almost no alcoholic who is still drinking can dream of taking."

c. 1981, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 24