“In the case of some sick people it is a matter for congratulations when they come to realize for themselves that they are sick.” --Seneca

The first step of addiction recovery is the admission of powerlessness of the addict over alcohol and/or drugs.  This surrender is the vital starting point to addiction recovery because it requires the addict to admit he or she is in need of external help to recover from addiction.  I’ve often heard in various meeting it is only this first step of addiction recovery that can and must be done 100% perfectly.  

This is, I assume, the reason at 12-step meetings, individuals identify themselves by first name and then add that he or she is an alcoholic or addict.  This is not to cause shame, but is to reinforce why each of us is there and to foster kinship with the newcomer.  Years into my sobriety, I remain an alcoholic.  I will be one until the day I die.  The only question is whether I am active in my addiction or my recovery.  That choice is mine alone and it belongs to every addict to decide whether he or she will live a life of sobriety or active addiction.

Seneca’s words here are so true of recovery from addiction, even though that is not the specific malady he was discussing. I have witnessed dozens and dozens of newcomers take their “first step” and admit their powerlessness over alcohol and drugs.  It is a cathartic moment for them and it was for me.  When it became clear to me I had to seek help for my alcoholism, I found the closest group and made my way to the local AA hall.  I walked up the stairs (conveniently painted 1-12) and walked into a large room with about 30 people who heard me coming up the stairs.  I found out later the regulars used a back fire escape to enter and exit the meeting room and coming in through the front door was a telltale sign of a newcomer.  This has been my experience with other groups as well.

Dear Reader, I can tell you, though, it is not unfamiliarity with the environs that makes the newcomer evident to the sobriety veterans.  Newcomers and those who have relapsed walk through the doors with mannerisms of defeat.  They slouch.  They lurch.  They appear tired, defeated, and sick.  Despite the weariness of their souls, I have seen such people look like a ton of weight has been lifted from them at the end of their first step meeting.  An enormous amount of healing occurs in the admission of defeat that comes next.  In my experience, this was true because once I admitted my alcoholism to that group of strangers, I felt a psychic lift in realizing I could quit fighting acknowledging my disease and I could start fighting for something worthwhile.

For many years, I wanted more than anything to believe I wasn’t an alcoholic.  Surely not everyone who’s been arrested for DUI is an alcoholic.  I was just unlucky.  Surely not everyone who wakes up with bruises from injuries he can’t remember sustaining is not an alcoholic. I was just tired.  Surely not everyone who has lost friendships and relationships over alcohol isn’t an alcoholic.  I was just growing up.  Surely not everyone who drinks alone is an alcoholic.  I was just bored.  Surely not everyone who thought about alcohol all the time isn’t an alcoholic, I was just decompressing.  I could go on.  The mental gymnastics I put myself through to convince myself I didn’t have a problem was pretty incredible.

I also deluded myself into thinking there was some set of rules I could establish whereby I could drink how I wanted to drink (to oblivion) only often enough to keep people off my back.  But, no matter what guideline I said I’d follow or what guideline I promised I was following, I could never actually keep myself to anything resembling control over my drinking.  It wasn’t just that I couldn’t control my drinking.  It was that the drinking had control over me.  I had become the vehicle by which my alcoholism was expressing itself.  I was no longer myself.  I was possessed by my addiction, a slave to it.  

My story isn’t unique and as I maintained my sobriety, I’d see person after person come in with their own version of the same problems.  They’d think they could find a way to control their drinking.  They and I sought in vain for ways to control our drinking because we were not capable or prepared until later to acknowledge there was no way of controlling our drinking other than strict abstinence from alcohol.  That admission is an absolutely monumental occurrence in sobriety and it warrants congratulation from both within and from others when the alcoholic or addict comes to see he or she is sick.  It is only from that realization that the path of sobriety can be traveled.