By Christine R.

A long-time member of my home group went out on vodka. A person with many years of sobriety, a member with shares right out of the old E.F. Hutton advertisement, “When this person speaks, everybody listens.” Boy did we listen! He spoke of the Big Book, Steps, all the literature and all the experience with a tremendous amount of humor and bravado. He could tell a great tale. Then, from out of the blue, he drank.

Or was it from out of the blue?  Here’s his story: 

“I’d stopped going to meetings. I didn’t have a sponsor and I wasn’t working
the Steps. While up at a headliner event at Lake Tahoe, I went to pick up a
couple of drinks for my friends at the bar. While walking back to our seats,
the drinks sloshed on my hands and…. 

Quick as a flash, I licked it all up.  

Had it been water, I would have thought, ‘Oooh! Water! Nasty stuff!’ And
wiped my hands on my trousers. But because it was vodka, and I didn’t want
to ‘waste it,’ my hands went into my mouth and started the craving all over again.”  

That’s how it starts isn’t it? The drink is simply the last point before we start drinking again. Like a train heading to the roundhouse, there are many stops along the way.  Those stops in AA are: going to meetings, sharing, commitments, reading, sponsorship, keeping in touch. “Alcohol is a subtle foe…Cunning, baffling, powerful” and patient!  Patiently awaiting a night as described above for a person without defense or stop gaps against the first drink.  He literally went off the rails.

What alcoholics forget with our broken rememberer is once we drink we let loose the craving.  Ahh, the craving!  The craving then sets us back on the Ferris wheel of round and round terror, bewilderment, and frustration.  And eventually, death.

And so it was with our friend who died of alcoholism about a year later.  He died as so many of us do.  Who knows where or with whom.  

“Mental twist,” “emotional twists,” and “twist of character.” These and many more like them are referenced throughout our literature. Could our texts be saying we are twisted people? Probably from all the wine we drank, how ironic we have to untwist ourselves from the human corkscrews we have become!  

To clarify, here are a few of the mental twists foreshadowing a relapse:

       1)  I can handle it.

       2)  I’ll show them, him, her.

       3)  I miss the fun.

       4)  It wasn’t that bad.

       5)  Life is passing me by.  I should have this, that, him, her.

       6)  Is this all there is?

       7)  One wouldn’t hurt.  I deserve one.

       8)  Next time, this time, it will be different.

       9)  What’s the use?

These describe the subtle insanity driving us to the first drink. 

Once upon a time we had old-fashioned 8×12 AA statements typed in Edwardian script floating around the walls.  One was:

It means, if you are thinking of drinking, Think again. Think again. Think again.  After about the third time of thinking and remembering the devastation and the craving, chances are you won’t take that first drink, because you thought the drink through.  

Up ahead may be another drink, but not another recovery.  That’s what keeps us vigilant and active so nothing comes to overthrow us  “from out of the blue.”

By John W.

As the blizzard worsened the sparrow faltered,
It tried and tried, but now sought only a ledge to die on. A Ledge To Die On.
Life had become too difficult. Its course could not be altered.
It felt not the hand of Providence though sensed Its Nudge to live on.

But what could this one feathered friend do alone?
It had no flock, no gaggle, none like it with which it could roost.
It had no place to rest its weary wings, always on the move, no home.
That Nudge from Nowhere had helped, had given it the needed boost.

With his newfound strength, that room he became willing to enter,
As she walked in, she now felt unmistakably again that Nudge from Nowhere.
The flock inside welcomed him, no ledge this, only respite from foul weather.
She had her “birds of a feather,” their nest, now a home near and dear to share.

               No bird a-flight was this lost soul, but still in despair and alone.
               The discovered flock, a posse, a first step for a common disease to atone.

01/23/2024 –  For Dad, 41 Years Later

The Denial Within Me Was Gone

By Rick R.

Years before I came to AA, I was aware there was something dreadfully wrong with me but not one person ever suggested I might be an alcoholic or that I should try AA. Perhaps that was due to the denial of the people around me who drank like I did. Suggesting I had a problem with alcohol would mean outing themselves and others. Looking back on it now, I feel fortunate I survived those last few years of failed attempts at life and when I ran out of options, I came to AA looking for answers. The denial within me was gone. My mind was open and for the first time in my life I was desperate, and I was listening. At my first AA meeting, I was moved by what I heard. It was different from anything I experienced before. The people were being honest and candid about things that only brought shame and guilt to me in the past. I felt safe for the first time in my life and could discuss those things openly that had been taboo up until then. Prior to then, everything in my life was a façade. 

At that moment on October 15, 1969, my perception of the world changed, and I have not wanted a drink since. Call it a Spiritual Awakening if you like, it was for me, and it came in the form of a Profound Change in Perception. In Appendix 2 2, in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, it describes a man who had “undergone a profound alteration in his reaction to life.”I began to question all the decisions I made in the past, and how the residue of those decisions tarnished and eroded any chance of a successful, happy life. I became aware that the value system I learned as a child, at church,at the Boy Scout meetings, etc., was lost in the dust and was replaced with guilt and shame. I was in trouble when I violated my own value system. I now realize I was not a bad kid, but I was a child  who was not strong enough to do the things I knew to be right. The more I broke the rules, the easier it became, and moral standards were meaningless. Soon drinking was the only thing to ease  my conscience. When that quit working for me, I found myself at the doors of AA. 

