" We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable. " Hi to everyone on Miracles in Progress. I don't know if there are any moderators here at the moment, and just to update you I am not one. I will put up the topic when I can and answer some of the Al-Anon shares. Other than that I think it's OK for you to support each other as you wish. I chose this quote as a reminder of Step 1, one of the things we learned is that we are powerless to 'fix' the alcoholic. We try to get the focus away from that, to build a life of our own and find out what we like to do. llol Vickyr x From: Paths to Recovery pg. 8 (copyright 1997, by Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc Limited use by express written permission of Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc.) " It took time for me to admit that even though I didn't drink the alcohol, the disease could come through me and affect other people. As time passed and I learned more, I came to recognize that anything I contacted could be affected by the alcoholism coming though me. My reactions to other things could be the same as the ways I reacted to the drinking. I began to see how my own reactions had made my life unmanageable. O saw how my role of martyr had taken a sense of responsibility away from other people and lowered their egos. I saw how I had done this not only to the alcoholic, but also to other people in my life. "

AL-anon and A.A. Step One,

We admitted we were powerless over Alcohol ( people,places, and things,) that our lives had become unmanageable."

I am Powerless over ALcohol, people, places, things, and any and everything else without a Higher Power to run the show. I wasn't it! I had made a mess of my life.

Step One is just the Beginning, it's learning how to "LET GO" and "LET GOD."
When admitting Powerlessness it isn't admitting weakness.

When starting on Step One I it's about Changing me, it's my choice, my desicion, my life and future. Being able to live and love happily. Having communication skills with all types of human beings that show love, joy,peace, gentlness, openness, kindness, humility, so on.  
Recovery is a choice! I can choose to be in Recovery or not be in Recovery.


I want need to be working on myself with God's devine intervention (my personal thought). Through changing what doesn't work to something that does work.

Blessed
If you want to know the order of what works for me. Go to my box with a message.
Blessed




-- Edited by Blessed at 09:13, 2008-01-08

Hi Everyone, I have been posting on the message board for about 3 months now. I attend f2f meetings but have as yet to find a meeting I "connect" with the way I do on the board. I would like to start doing my 12 steps. So here is Step 1 for me. I do admit that I am powerless over alcohol and my life has become unmanagable. I can think of no better way to start off in 2008. Cookie

What is it I'm powerless over? Why can't I excercise power over it? What will happen if I don't try?

I haven't been around an active alcoholic for months now. I feel almost normal but their is a void in my life and a lack of further direction. Maybe I like the fight. Maybe I need the fight. At least when I took heavy insults, the fighting back made me know I was worth something. My own arguments reinforced my inner doubts.

I'm cleaning the house. I don't seem to have a reason to keep it clean withut needing to avoid a fight. I can start but not finish. Its a small house but the nicest I've ever been in. Got a newer car too and some fresh clothes and started a new life. Put myself in business but my new alanon meetings here aren't as good as the place i lived in before.

Sometimes I think the road I ho is a little different than others. I'm a guy, I'm also in AA. I've been in Alanon for almost as long as AA and I fly under the ACOA banner as well. Don't seem to fit quite right in anywhere but I seem to qualify for everywhere. Alcohol has sure put a few twists in my life that I'm powerless over.

STEP ONE On Step one when we admit we are Powerless over ALcohol, and everthiNg else in our lives we are on the right road. It is releasing the control in our life. Trying to run the show for so many years that needless to say didn't work. It didn't make me happy or fill the Hole in my soul. Today I am almost 14 years clean and Sober but I have to work on me everyday. I am a mess somedays. When I try to take over what God has so freely given to me. He is an Awesome God and when he is in the drivers seat my life goes smooth. When I am in the drivers seat and try to do it my way and take back the control it blows up in my face. Today is a rainy day in California and it is a day that I can sit back and reflect on how far I have come. It is amazing that today I am sober, married, have a home, am worshipping in Church and studying the Bible, have released my Son who is drinking and smoking. One Day at a time! I am not the best at this but kicking him out years ago when he started using. It was difficult to do. I don't allow drugs, alcohol, or any form of substance abuse in our home. "Period" Today I am in Love God and his word. Today I am in Love with Recovery and what I can bring to it. What it also brings to me when I am there looking at all the winners that are so blessed to be giving over themselves to Recovery and God. Who is Our Father and is in control and Loves us Soooo much. If we would just Ask, Seek, and Knock he will open the door. Leading the way and life isn't perfect but it certainly is understandable. Have a wonderful day in Recovery with God as your sheild. Blessed

