How to prevent/disable automatic list number incrementing in markdown?

Question

How can I disable auto-incrementing list numbers in a markdown file?

What I'm trying to display:

1.first
2.second
2.second
3.third

What is being displayed:

1.first
2.second
3.second
4.third

Is there an easy way to disable this?

Answer 1

Experimenting revealed I can prevent this behavior by escaping the period:

1\.first 
2\.second 
2\.second 
3\.third