Step One:

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.


I am not sure when I realized that my life had become totally unmanageable. Strangely enough, it may have been *before* I married an alcoholic.

But I digress. For those of you who are living with the disease of alcoholism in your lives, please be aware - and I have lived this, and can personally claim this as truth - that you can substitute ANY ISSUE in the place of alcohol in the above sentence, and it works. If you work it.

For example, I realized my life was unmanageable BEFORE the alcoholic entered my life. Growing up, there was only one alcoholic in my family, my uncle (by marriage) and he lived about 100 miles away and we only saw him for three hours a year, so he really wasn't a big impact upon my world.

However, growing up, I could plainly claim that Feelings/Emotions/Lack of Self-Esteem could have fit in that sentence quite nicely.

Once I hit college, I could substitute the word FOOD and it would have been my program.

Now, alcohol *and* food *and* lack of self love will all fit in that sentence.

I don't drink. Alcohol is one of those things I can take or leave. And usually leave. I don't enjoy the taste, don't particularly like to feel drunk and I HATE HANGOVERS.
However, alcohol has kicked my ass.
About six years ago I fell in love with an alcoholic. And I had no idea what kind of ride I was in for.

It is a demented roller coaster.

There have been moments of bliss. They were fleeting and I was left wondering if they had happened at all. There were moments of misery, agony, and wanting to die. Thankfully, they were also short-lived *most of the time* and I was left later questioning if it had really been so bad. But overall, the only thing I could count on is that I HAD NO CONTROL. I did not know what was going to happen next.

I had no hope for the future, no trust in the present and I questioned and doubted my past.

I had no idea who I was from day to day, nor did I remember that capable person I had been in the past.

I had no control.
I still have no control.
I am powerless over alcoholism. And my life - without working actively towards serenity - is unmanageable.

When I admitted this, I did not have to look back to the past for answers. Whatever I had done before did not work. That's why I am here.
I cannot look to the future. No one knows what that will hold.
So it is today I look. Not necessarily for cures or control. But for a moment of happiness and truth. And the courage to take the next step.