Step One

Step One:  "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable."

Almost every morning for the past two years I would commit to quit drinking.  Usually in the shower.  Usually while singing one of these two lyrics:

"I gotta get my sh*t together / 'Cause I can't live like this forever" - Fountains of Wayne, "Bright Future in Sales"

"And I tell myself for the thousandth time / Today I start to live right" - Gear Daddies, "Strength"

And it didn't work.  And, many times, it didn't work for very long-- near the end I would begin my drinking in the morning soon after I got to work.  It's a miracle I didn't lose my job.

Throughout the past two years-- when things really got bad-- I had several perfect, obvious opportunities to quit abusing alcohol.  To be a drinker, but not a drunk, I would tell myself.  Because I had fooled my wife into thinking that my episodes were due to an undiagnosed medical condition, I could have leveraged treatment for those into a "cure" and cut down my drinking without anyone knowing that was the root problem.  For example, for a time my episodes were written off to a lack of decent rest.  In January I began using a CPAP machine.  I could have cut back my abuse concurrent with that and still have been able to have a couple of cocktails at parties or a beer at the baseball game.

Having been going to meetings and outpatient therapy for two-plus months now, though, I know that's not really how things could ever have worked.  It was not possible for me to cut down on my own.  I was powerless over alcohol.  My life had become unmanageable.