We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.
The first word is WE. You are not alone.
I think the next most important word is powerless. I hated this word until I realized that powerless does not mean helpless.
At the risk of a tortured analogy, I now think of the addiction like the weather. Imagine a person who thinks it’s their job every day to control the weather. Worrying every day about what it will be like tomorrow, how they can ensure good weather. Desperately begging the sky, yelling at it whe it rains, resentful when it doesn’t do what they want. They’ve tried everything from rain dances to praying to shooting at the clouds. Sometimes it seems to work, the weather is great. But then it rains again. They get obsessed, stressed, angry, and they stand there in wet clothes, shivering, wondering what they could have done, what they will do differently next time to stop this from happening.
Now imagine this person suddenly realizes they are powerless over the weather. They literally have no control over it whatsoever. They stop trying. They take a look at themselves and what they’ve been doing. They buy a raincoat. They get an umbrella, a snow shovel, a coat, fix their leaky roof. Maybe they can’t take the snow anymore and they simply move away.
By accepting that they can’t control the weather they develop the ability to deal with it. They start feeling normal again. Yes, it still rains and storms, it’s still unpredictable, but now they’re prepared.
They’re powerless over the weather, but they are more powerful over their own life than ever.
From Reddit