Step 1 – “We admitted we were powerless over (alcohol, drugs, etc.) – that our lives had become unmanageable.”
The 12 steps of recovery start with the word “we”. When I started going to metings I quickly saw I was not alone or unique in my thoughts, problems, worries, fears, anger, resentments, and other negativities. What I thought was my special veteran shit was in fact common among alcoholics and addicts.
I was relieved to feel a sense of belonging with my fellows in AA. Here were a bunch of seemingly random people that thought like I did and accepted me as I was. I had almost never experienced that feeling before, even in the military. It wasn’t something I felt growing up either.
People were listening to each other and relating because of their common history with alcohol and substance abuse. They had a shared goal of staying clean and sober while improving themselves.
The next part of step one is about admitting our defeat and asking for help. This simple sentence “I need help” can be a large hurdle for veterans trapped in substance abuse. If you are like I was, you probably haven’t been truthful with yourself in a while. Start considering your real situation now.
Admitting my lack of power became obvious once my denial burst. Thousands of times, I proved I couldn’t control the amount I drank and smoked. Once I started, the craving that ignited would often keep me going far beyond what was reasonable. Later in my addictions, I would wake up and start again.
Sometimes I would go for months drinking and smoking weed every day. Most of my money went to alcohol and my health deteriorated. Admitting to all of that when doing my first step showed that I was always powerless over alcohol and weed.
From the lens of sobriety, it became obvious that my substances made my mental problems much worse too. They fuck up our minds! There is no doubt about that. My dumpster fire of negativity almost led me to end it on a few occassions. That is full spectrum defeat in my view.
The second half of step one suggests that our lives had become unmanageable. This was painfully true for me as well. I had no idea how to run my life when I got out of the military. I was adrift for a long time, letting Internet businesses fall away and neglecting my health. I trended toward being broken in every way. Coming to all of these realizations was very difficult when I walked in to AA.
I had been in a fantasy land where I thought I was successful and independent. As a veteran, I believed I could control my substances. I told myself and others, “I’m fine.” That little phrase has probably killed hundreds of millions of alcoholics and addicts throughout history.
I assumed I was perfectly correct in my wacky views of the world. In reality, most of my beliefs and perspectives were simply not true. They were based on substance fueled conspiracy study for years. I had become fully paranoid and anxious as a result.
Admission, acceptance, and surrender to my reality was the initiator of my sobriety. It was the first time I had looked at myself truthfully in quite a while. I had been completely defeated which meant I had to surrender my ideas and my life to recovery.
Yes, “surrender” was not a word we considered in the military, but it is vital to leaving behind our addictions. Surrender means dropping your weapons of ego and defense, picking up new tools of recovery, and joining the winning side of sobriety.
Let step one be a symbolic death and sober re-birth for you now. Let it begin to unravel your denials, since it is a step of honesty. I haven’t had a drink since I did this step and continued through with the rest of them, one at a time.
Start looking around at your life. Is shit falling down around you because of drinking or using substances? Are you successfully managing things? Is your health getting worse? Are you relating to Amy Winehouse songs? These are all signs that sobriety is for you.
Seeing the truth at the start of sobriety can really fucking hurt. But, the more miserable we are in the beginning, the better chance we have at sticking with recovery. Keeping my past suffering in mind has been central to me staying sober over the years.
Accepting step one of recovery is vital to staying sober one day at a time. I need to keep it in mind every morning. Coming out of this denial will save your life and put you on the path of recovery, which is almost certainly where you belong if you are reading this with any level of interest.
In the next steps, we begin to surrender our will and the negative parts of ourselves.
Principle of Defeat: A veteran hates the word defeat. But enough alcohol or drugs over time does exactly that to us. Admitting defeat is to enter recovery.
Self-Study Questions: Step 1
Describe three times you have been powerless over drugs or alcohol in your life (when you did too much, it hurt part of your life, etc).
Write about the ways you have tried to quit on your own. How long did you last? What did you try? What made you go back?
List the ways your life is not going great right now (money, job, relationships, health, etc). Would these improve if you quit your drinking or substances?
Look up the words: powerless, surrender and unmanageable. Write what they mean to you in terms of sobriety.
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