Originally Posted by
julienamana 
Hi there, so im on my first step and the question came up, do you understand that is alcoholic is a person with thier own personalities, behaviors and ways of doing things that are different from you. I wrote out my answer and go over it with my sponsor, I gave a very generic answer becuase I really didnt get what it was asking. After we went over it she asked me to list the ways that an alcoholic is different from me. I am just stumped. I got 3 out so far. I said their brains are constantly going, so indecisive is one, then I realized that they can be much more selfish, so thats two and thats as far as I can get. I have about 8 alanon books haha, so I went through all of them and Im suprised that I could not find specific behaviors of alcoholics that are different from "normys". Im not trying to cheat here lol, sponsor told me to figure it out any way I could, so anyone have some input for me? I really cant wait to see what some of your ideas are, it would be very useful for me to know the differences to relate to my qualifier better too
Hi julienamana,
It's been awhile since I worked the first step and I don't remember this coming up (I didn't write out answers to any questions during this step). But from what I'm thinking, maybe your sponsor is not so much looking for specific differences between "normies" and alcoholics as much as helping you on your way to understanding that another person, regardless of their label, is entitled to do things their way whether or not you/I/anyone else agrees with what they do. I'm not sure if this was your sponsor's point....this is just what your post made me think of.
For me, I had to learn to understand the fact that, not only had I let another person's actions control me, I had to truly understand that I am powerless ---and rightly so--- over others. Even though I didn't agree with so much of what my RAH was doing, it was not my place, my job, or even my right to control what he was choosing to do. I had to "let go" of trying to control others and start working to change myself and my own actions instead.