Once I had that change of perception, I knew what to do. It may be as simple as “trying to stop doing the things  I regret” but the key to it all is, “Being honest with myself,” and never going back to my old way of thinking. I said I was fortunate to have survived those last few years of drinking and I came to AA looking for answers. Being desperate enough to ask for help was the most important part of the experience. I do not believe anyone could have convinced me to stop drinking against my will. I may have stayed dry long enough to get the heat off, but I doubt that I would have surrendered to the degree necessary to have that change of perception and therefore a spiritual awakening. Getting off in the right direction from the start was especially important to any success I have had in AA. I know I only live once, and I do not want to waste one moment of the precious life God gave me. Today, as I continue to practice all the things I have learned in the Program, it has resulted in a peace of mind that was unimaginable when I first walked through the doors of AA. And that, I am extremely grateful.

By Anonymous

Following the suggestions I heard at meetings, and shortly after the miracle of sobriety came into my life, when the obsession to drink literally vanished on Saint Patrick’s Day, I got a sponsor. The decision to select one, although made in March, remained pending until Summer.  The delay was due to my fear of being honest with another person about my drinking, the wreckage it was causing and what I was going to have to do to address my alcoholism. Because I had a strong and positive religious background, although different from that of my sponsor, Step Two seemed a real “no brainer.”

Of course I believed in God. I had for as long as I could remember. I had no trouble with the concept of God.  I did not need to find Him in a quiet moment in the Redwoods or atop the rocks at Lands End, the surf pounding in my ears. I knew He was always there. Heck, He had taken away the obsession. If He could do that, He was powerful enough in my book to do anything – almost.

Thus became the dilemma. Sure this power greater than I had flexed His muscles and relieved me of the obsession to drink, of that there was absolutely no doubt. My sponsor and I affirmed that reality in short order.  Next, my sponsor presented the compelling and wonderfully logical argument that, if this Power was so great and could relieve  my obsession to drink, why would I not consider it powerful enough to turn my will and my life over to its care? Later in the process of working the Steps, succumbing to the same argument, made taking the book down from the shelf to contemplate the work so far done in Steps Six and Seven which followed, so much simpler and straightforward. But as the one day-at-a-time of this program kept marching along, I heard things like “more will be revealed” and “life on life’s terms,” at my meetings. I paid particular attention to the warning that I would be in trouble if I thought I had this program “wired” and could afford to rest on my laurels.  

Since so much of what my sponsor shared with me came to him through his own schooling in the class of hard knocks, I expected things could go South, even if I were fortunate enough as I had been, to remain sober during and in spite of my early trials and tribulations. Though it seems not so with every alcoholic in recovery, many, as was my case, at one time or another get some real challenges tossed in our path. It has been said that real growth can only come from confronting adversity and surviving it with integrity. So it was with the challenges I had to contend with and they arose on several different battlefronts.

Though each of us likely have stories of our life’s struggles which we have overcome, it seems too we can come to a junction, we can come to a line, a level of pain, a point in time when  we just silently scream for all and none to hear: This is too much. It must stop. I cannot go on another step. As I hit that point, I did so without Jose Cuervo, my former bodyguard. I was defenseless. I had no power. I thought I was doomed. All the imagined scenarios were ending up under a freeway ramp and dying alone of cancer by week’s end.  

This is where my disease was leading me in its ruthlessly cunning and oh so powerful way.  Its lure had all the subtlety of the sounds of frivolity Bill spoke of coming from that bar on the other side of the hotel lobby. Just as he was running out of nickels then, my disease was working me now. It was All-In on this deal. I was sober and had been for many moons. I was working my program. I had commitments. I sponsored other men. But I had not been cured of my alcoholism. I was just living my daily reprieve in recovery. So when the crisis hit and hit hard, with wave upon wave of problems, for days without end, I reached the point where I was sure they  would overwhelm me. Now where was I to turn?  

This was when I really began to understand what gratitude truly meant. Gratitude for those who come before me, for those who started the Fellowship to which I now belonged, for those who held out the hand of sobriety at my meetings. I heard of their lessons and asked myself the question they had suggested I pose when the chips were down: What Steps could I apply to the challenges confronting? Although it had been years since I had “let” [ha, ha] my Higher Power restore me to sanity, I began to see in this intense adversity what the words “came to believe” were all about.  For if I truly did believe in this God of my understanding, then I also had to know, I had to come to believe that all would be well, despite my perceptions of the injustices which beset me and my fears of what the future had in store.   

Indeed, more has been revealed. With the serenity of being at peace with the notion that all would be well, over time all was well. The complexities of the problems seemed to melt into unexpected clarity. