The only edit I would make it to the 12 Steps would be to add the phrase, “to ourselves and another human being” right after “We admitted” in the 1st Step.
Step One:
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
Had I understood the true power of not doing it alone, I might have made it in the program many, many years ago. It’s my lone wolf wanna-be persona that got me into this predicament in the first place. I stopped trusting people during the early teen years. I had, I felt at the time, constructed a very workable and sensible wall. It was full of doors with multiple locks and an alarming amount of peepholes.
The complete and sheer relief that accompanied the unburdening of my secret was immediate. It’s wasn’t the drinking too much that was embarrassing. It was my inability to stop. And I ran on that hamster wheel ‘til it popped its axis: the endless whole-hearted half-attempts, with zero follow-throughs. I never got the reward or knew what it was.
That all changed when I found a somewhat underground group.
They’re called the Fellowship.
And no, its not a crime syndicate.
I knew there were other drunks out there. And I’d been through the program before. However, the 25 year-old me hadn’t been ready to believe it. This time, sitting among them, I recognized myself in others much easier than before. Years of similar destructive patterns of thinking and behaving have a way of doing that. It’s called pain. And the kicker is, it’s so pointless.
Hey, listen to what I’m thinking: When normal life gets dull and I find destructive thoughts popping in and out now and again, I must make a point of living. My sauce is stewing – time to get involved and get moving. Talk to another human being that’s attempted to walk a straight line; a straight line with consequences.
Settles me right down.
12 the hard way 