When I became aware I was suffering from alcoholism and drug addiction is when I started to see the whole pattern of it in my life for the first time, up to then I had always thought I was liking it and having fun with it. Even after I had reached the point of where I wanted it all to stop, and found I couldn't make that happen no matter how hard I tried, I kept on believing this. My sponsor pointed out that though I hadn't started out to have this happen it had, and that it had taken over my life. This is the first time I felt that powerless of the first step of recovery, it doesn't need our permission to do its job on us. He also pointed out that those of us who have an even bigger problem are those of us who think they have no problem, because then they are unable to do anything about being powerless.