If you're mad at a step, does that mean you haven't taken it? I completely resent Step One.

I have long ago accepted the first step, that we are powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable. After losing my whole family to death and addiction it's really hard for me to say that things have been easy or manageable. It's also impossible for me to say at this point that anything I could have done would bring them back or stop the alcoholism. The disease has already taken it's toll. The damage is done. We lost the war and it's time to pack up and hobble on home to our crippled existence. For the rest of my time on this planet there will be certain unalienable facts: my sister is dead, my father is dead, my mother is dead, my family is no more and I stand alone.

Maybe I've forgotten the 'we' part of the first step, because I'm not truly alone. I have the Alanon groups; my lovely fellowship that has been with me for the past decade while I lived through the awful things that would destroy my life. Still, in my darkest hour, I feel alone. Depression is like that-- it keeps you separated and vulnerable.

Though, when I think of Step One I feel so much anger over it. Someone once said, “The Steps shall set you free, but first they'll piss you off.” I feel like I have accepted that I could not control the drinking in my family time and time again, but I also feel like I was forced into this ideology. I was forced to feel my powerless when I had to walk over the passed out bodies strewn across the kitchen floor. I was forced to accept that I wasn't in control when my sister said that it was her life and she didn't care if we didn't want her to drink right after she got her liver transplant. I had no choice but to surrender when I went to funeral after funeral and buried loved one after loved one.

I had no choice and the alcoholism is still laughing in my face. It's still showing me a future that I could never have. I still have to plan my wedding and know that I won't have any of my family show up for me. I still have to find a way to carry on in the face of all that I've suffered and seen. I'm angry that my choice was taken away from me. I'm angry that the drinkers in my life made their choice in what seems like complete disregard for my feelings or my life. I know they couldn't live for me but maybe they should have thought about what they were taking away from me-- what could have been my family and my future.

I wish the step had been written “We ACCEPTED we were powerless over alcohol” because I wish I could say that. I wish I could accept that fact with out this pain in my heart. I wish I could get over my anger and accept that the alcoholics in my life didn't choose to walk the path they did that ended in death for all of them and a solitary life for myself. I don't accept what they did because I feel like maybe THEY should have been in control of themselves. I can admit though that it's a disease and like the depression that I have myself, it oftentimes tells you things you think are true. It tells you that your family doesn't care, that you NEED one more drink, that you are weak and there's no where to turn for help but the bottle. It makes you turn away from your family because you think there's no other choice.

Then again, if I had to accept and not just admit, I would probably never be able to take the first step.

As a Libra, I always see two sides of everything in balance-- for now I see my anger over what they did but I also see the disease. I understand the knowledge of the disease because I've been educated on it. The face value of the idea. Though, it's hard to comprehend it; to take it in and wrap my brain and heart around it and feel all the emotion that surrounds these simple facts.

I have so many resentments over having to take Step One and how I feel forced into doing so, but I think that's where I am regardless. I have no control over the past. I have no control over the disease. I have no control over whether or not my family ultimately lived or died. And I have very little control over my unmanageable life now.

Wishing simply doesn't make it so.