  We show that the complex-valued ODE
  \begin{equation*}
  \dot z_t = a_{n+1} z^{n+1} + a_n z^n+\cdots+a_0,
  \end{equation*} which necessarily has trajectories along which the dynamics
blows up in finite time, can be stabilized by the addition of an arbitrarily
small elliptic, additive Brownian stochastic term. We also show that the
stochastic perturbation has a unique invariant measure which is heavy-tailed
yet is uniformly, exponentially attracting. The methods turn on the
construction of Lyapunov functions. The techniques used in the construction are
general and can likely be used in other settings where a Lyapunov function is
needed. This is a two-part paper. This paper, Part I, focuses on general
Lyapunov methods as applied to a special, simplified version of the problem.
Part II of this paper extends the main results to the general setting.