Step One for me was not easy.  It was hard for me to accept that I couldn't help the alcoholic stay sober.  But at the meetings I kept hearing that the only one I could control was myself - that whether the a drank or not my interference would not change that - that the a's sobriety was better left to AA.  They also told me that I had a choice.  I could continue to be miserable because I couldn't make the a sober or I could start taking care of myself.  Taking care of myself meant getting my proper rest, eating right, getting to meetings and talking to my sponsor.  To begin with this was all I could manage.  If he drank, I called my sponsor and she reminded me that it was not my business and to get busy, leave the house, go to a meting or whatever it took to get my eyes off of the a.  Sometimes, if she was free, we'd meet for coffee.  If I couldn't reach my sponsor I went down my number list till I found someone who could talk to me.
    Now the First Step works in all areas of my life.  If I attempt in any way to try to change any person, place or thing, other than myself, my life becomes unmanageable and I get a knot in my stomach.  Sometimes all it takes is the first sentence of the Serenity Prayer - The Serenity to accept what I cannot change - and I realize the problem - I'm trying to change someone or something that is not my business.  Other times it takes talking to another Al-Anon to help me recognize and also accept what is bothering me.
Hugs - Dot

hi everyone thanks for the gorgeous shares . Its interesting how each person carves out their own unique path in recovery, the way you have developed your strengths is an inspiration !

llol Vickyr x

Hi Vicki, Dot and 2 all
Thank you for getting this started again dear :)

We admitted we were powerless over Alcohol ( people,places, and things,) that our lives had become unmanageable."

Its funny to give step one a go again -- thanks
to the shares re my powerlessness -- this step
has been the source of such a release te my
conditioned thought system and my newer
found actions to the a's in my iife -- yay 4
the freedom found here in this step one

I find I am using it more and more to any
situation I may wander into. I'm not sure
if its the fates drawing me into interactions
with the a only I know better now than to
focus or loose my focus over strategic mental
matches with an a now. I can and do go step
one step one my way thru or past a scene
with an a. Its madness to interact or to
lose my power this way -- whewee-oh.

I find me doing a step one over the tool
of the first step as of iate even -- lol -- if
that makes sense to anyone else, nice. It
works for me for now to help me stay in
my o d a a t spot where the priceless gift
of serenity is.

gentle paths n light n love 2 all y'all,
getoverit

-- Edited by getoverit at 21:36, 2008-01-30

Hello, I am new to this forum, though being acquainted with Al-Anon for many years now.  I feel blessed to have found a place to come to for my step work, as I am new to sharing that I'm even involved in Al-Anon.  I don't know if its that I feel embarrassed to admit that I'm powerless over alcohol or if its that I am so profoundly affected by alcohol in my life, that I'm terrified to acknowledge its power in my life.  Either way, I know that I am powerless, in the presence of alcohol in my life now and in the past as a child growing up with an alcoholic father. 

I'm reaching out and reaching in, reading and journaling along this spiritual path, and have taken the focus off of my husband and my father.  I am now focused on myself and taking responsiblity for my own recovery.  I am reading The Courage to Change, One Day at a Time in Al-Anon, and Paths to Recovery. I am looking for a sponsor and a local meeting to attend in the Philadelphia area.

