Step One

Rather than always saying I am recovering form alcohol and drug addiction through the (fictitious) 12 step program ETA, I put this notice in the blog description. From here on out, readers will just have to know this. I'm tired of thinking up clever ways to fit this information into each post.

Step one says: "We admit we are powerless over drugs and booze and our lives have become unmanageable." Hard things to swallow for most of us. 'Powerless' and 'Unmanageable' are rather uncomplimentary, after all. In a world where power and control are seen as all important, to admit the opposite was dang near impossible for me. I thought it meant I had to tell the world I was a worthless loser. Uh,... we think not.

While step one, for me, has as many facets as a well cut diamond today, this was hardly the case in the beginning. Then I was able to look at it like this:

As a kid in the winter time, when the streets were covered with snow and ice, my friends liked to grab hold of car bumpers and go for a wild ride. When the car hit pavement we let go of the bumper because, to hang on would likely kill us. I do not recall a single kid ever saying stuff like, "If I were stronger, I could have held myself off the ground until the car hit snow and ice again." Or, "What a chicken that kid is for not hanging on longer!" Nor did anybody say, "If I were faster, (smarter, prettier, more macho, whatever) I could have run behind the car until it came to more snow and ice." When the snow and ice ran out, we would get pretty beat up if we continued to hang on so we simply let go.

That is all step one is in the beginning: Let go. Surrender does not mean defeat, it means to stop fighting. It means I don't want to get beat up so I'm done. That's it. It's the same thing as letting go of the car bumper; no more, no less.

Have a good and sober day.