Fully Conceding

[FightingIrish]

I hear a lot of people say that Step One "is the only step we have to do perfectly." While I tend to take what I need and leave the rest when it comes to slogans, this is one I hear a lot. And although I feel like I have had a meaningful Step One experience, I'm not sure I know what this slogan means or can relate to it. I don't feel like Step One is a static arrival point, a box to be checked off.

The Big Book says, "we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics." This also seems to me to imply a state of completion with this step.

I'm wondering how other people experience this step? How do you know if you have fully conceded? Generally my approach is not to overthink it, to the point where I allow that it is possible that I may someday drink again. Today I do not want to drink, nor have I wanted to for the past 680 days. But I see the strange mental twists come and go, and they do not surprise me when they come. I also do not act upon them...why, I don't know...I just don't, and I don't worry about them when they do come.

It feels more like a letting go than anything in particular that I do. I certainly don't remind myself of how bad it was.

Curious what other people experience?

[Cubile75]

FI -

I can only offer my experience. There are days when the first step swirls round my head all day and I can't wait for sleep. Thankfully less so the last few months.

I know what you mean about the letting go thing... rather than dive head first into a first step all over again... when those mental twists come round... it's easier to just let it go... I 'm not drinking today and I'm not missing anything... big deal.

Thanx for sharing that.

Mark

[johnmc]

Hi all, before I could contemplate taking step 1 or taking a new guy through step 1 I like to look at the first step in recovery. I learned that I had to concede to my innermost self that I was an alcoholic……hmmmm….so what makes me an alcoholic??

Well certainly I can not take a drink without developing the craving and when I try to stop I can not but that is a symptom of me being an alcoholic.

So what is different about me to the normal drinker….well my misses takes a drink and everything about her stays pretty much the same, the people she likes, she still likes, the people she dislikes , she still pretty much dislikes them…..not with me!!!!

When she takes a drink the world stays as it is, her emotions are affected mildly but she remains the same person, pretty much any way….not me!!!

When I take a drink the world and its people change, I undergo an imaginary spiritual experience and experience the step 9 promises….. I take out a bottle of whisket and am amazed before I am half way through…..

I begin to think I am experiencing a new freedom and happiness…. I no longer regret the past and certainly do not shut the door on it…. I dwell in it….

I seem to understand what serenity is and feel at peace…..

No matter how far down the scale I have gone I allow other people the benefit of my vast experience, whether you want it or not…

I no longer feel useless or have self pity…. I pity you and how useless you are…

I lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in my fellows….normally the married ones and always beautiful at the time….

Self seeking just slips away….my whole attitude and outlook upon life instantly changes and I am no longer afraid of you, your four mates and the doorman.

Economic security leaves me and I live in the day…..have a drink on me…I may be dead tomorrow….

I intuitively just know what to do and how to do it…..

I realize yet again that alcohol is doing for me what I can not do for myself…..

Then I wake up….can not remember where I parked my car…how I got here…where the blood has come from and who the person led next to me is but we are both asleep in a jail cell.

I wake up afraid and lonely….but that’s ok because soon I will be able to change my perception of the entire world by drinking yet again until then I remain stuck in reality
Restless, irratablee and discontented……

This complete change of reality does not happen to my misses as she is not an alcoholic but it does happen to me as I am.

As soon as I conceded to this fact I could look at why I could not stop drinking for good, the reason I drink so much is simple, I develop an allergic reaction to alcohol when I take a drink that triggers a craving for more and more. The reason I can not quit for good is that life stinks and I want to escape all the time.

I wanted to stop but did not have the power, I was powerless over alcohol, I had lost the power to choose if I would drink or not…..

I did not have sufficient power to give myself a mental defence against the first drink.

That power I later found to be a power greater than myself called God, why God? The word fits…. Hence I was powerless over alcohol or Godless over alcohol.

I sought him through the steps and am no longer powerless over alcohol, I am happy , joyous and free and have so much power over alcohol today I give it away to suffering alcoholics my explaining to them what an alcoholic is so they can learn and concede to their inner most selfs they are alcoholic too, their first step in recovery then we look at step 1.

First time on here , is that the sort of thing we write????

May your God go with you, who ever he is and where ever you go

[Cubile75]

First time on here , is that the sort of thing we write????

Yep...

Nice to have you here john, welcome!

Mark

[Found]

We had (at that point) to fully concede

I dare say they had to carry on ensuring the conceding stayed full enough.

After several returns to drinking I do. I'm so glad to remember what it did to me.

Keeping step 1 new - why should it be a 'performance'?

Ever known anybody who 'un-conceded' anything?