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I'm new here to this board, and wanted to know...how do I begin step #1? The website that is posted that lists the steps for Al-Anon, I find very confusing. I won't have a chance to go to my first Al-Anon meeting until a few weeks from now...how can I do step #1 in the meantime?
If you are brand new to this, I would suggest you hang around awhile, ask questions, read posts, maybe pick up some good literature (ie. Getting Them Sober, volume one, written by Toby Rice Drews), and see how you grasp things...
The Steps will always be there, and tend to be a bit more helpful once you have a bit of recovery under your belt....
Just my two cents
Tom
__________________
"He is either gonna drink, or he won't.... what are YOU gonna do?"
"What you think of me is none of my business"
"If you knew the answer to what you are worrying about, would it REALLY change anything?"
phoenixmagicgirl...welcome to the board and okay...you're ready to start. Step one is written "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol -and- our lives had become unmanagable. I broke it apart because I am/was analytical and had to mind train myself with the step. Originally I thought "Okay the booze is in the bottle and it isn't going anywhere so it just sits in there and I don't have anything to do with/for it. The second part exploded all over myself because I wasn't taking care of myself in the least and had been making bad decisions for me and getting the worse of consequences. My life was done for and I was suicide prone. I got the second part first and then redid the first part using various endings to the word alcohol...ism, ic, addiction, abuse etc etc. It wasn't only about the booze in the bottle it was about the booze in all and various parts of my life. I hung around it...in it...married the women I drank with, went to work drunk, when to work drunk and then tried to drink my way out of the drunk, planned most of our social events around alcohol and so therefore always got drunk consequences. I was powerless over it getting worse and worse while still moving toward more and more. I started working the powerlessness rather than saying it...we call that walking the talk and so I started saying to myself and my spouse and friends "No...I'm done...I'm not going to do that again". I learned that "No" was a complete sentence and kept saying "No" while also looking for better things to do with my life...things where the outcomes were much better for me...that included meetings, counseling, reading recovery literature and going to college on the disease of alcoholism...a disease I was born into.
Glad to have you here...don't fight the newness of this way of living. Take it slow...read and repeat. Call the hotline and see if you can find a real person to talk to before you get into the meetings...keep coming back here too. (((((hugs)))))
Step 1 for me helps me acknowledge that I am powerless over my son's alcohol and drug addiction. For several years I have been trying to problem solve for him, pay for his mistakes, argue with him, cajole and otherwise drive myself crazy. There was no change in his drinking and using and his addiction probably got worse. I've come to appreciate that I was different in his presence, or when dealing with his problems: short, cranky, argumentative, stressed - spiralling into the "life unmanageable" part of the Step. Understanding Step 1 has helped me come to terms with not being able to change my son's need for alcohol and drugs. Or more accurately, that I can't change him - he's responsible for doing that. It's given me the ability to practice detachment and my life is more manageable as a result.
Hi, welcome to Alanon. I never really did much with the steps for a long time, in fact I have been a member almost 1 yr and I have only scratched the surface of the steps. For me I liked the slogans and day to day readings. They keep me busy enough. I tend to look over and try to work the steps when I feel Im struggling with my recovery. I think I work the steps in an unconscious level but I know that eventually the steps will be clearer for me. Easy does it! is a good one. I think your confusion will become less and less through time with your readings, meetings and slogans. Recovery cant be forced.x
