Who Cares to Admit Complete Defeat?

One of my friends recently got admitted to rehab and it got me thinking again. I was re-living some emotions from my many times spent in detox, and rehab. I still remember the despair I felt. The humiliation, and the total disbelief of what was happening. Yet it was very real. I swore, every time, that it would be the last time this was going to happen to me. Unfortunately it happened several more times until I was ready to take the first step.

Step 1 of the AA 12 and 12 book is the only step that I have to do every day and do it perfectly. I think it is so true, that no alcoholic is able to get and stay sober until he hits his own bottom. And everyone's bottom is different. I though, several times before I quit, that I have hit my bottom. And the last time I quit I didn't know it was going to be my last time. I fought it as much and as hard as I could. Nothing scared me, nothing, until I scared myself.

But I am so amazed that I got sober. Some people never get sober and die trying. And yet some get it the very first time. For me the first step was so crucial. To recognize that I have no control over alcohol (or drugs) and that my life has become unmanageable was so very difficult! Because the drug itself makes you believe that things are ok. And no matter what others say. I wanted things to be ok too. But they surly were not!

Admitting that I had a problem was so very hard; "Who cares to admit complete defeat? Practically no one, of course. Every natural instinct cries out against the idea of personal powerlessness." -AA twelve and twelve, pg. 21. That sentence just stuck in my head for so long, I would have given anything, seriously anything just so I was not an alcoholic. But my last drunk was so crazy and with no abviouse reason to it, that i just felt totally beaten down, I had no control over it at all. So I made a decision that I was done. Coming to acceptance that I cannot control my drinking actually freed me from the crazy mental obsession and opened up a wole world of possibilities. One day at a time, one step at a time!