Episode 171 -- December 2, 2021

The Trend Is Not Your Friend: Craving, Control, and Step One

Some of us chose to enter recovery on our own, and some of us were less willing to begin this journey. We may be learning the ropes of a sober lifestyle for the first time, or we might have been here before and are trying again. No matter how we got here, early recovery requires acceptance. We need to step out of denial and see that our lives were not working when we were drinking or using. Things were not going well. We were unable to manage our use or to be in control of it.

Step Up: Unpacking Steps One, Two, and Three with Someone Who's Been There by Michael Graubart is a practical guide for people who wish to find or deepen their recovery through the Twelve Steps. Graubart addresses common questions about early recovery—covering everything you need for a strong understanding of Twelve Step recovery and working the first three Steps.

The following excerpt focuses on the First Step: "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable." To take this Step, we must first understand what "unmanageable" means for those of us with substance use disorders. Graubart writes from his own experience.

This excerpt has been edited for brevity.

Q: What Does Unmanageable Mean in the First Step?
A: Our lives became "unmanageable"—that's the second half of the First Step. Unmanageable means out of control. Alcoholics and addicts love to control everything. We love to control other people.

We love to control outcomes. We love to control situations. We love to control conversations. Why? Because control makes us feel safe.

Many alcoholics and addicts, myself included, grew up in homes where alcoholism and addiction reigned. As a result, we felt out of control in those places, because we never knew what was going to happen next. People from such homes often develop what's called hypermnesia—the opposite of amnesia.

Hypermnesia means you notice everything, most likely because you've been through trauma. You are much more aware than the average person of your surroundings. This probably happened at a young age when your life depended on your ability to assess, in the blink of an eye, whether your alcoholic or addicted parent was going to be violent, verbally or physically abusive, or mellow. If you were on guard as a child, you'll be on guard for the rest of your life.

So alcoholics and addicts feel most safe when they have a sense of control, no matter how illusory that control might be. Drinking and using is an effective way to control one's mood, surroundings, and interactions with others. I cannot change you, as hard as I might try, but I can certainly change the way I feel. I can do it with a beer, a bong, or a bag of M&Ms.

Ironically, the one thing alcoholics and addicts crave the most—control—is the very thing they surrender by continuing to drink and use.

When you pick up, you don't know where you'll end up.

By using, we're spinning the giant roulette wheel of life, and we don't know what's going to happen. At the same time, we have an illusion of control over it. And we like that.

Unfortunately, as time goes on, we pay a price. We begin to lose the things that matter most to us. Self-respect. Dignity. Employment. Relationships.

I have yet to meet someone whose life was actually enhanced by decades of drinking and using. Again, I'm not suggesting that bad things happen every time you pick up. That's not a precondition for needing sobriety.

I am saying that cumulatively, the trend is not your friend. You go from liking your drug of choice to craving it to being unable to live without it to giving up anything and everything just so you can get more.

You don't have to lose everything. You don't have to hit the lowest possible bottom. You don't have to reach the point that you're considering self-harm to say you've had enough. It just comes down to the question of what price you're willing to pay to keep on defending your right to drink and use.

Some people just don't expect much from life. They don't expect to see twenty, or thirty, or forty, or whatever birthday odometer lies ahead.

They don't expect to have a successful relationship, maybe because they've never seen one close up. They don't expect to succeed financially, because everyone they've ever known is too broke to pay attention.

Others may have been exposed to the glittering prizes in life—a fine education, a great career, a nice home in an attractive neighborhood, the white picket fence, and the spouse or partner; add kids if so desired.

They just don't think they deserve it.

Or as a character on Modern Family said, "I eat garbage because I am garbage."

I'm here to tell you that God doesn't create junk, that God has no grandchildren, that God has your picture on his refrigerator.

The second half of Step One asks us to stop the futile quest to control the uncontrollable. Instead, we just admit—Step One requires an admission, nothing more—that our lives are not what we want them to be.

We aren't managing them well.

We may be trying to control things, but we aren't getting anything like the results we desire. If you are willing to admit that your life is not what you want it to be—that your relationships, financial life, career, housing situation, relationships with family members, physical health—if you can acknowledge that these things are out of control in a meaningful way (and the definition of meaningful is up to you and you alone), then you are buying into the second half of Step One.

It takes an admission of unmanageability in order to succeed in Twelve Step recovery, because people who still think they're all that and a bag of chips are just not ready to do what it takes to get sober.

About the Author:
Michael Graubart (a pen name) is a longtime sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous, has been a member of Al-Anon for decades and attends Overeaters Anonymous meetings as well. As he says, "If it moves, I'm obsessed with it, and if it stands still, I'm addicted to it." A New York Times best-selling author, Michael is married and the father of four children. He's the author of Sober Dad: The Manual for Perfectly Imperfect Parenting, as well as an accomplished singer-songwriter. His first CD of songs about recovery is titled Sober Songs, Volume I.

© 2017 by Michael Graubart
All rights reserved