How to do the First Step in Alcoholics Anonymous

Today, I met with my sponsee about the first step. Here are some questions I wrote down. We had a great session.

1. When and what was your first drink?
2. Was there ever a time when you could take or leave alcohol?
3. When did you begin to realize you didn't drink like other people?
4. Who was the first person to address your drinking? What was your response?
5. When did you start to realize you couldn't control your drinking?
6. When did you start to control your drinking (i.e. only on weekends, only two drinks, only beer, drinking seltzer, "white knuckling it")?
7. Did you ever plan ahead for drinking?
8. What was your life like a week before you went to your first AA meeting?
9. What caused you to pick up the phone and call Alcoholics Anonymous?
10. What were your pre-conceived notions about AA?

With these questions, I hoped to capture some of the madness that goes into alcoholic drinking and why we end up at AA--how we don't drink like ladies and gentlemen. How we don't drink like normal people.

This is only a suggestion. There are tons of ways to do the first step!