Image by: Horizontal Integration

Growing up my mom ran a non-profit that worked with parents who had their children taken away for abuse or neglect. All the parents were court mandated by the county to get parenting classes. The organization served these low income families with free counseling, child care, food boxes and pro-bono attorneys. The people who we served all had dramatic tales to tell full of alcoholism, drugs and physical abuse. I remember talking to them outside of the office we rented. They looked sleep deprived with blood shot eyes and the glazed over look of doing enough drugs to put a down payment on a townhouse; naturally I judged them. I judged the way they chain smoked and quoted the steps from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I thought the meetings they attended were excuses to kill time and catch some tail. I thought the Big Book that they claimed was full of hope was actually full of crap. I was 12 years old.

Twelve years later I found myself in the room’s of several different anonymous meetings, purchasing a Big Book and sitting among others who just like me had blood shot eyes and a glazed over look that said, ‘How the hell did I get here?’ I remember working the very 1^st Step with my very first sponsor:

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

I remember doing this step with her after a meeting in her car. Completely baffled I told her, “I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t believe I’m really an addict. I judged addicts for so long. I can’t believe I’m admitting that I actually am one of them.”

Admitting that truth to someone else and to a group of other addicts, multiple times a week has truly (as cliché as it might sound) “set me free” from my addiction. Taking that first step and admitting that “I am powerless over a substance” has completely humbled me as a human being. For better or for worse people with addictive personalities are people of action. We’re go getters, we’re accomplisher and we’re successful. However, being a go getter comes with it’s array of problems, the biggest one being we think we know it all and can do it all. As a 12 year old born with that disposition I thought I did know it all. I spent many years in my addiction because I was too proud to ask for help or humbly admit that I had a problem. The first step serves as the vehicle of humility. If we really want to over come our addiction we first and foremost have to admit that we (being the know it all’s that we think we are) actually DON’T. We need to admit that we do need help from other addicts who have been through the same experiences. If we refuse their help our lives will continue to be unmanageable.

Being years into recovery I can now laugh at how judgmental and pretentious I once was. In hindsight I really respect the people I worked with at my mom’s organization. I now remember them as people who were also addicts, who had their children taken away from them and are still showing up for parenting classes, counseling and admitting that they need help. All of them could have very well chosen to spend their time in their addictions, but instead they admitted to themselves and to others, “I don’t know how to be a parent. I need help. Please help me.” Now when I think back on these people I don’t see their blood shot eyes, I see people who are brave enough to be honest with themselves and accept help. Having done it myself I know that it is the most humbling, courageous act one could ever make. I respect all of those who have and who ever will take Step 1.