Step One.

I went to my first AA meeting a little less than a week ago. To be honest, I sat there, shaking and crying silently through most of it. It wasn't because I missed alcohol, or because I didn't want to be there, or because I was happy to finally be getting help. My mind kept repeating, over and over: "This can't be my life. This can't be my life. This can't be my life." I was, and often still am, in complete disbelief that AA has to be a part of my life.

Both sides of my family tree are littered with alcoholism.  I had been diligent, I thought, about making rules for myself regarding drinking so that I would never have a problem. It's not okay to drink when stressed. It's not okay to drink to feel better. It's not okay just because you "feel" like one. It's not okay to drink alone. I designed these rules to make it only okay to drink socially with friends, family or coworkers.

My rules seemed like they were working. But the Devil side of my mind would often get around the rules: "I shouldn't drink, because I'm alone...but I haven't been sleeping, and that's more important right now" -- ignoring the fact that I was using alcohol to lull me to sleep. My mind was full of work-arounds I could call on as necessary. I would amend, or append, or ignore as I wished, but having the rules at all gave me the peace of mind it took to continue on my path.

While tapping her finger on her temple, a woman at my first AA meeting told me: "We are much more conniving than we know," to which the crowd around us agreed. My mind instantly responded with, "I'm not like these women. I didn't get kids taken away from me, or a DUI, or have any relationship problems because of my drinking. I'm not like that. It's not like that." Even though I had enjoyed the catharsis of AA, I became increasingly convinced that it wasn't for me.

As I was driving home from orchestra practice two days later, I kept thinking that it wasn't fair that I didn't get a farewell drink. I kept thinking that I could stop somewhere and get one last drink. For the entire half an hour drive, I couldn't empty my head of all the options I had to just have one final glass of wine. Increasingly, those thoughts were punctuated by panic: what if I am like those women? When I got home, I laid down next to my husband, and told him how conniving my brain was being, all the thoughts that I was having that were telling me to drink and to lie to him and everybody about it. And only after that was I able to stop obsessing.

It's commonly heard that the first step is admitting you have a problem -- but I think it takes more than that. I think that by time you're willingly at an AA meeting, you're already pretty sold on the idea that you have a problem. I realize that it takes a lot of naivete to be saying something like this a week into sobriety, but I think the "aha" moment of Step 1 is realizing that your problem is on the exact same level as everybody else with alcoholism: we are all powerless, particularly when it comes to alcohol. And to stay healthy, we have to stay the hell away from drinking.

As the wise woman in AA said, my mind is more conniving than I know. So, I think talking is the answer. I'll show my evil mind for what it really is. I was able to feed my alcoholism by hiding it diligently. To recover, I need to expose it incessantly.