Discussion of Step 1:

I face reality. I am not able to control what I do, and this has serious consequences.

Denial

There are many forms of denial: “It’s no big deal” or “I don’t really have a problem” or “I can handle it” or “I could stop anytime I want” or…

What happens is that you don’t see what is now visible to everybody else. You have a problem; things are not working out; things are out of control.

Why have you been in denial? Well, you didn’t intend to. Denial is a mechanism that is in all of us. It is a coping mechanism that allows us to function under very tough circumstances.

For instance: We are all mortal. It is an inescapable truth that we are all eventually going to die. It is scary and sad. But, if we kept thinking about our death every moment of our existence, and feeling scared and worried about that, what kind of life would we have?

So denial, in and of itself, is not wrong. It can be a beneficial mechanism that helps us disengage from problems we cannot solve, and focus on living in the moment.

And so, you ask: How do I know when it’s good for me to be in denial, and when it’s not? The test is how it affects your life. If it prevents you from taking action that you could be taking, then it is not productive for you.

In this way, the discussion of Step One introduces us to a significant theme of this proactive program: Personal development is a learning process. We don’t just assume we know it all. We don’t just take it for granted that somebody else has all the answers. We get information, we experiment (with caution), and we learn by trial and error. This is the meaning of the quest for serenity, courage, and wisdom (a.k.a. “the Serenity Prayer”).

Overwhelm

It’s essential to keep in mind that denial is a powerful protective strategy that has deep biological foundations. There is a mechanism in our nervous system that is triggered when we are faced with insurmountable problems—very much the way it works on animals in the wild.

When animals encounter a threat, they have two basic strategies: Either fight or flight. Neither is inherently good or bad. For instance, if you’re an antelope and a lion is hunting you, it makes no sense to show some resolve and fight! You better run away.

When the threat is overwhelming, the animal’s nervous system simply can’t handle it. It just doesn’t compute. This is the “deer in the headlights” phenomenon: The deer is paralyzed.

Denial, in this case, is not useful. It is not allowing the animal to go on happily with its life. It would be much more helpful to take action (in the case of the deer in the headlights, to run away). But it can’t because its nervous system is in short-circuit mode.

So, think of denial as some sort of short-circuit mechanism that gets triggered when there is an overwhelming threat. When the animal is in that “short-circuit” freeze mode, it cannot override the freeze.

What we’re encountering here is another strand that is a significant theme in this program—the role of fear. Once you’re in the grip of fear, your nervous system has its logic. It’s not what we call being logical. It’s the logic of fear, of panic even. It has nothing to do with the outlook on the world you have when you feel safe.

Feeling safe

The critical part of this process is to find safety. Without safety, it’s going to be very difficult to give up your old habits. They are ways of coping that you have developed over time.

“Coping” is too mild a word. To your nervous system, the old habits feel like time-tested protections. They may not work well, but they are the only protections you know, and you would feel unbearably vulnerable without them...