A Reading for Step 1

Welcome to the first post of Recovery Tarot. I hope to use this space to document some of my Tarot readings connected to 12-step work and to deepen my understanding of how my Higher Power works in my life. While this a personal interpretation of both the cards and sobriety, I will do my best to be inclusive of other understandings on Tarot and recovery.

I won’t offer a full qualification here, but at the time of writing I am coming up on seven years of sobriety from alcohol, largely thanks to AA. That said, I white-knuckled it for years before the program truly took hold. Since then, recovery spaces such as AA and Recovery Dharma have been essential components of my spirituality and recovery. I also participate in organized religion, going to services on occasion and do my best maintain a prayer practice, though I find regular prayer is challenging with my neurodivergence.

I also reconnected with Tarot during sobriety. I had explored it many years ago but stopped when I began to take it more seriously. Back then, I read by intuition without reference books, working primarily with the Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS) deck and later the Thoth deck. When I returned to Tarot in sobriety, I began again with the RWS and, this time, read several books to deepen my understanding. Two have influenced me the most: 78 Degrees of Wisdom by Rachel Pollack and Radical Tarot by Charlie Claire Burgess, both of which I will reference often. Pollack’s later work, A Walk Through the Forest of Souls, prompted me to ask deeper spiritual questions of the cards, such as: “Who am I talking to when reading the cards?” and “What do I need to know about Step 1?” The latter question that will be the focus of this post.

For those who aren’t as familiar with 12 step work, or those who want a refresher, the Step 1 of 12 reads as follows:

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

This is a moment of surrender, recognizing that addiction has rendered life unmanageable and that help is necessary. In Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions book by Alcoholic Anonymous, the author described this moment as finding the bottom of the pool so you can kick off.

For this pull, I did a simple three-card layout without assigning specific meanings beforehand. However, clear themes emerged during the interpretation. The reading was done with a RWS deck and the imagery of the cards can be seen below:

The three cards drawn were:

• 5 of Wands
• King of Pentacles
• (14) Temperance

The 5 of Wands is a natural starting point for Step 1: struggle, conflict, and chaos are typical in active addiction. Temperance, appropriately, appears as the final card, symbolizing the solution and the path to balance. The King of Pentacles, however, is the most intriguing card of the spread.

Rachel Pollack, in 78 Degrees of Wisdom, describes the King of Pentacles as a “successful business/professional man.” Charlie Claire Burgess, in Radical Tarot, offers a more inclusive framework for the court cards, using gender-neutral titles such as “Steward” for “King” and “Sage” for “Queen.” Thus, the King of Wands becomes a “Steward of Earth,” or, as Burgess puts it, the “gardener.”

One way to interpret the cards is to see a progression from the chaotic energy of the 5 of Wands we develop grounded mastery of the King of Pentacles leading to the balance of Temperance. But I would like to offer an alternative interpretation.

I agree that the 5 of Wands captures the struggle of early recovery or late-stage addiction and that the Temperance represents the solution. However, I see the King of Pentacles not as a goal but as a façade, an image of success that those in addiction often cling to while internally suffering. Personally, I wanted the world to see me as productive and in control, when in truth, my life was falling apart. It was only by abandoning this illusion, this persona, that the path to Temperance could begin. Given that, the King of Pentacle feels less like a milestone and more like an obstacle standing between chaos and balance.

Returning to Temperance, the word itself carries some historical weight: it is the name of a 19th and 20th century American movement aimed at prohibiting alcohol. Therefore, it is no surprise that the card connects to sobriety intuitively. Looking deeper, Burgess offers an alternative name for the card: “The Healer.” It is only be by balancing the forces within our life by putting one foot on land (our embodies, grounded experience) and one foot in water (our emotional and spiritual realm) that we can truly move forward.

One final thought before I go. It has been said that the water flowing between the cups in the Temperance card defies gravity, raising from the lower cup up into the upper cup. I believe this magic is real and comes through constant contact with one’s Higher Power. This mystical exchange points towards Step 2:

Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

For more on that, I invite you to my next post. I hope you’ll join me.