Greetings friends.  I'm an alcoholic from northern California and my friends call me CiCi.  I'm in my 6th year of sobriety.  My sponsor (who helped save my life) was/is from what some call 'old school AA', but what I call AA as it was written in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.  She was very serious about recovery, about AA, and about taking the steps as she called it. 

I was a typical alcoholic, selfish and self centered, knew everything, and stubborn to a fault.  When I first came into the rooms I thought I was willing.  I mean I did do what was suggested didn’t I?  I got a sponsor that first night, a big book, and even found my 'higher power' in that very room.  I left that night with a sponsor I didn't call, a big book I didn't read and my new higher power who had blonde hair and blue jeans.  It might not be a big surprise to you that I didn't stay sober. I didn't get step one... at all.

Oh, I knew I had a problem with alcohol—a big one.  But that I was an alcoholic?  I wasn't so sure. I thought an alcoholic was a guy with a brown bag begging money on the street corner.  And that my life was unmanageable?  Hardly.  I had a great and prestigious job, a luxurious lifestyle, and my home and family in tack.  I hadn't lost anything, except some self respect, or so I thought.  Those were 'yets' I'd soon meet along the road to recovery.  But for now I was doing what the big book refers to in Chapter 2, There Is A Solution, on page 25, “... go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could…”

Finally I did, as all real alcoholics do, hit a bottom and crawled back into the rooms. And this time I listened at meetings, hungry for help, for answers, and for relief.  When I asked Arlene if she would be my sponsor she asked me, "Are you willing to go to any lengths?"  To which I replied, "Yes."  And so we began.  She had me at step one for a long time, or so it seemed to me.  My first time in AA I went through the 12 steps in about a month so I was a little frustrated at Arlene taking me through step one so s-l-o-w.  She kept saying, "Slow is real. Time takes time."  I didn't understand anything except that I was dying and I was desperate for help so for the first time in my life I was willing to take suggestions and follow with the appropriate action... to the best of my ability at the time.

Now, after 6 years of continual sobriety and being an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous, I have a new appreciation for Arlene and while she has moved and is no longer my sponsor, those basics she taught me have stuck with me and I have passed them on to many sponsees and watched as the miracles unfold.  It works!  It really does.

So, Step one... Admitted we (I) were (was) powerless over alcohol (everything and everyone) and that our lives had become unmanageable.  I was convinced I was powerless over alcohol.  That was easy, I couldn't stop drinking.  Or rather I could stop. I’d stopped a hundred times.  I just could stay stopped. But there is a second part to step one... our lives had become unmanageable.  That took me a little time to realize, or understand. 

The point I am trying to make is this; if I didn’t truly KNOW I was an alcoholic, and that my life had become unmanageable, then I wouldn’t be looking for a solution.  If I wasn’t searching for a solution I couldn’t get help.  So the crux of the whole program, to me, was Step one.  Either I was, or I wasn’t.  I had to discover that for myself and it was a process to get it from my head, or my logic, which was clear that I had a drinking problem… and move those thoughts down into my heart, where I admitted to my innermost self that yes, I am an alcoholic and my life is unmanageable.  It was ONLY from this place that I would be able to start and the only place from which I could move to Step two or any other hope of recovery.

Step one, the book says is the only step we ever can work perfectly.  May you do so now is my hope and prayer.

God Bless

CiCi