This post is another in a series of occasional installments describing my early recovery and treatment for alcoholism.  The most recent prior post is How a nine-year old saved an alcoholic from getting drunk.  Others may be found in the “My Links” section on the left side of my blog. Every time I post one of these stories I hear from a number of people struggling with alcoholism/addiction – either theirs or someone in their family, or a friend.  I am grateful for that as my primary purpose in telling my story is to carry a message of hope to others who are dealing with this killer disease.  

It also makes me humble and grateful for my sober life and recovery program. I mention AA periodically, as that is what works for me.  I am neither a spokesperson nor do I represent AA in any manner. There are many ways to get clean and sober and it doesn’t matter to me how one achieves this.  Simply put, this is my story.  I appreciate you taking time to read it. 

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I have been sober now for approximately 15 months and my new “relationship” is crashing and burning.  I just received an email telling me basically to “go to hell” and “leave me alone forever. Period. I never want to hear from you again.  Do you get it?”  I got it.  I didn’t like it.  I got it. Sort of.  I just wanted a civil ending to this short-lived relationship. I would later come to realize how much I simply didn’t like conflict.  My civil ending plea was really conflict avoidance in disguise.

I went to my weekly men’s therapy group that night and shared that I just wanted to drink and I cried my way through the hour-and-a-half meeting.  The prospect of being lonely through the weekend was actually terrifying.  I talked about all the things that had been coincidences that happened in the past several days. There was the day when my nine year-old came to visit that kept me from drinking, the encounter with people at a Sunday evening meeting that led me to finally getting an AA sponsor to help me understand what in the hell was going on.  I actually called some people on the phone – something I never did.  I dropped into my one comfortable chair that evening and watched the movie Easy Rider on television.   “...I was feelin' about half past dead; I just need some place where I can lay my head.”

That Friday night I went to a meeting and the topic was self-will.  I went out with a group of relative strangers to a local diner for a burger afterwards.  One of the guys with long-term sobriety told me all about how once when he broke up with a woman and then saw her in town riding with another guy that he wanted to just kill the guy. Maybe I wasn’t so different after all. The next day was Saturday and I went to three meetings that day.  I had no real idea what was going on in my life, and I desperately wanted to not drink so I went to meetings all the time. The early morning meeting ended in a reflection of the past year. That was fun. Right.  The late morning meeting ended in me having an argument with a friend of the ex-relationship’s.  Another fun event.  Right.  That night an old-timer led the meeting and the topic was “What brought us to AA.”  I didn’t share a lot during meetings that first year; however, it all came out that night. I recounted my rehab, my kidney stone and visit to the ER ion my first sober day home, all the simply horrendous things that were happening in my life during the last several years of my drinking and how I simply couldn’t stop and  didn’t know why.  The tears and anger just poured out.  I felt totally stupid, and yet calmer than ever, and slightly dazed when I finished.  A number of people thanked me afterwards for “sharing my truth.” I would later learn how important it is to verbalize my truth rather simply think it.

On Sunday night I went to a speaker meeting.  It was a real dud.  Boring and no message. I was feeling very critical of this speaker but kept it to myself.  I later learned that he suffered from a severe form of schizophrenia.  Ten years later I see this guy every once in awhile and he’s still sober. I see him real differently today and understand how alcoholism is no respecter of who we are.  His sobriety is just as important to him as mine is to me. Humility was not a word in my lexicon back then.

I knew that I had to ask someone in the program for help – to sponsor me.  I was afraid to do that.  I was going to ask one guy but he left early.  After the meeting I went up to the old guy and asked him to sponsor me.  He said “Let’s meet for breakfast tomorrow morning and we’ll talk about it.” I said okay but was thinking “Talk? Talk?  What the hell?  You are supposed to just say yes and be my sponsor and make this easy for me.”  I would learn later how I personalized a lot of things and turned them into rejection events; rather, the FEAR of rejection events.  Ah...conflict avoidance plus fear of rejection plus alcohol...now that’s a combination pointing toward a successful life. Right.

My new sponsor and I spent almost six hours together that day.   Talking and talking. This put-together very sober old guy is the adopted son of a coal-miner, has been married three times, never finished high school, and simply put – we have nothing in common and yet we had everything in common.  The number of synchronous events connecting our two lives is quite startling and I’ll leave it at that for now as I do need to protect his anonymity.

It’s now early December in the year 2001. I am surviving and sober.  It is the holiday season all around and yet it’s real different from last year.  Back then I was newly sober, had no real spiritual life, and was miserable.  The thought of staying sober during the holiday season was quite terrifying. I honestly was still feeling pretty miserable this year too; but, it was a real different deal from last year.  I had gotten a part-time teaching position at a local university (don’t even ask how this was possible given my alcoholism and life circumstances- it just was.) I often woke up teary-eyed and sad.  That had never happened before. I would say some prayers and head to work. Still aware of lots of loneliness and emptiness in my life as I ride the inter-city bus back to my apartment.

The next several weeks leading up to Christmas are a blend of meetings and work. My new sponsor has been slowly introducing me to prayer – very slowly.  I am resistive.  He constantly says that I don’t need to understand it – just do it.  Several times he has asked me if I really want to get sober and stay sober and have a good life or do I just want to wallow around in an intellectual understanding of my misery? He hasn’t finished high school and I have a Ph.D.  Turns out he is way smarter than me.  Really and truly.

He gives me a book titled The Sermon on the Mount by Emmett Fox.  I read it because I told him I would and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings and also I didn’t want to lie about having read the book. This little book, written by a Christian Scientist preacher man from the 1930’s changes my life forever.  The one little book taught me to pray and understand the goodness in the spirit.  It changed me in a way that is indescribable.  I pray every day and the results continue to be nothing short of phenomenal. I’ll leave it at that for now.  Saw the new “ex” at a meeting and we smiled at each other and I put out my hand – a peace offering of sorts- and she grabbed it and gave me a big hug. Things were better after that.  We never got together again and that’s how it was supposed to be; but, everything was alright.  And it was.

I was now praying for people in my life who I resented and who I felt anger toward. This didn’t make any sense; but, I was doing it. It also seemed that the topics at a lot of the meetings focused on prayer. Probably just coincidental.

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I have been writing excerpts of my alcoholism and recovery story and posting them on OS for quite awhile.  Some reading this today are “new” readers and I appreciate you taking time to read this.  This all occurred about ten years ago.  My life today is a total miracle in so many ways, and I want readers who may be struggling to know that there is hope and that it takes time. And to be certain, my life today has its struggles and hardships; but, that’s just life. I intend to finish up these recovery stories soon (honestly Katie, I will finish them) It’s just time.  I can tell.

And to you “veteran” readers of my story, I continue to offer you my most heartfelt thanks.

I offer you all a heartfelt wish (and prayer of course) for a peaceful holiday season!