Step one

[MajestyJo]

Step One: We admitted we were powerless over
alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
"We know that little good can come to any alcoholic
who joins A.A. unless he has first accepted his
devastating weakness and all its consequences. Until
he so humbles himself, his sobriety – if any – will
be precarious. Of real happiness he will find none at
all. Proved beyond doubt by an immense experience, this
is one of the facts of A.A. life. The principle that we
shall find no enduring strength until we first admit
complete defeat is the main taproot from which our whole
Society has sprung and flowered."

© 1952, AAWS, Inc.; Printed 2005;
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pgs. 21-22

Step One wouldn't work for me until I could find full acceptance of my powerlessness. It wasn't until I put in the word control, that I could see it at work. All my life I had tried to control people, places and things, only to be hurt, time and again and control was an illusion. I could not change anyone else, all I could do was change me. I had to decide if I wanted to make that change and if my dis-ease was in need of changing. I had to get honest with me. I had to quit pointing the finger at others, I had to quit looking at every one else and take stock of me and where I was going and where I had come from.

I could see unmanageability to a certain extent, but didn't really look at the robbing peter to pay paul, the changing jobs, the changing relationships, the changing apartments, the changing friends, and the list went on and on.

I really hadn't done that much with my life. I had no sense of who I was because I had lived it through other people. I found my identity in others and had no concept of self. Every time I picked up, I had given a piece of me away and their was this big empty void and a sense of loss. Where had I gone? If it wasn't the alcoholic or the alcohol directing my life, who was?

Every morning, I have to do Step One. Today I am a recovering alcoholic/addict, who has a disease that took me to people, places and things outside of myself to make me happy and to cope with life, and it was hard to believe who I had become and needed to change and take responsibility for the direction of my life.

Something I posted on another site in 2009

When I was in my denial, I was blinded by the blanket I chose to pull over my head that prevented me from being honest. I didn't want to wear a label that I had put on my dad and my ex-husband. I always knew I was an addict, "Some is good, more is better," had been my motto for years. An alcoholic, no never! I had lots of excuses and I just didn't want to acknowledge that when I pointed a finger at each of them, that I had three coming back at me.

It was so much easier to play the blame game and it kept me sick for a very long time.