Step One - The greatest moment of my life

I had the thought yesterday that maybe I should talk more specifically about the Steps on my blog. It is hard for me to do this because they are so inter woven into my life and in my personality that I don't even notice.

I got a late night call from a woman who got my name off a phone list of  a meeting she attended. She wasn't really dealing with alcoholism but at verbally abusive child in her school class. She had a shout out with the nine year old and sent her out of the room. She was feeling like a failure and in the wrong profession.

I told her about my recent meltdown and how it isn't always about us. Our mind makes it about us just like the person we are dealing with. Their mind makes it about them. We are the way we are because that is what we learned from our childhood. If we are lucky we see that it doesn't work in the adult world but most people don't get that opportunity.

This gets me back to the steps. They were the first tool I used to look at my own behavior and how I was hurting myself. It didn't happen over night because I was still caught up in blaming my husband and being the overall victim of my life to really look at my own behavior. Step One was where this process began.

Step One - Admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives have become un-manageable.

We in Al-Anon are proud folks and don't let anything stop us. By the time we get to the rooms of Al-Anon we are beat. We have met our match with addiction. We are about taking on the impossible and making the best of any situation. To admit that we have come across something that we can't manage it almost un-thinkable.

Of-course we don't go gently into the night we have already tried everything. If we haven't we wouldn't have come to that first meeting. Just like the alcoholic something really bad has to happen before we are ready for help. We have lost something or we are about to loose something. For me it was my mind and my husband.

He left and left me and my mind a mess. My life was so wrapped up in him that I couldn't function without him. He kept me busy and filled my life with disasters to contend with. I didn't have any friends or any interest of my own I made him my full time job. In hindsight he was constant entertainment for my ADD mind. Where is he? What is he doing? When is he coming home?

This is what I got out of it he needed me and I wanted so desperately to be needed. I wanted the emptiness I felt inside to be filled. I wanted to think that there was someone that couldn't live without me. But it turns out he could and I was left unable to function unable to get out of bed.

This was what led me to Step One.  I surrendered for the first time in my life.  I couldn' find an answer. I had met my match. It was the greatest moment of my life because I was teachable.