a square and a rhombus walk into a bar…

There are two separate admissions in Step One.  Two Truths.  One comes before the dash, one after.  And they can be realized in either order.

Step 1: we admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.

Try it:  print it, clip it and flip it around and see that it still applies:  we admitted that our lives had become unmanageable – we were powerless over alcohol.  For me, my brain was super messed-up and my life was already unmanageable long before I took my first drink.

Within seconds of taking that drink, however, I believed I had found the secret to living.  Within the year I would be shown on multiple occasions that I was powerless over alcohol.  It was the answer that became the problem, precisely because I was convinced it was the answer.

And it’s the same song either way:  Pretend we flipped the order of my discoveries.  That is to say:  life was going 100% according to plan, until that first drink triggered an addiction that left me powerless over alcohol, making my life unmanageable.  Either way, I still would have thought I’d found the secret to living.  Within short order my ideal life would begin eroding.  I was digging a hole for me to live in.

Maybe it’s all schematics.  Getting all entangled in the old, pointless debates:  the chicken and the egg, your-chocolate-my-peanut-butter-type stuff.  Some come into this program by the front door, others through the kitchen window.

As long as there’s a table and someone’s at it, the rest is dressing.