I've already made a discovery about myself that I haven't realized before.  I am a people pleaser first and foremost.  Those that raised me and know me as an adult know that I am a people pleaser; this role has been my mode of operandi since I was a very young child.  I adopted this role of approval seeking behavior for bartering for my own protection and safety.  Seeking approval and protection was a cognitive choice that I made which has compromised me so much that I had no idea who I was, what my beliefs were, and how I felt about anything.  I have lived the life of the "others", one separate from my authentic self.  It has split me into several pieces, and now I'm trying to retrieve them back to myself. 

People pleasing and needing the approval of others has lead me into very destructive and abusive relationships, which I endured out of the fear that I would have no one in my life in whom I could depend on.  I had never learned to depend upon myself.  I learned the opposite.  I learned to distrust myself, and to dismiss my "gut", my intuition, my "inner knowing" of what was right for me.  I had constantly sought protection from "knowing others" whether they be friends, teachers, friends, pastors, and I would do anything to gain the approval of others.  I mean anything. 

Today, after years of work in therapy and personal growth, I realize that the roots of my people pleasing has been the influence of alcohol in my life.  Alcoholism destroyed my family and has indelibly changed the way I operate in the world.  I am now ready to acknowledge that, to confront the root of my affliction, and accept that I have a choice.  I can choose to become whole and authentic, and live in true integrity to myself.  I can embrace ALL truths about myself, acknowledging the responsibility I have to change what I can change, and let go of the things I cannot change.  I cannot change my father, my husband or my past.  I can only change myself.  I can only change the present, this moment right now, by the choices I make today to continue to recover and grow and discover. 

I've begun sharing my discovery with my sister and my mother.  My father is deceased.  I'm ready to be honest and open and accountable for my own behaviors.  I'm ready to begin healing the broken trust in myself by living authentically, ie. delaying saying "yes" until I've thoroughly thought through the question.  I'm taking better care of myself physically by working out, eating nutritiously and getting good sleep.  I am talking to supportive friends that know the program.  I am healing my relationship with my husband by not focusing on his drinking, but rather focusing on my reaction to it and how I behave in response to it.  I'm using meditation and prayer to keep me calm, focused and less anxious.  I'm taking one day at a time. 

I thank all of you for listening and wish you well in your own recovery to sanity.

Step one:  I am almost a year out of a relationship with an A and ready to take on the steps. I think trying to control the A almost killed me.

Maresie

What a dreadful and destructive force alcohol is. The man I have loved for five years now has finally come to understand the degree of insanity in his life from alcohol and has almost completely stopped drinking. For the past year. However. The behaviors have been so destructive for so long. Now, there is an empty shell. That I am trying to communicate with, and failing miserably. My anger has been intense. For the past, for inability to connect in the present with him. His emotions are extreme, therefore he shuts me out if anything is threatening. Which is just about everything. I am out of balance. Not happy. Insane. Reacting to his reactions to me attempting to set healthy boundaries and expectations in my home. I need to get some balance inside my soul. Inside my heart. Inside my head.

In not wanting to deal with laziness, perfectionistic behaviors, immaturity, I yelled and said unkind things. So, he left, like i asked him to. Now? I am so messed up, I can't think straight.

Not only was I powerless for three of these five years completely when he was using, I have been powerless for two of these five years completely when he has not been. The intensity of dysfunction and disruption to normal communication, capacity for love, ability to function, all of it, I saw it first-hand. Also, the ability to "fix" those things? Powerless. Cannot be done. The only one who can achieve any health is this man, with his own surrender and desire for change.

No prayers can be uttered by an Al-Anon that are unblemished by the FIXING perspective. Except "let me let him be free" and "your will be done, whatever that is." My wants, wishes, desires? Mean zero. NADA.

I am hooked by the abandonment he gives me. Big time. And, since this began to be confronted from his own decision in his life, I've been disposable. Not someone he acts like matters to him in the least. That really hurts.

So, pray with me as you read this: Lord, please help Sheila to let go.

-- Edited by SheilaC at 09:24, 2008-06-11