I was glad to read the Doctor's Opinion about the allergy I have to alcohol. It was clear that once I took the first drink, I couldn't stop UNTIL IT WAS ALL GONE.  This made the powerless part of Step One easy.  The unmanageability part was more difficult for me because by then unmanageable was normal to me. True I was unemployed and living on borrowed money which was rapidly running low.  True I had no motivation to find a new job for anything else for that matter.  True that for the past eight months of my drinking I could be found most days in front of the TV, loaded and watching reruns of Gilligan's Island in my dirty bathrobe. But denial kept me from the truth of where I was and wishful thinking told me that a new job and a new girlfriend was all I needed.  After all I had been "winning at the game of life" before and I would do so again. 

It was in this delusional state that a remarkable thing happened.  I learned later that it is called a "moment of clarity."  I was allowed to see for the first time that all the negative events of my life were not random cases of bad luck, but were all connected to alcohol. 

The two drunk drivings with nights in jail, the arrest for pot possession, flunking out of college, the divorce and many other failed relationships, the financial wreckage and bankruptcy. Spread out over thirty years of drinking I had falsely assumed these were isolated incidents. When I looked at them all together I could clearly see that unmanageability ran through my life. 

The treatment center required us to complete an extensive First Step worksheet and share it with the group.  This exercise brought out even more evidence of unmanageability that I had hidden away with rationalizations and justifications.  I'm happy to send this worksheet to anyone who might benefit.