Step One: I got the message

At last week's D.A. meeting we focused for the last time this month on Step One. We read from the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous (I am waiting with anticipation for the upcoming celebration when D.A. publishes its own Twelve Step book). I go to two Step Study D.A. meetings a week, so you can imagine I am stewing up to my eyeballs in Step One. However, I did my best to glean something new.

I wrote a list of the the words that could be considered "negative," and the words that could be considered "positive." Here's my list, in no particular order:

Negative words

1. defeat
2. personal powerlessness
3. destruction
4. bankruptcy
5. rapacious creditor
6. stark
7. revolted
8. weakness
9. humiliation
10. mental obsession
11. allergy
12. condemned
13. single-handed combat
14. last gasp
15. drowning
16. low-bottom
17. hopelessness
18. fatal progression
19. out of control
20. literal hell
21. unmanageable
22. warped mind
23. the lash of alcohol (or debt)
24. self-centered
25. malady
26. extreme difficulties
27. merciless obsession
28. fatal nature
29. dying

Positive words

1. liberation
2. strength
3. enduring strength
4. taproot
5. open minded
6. conviction
7. willingness to listen
8. act of Providence
9. firm bedrock
10. happy purposeful lives

After seeing my list (29 negative words, 10 positive words) I think what I can conclude is that the writers of the A.A. Twelve and Twelve really wanted to make it clear that the disease of alcoholism can kill people. I translate that in my mind to apply to debting. Incurring debt can kill me. Maybe quickly, maybe slowly, but the fatal progression of the disease means there is no cure.

Step One requires that I admit complete and utter defeat over my delusion of control over debt. Until I admit my powerlessness over debt, I cannot begin the road to recovery.

On to Step Two!

Yours
—Hope

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"Hope Newlyfound" is an alias for an anonymous member of the program of Debtors Anonymous with twenty years of freedom from incurring unsecured debt (which means no credit cards, credit lines, bouncing checks, paying bills late, and borrowing from friends and family.)

Information about D.A. can be found at the Debtors Anonymous world service website, and locally in the Pacific Northwest at the Oregon intergroup website and the Seattle/Puget sound intergroup website.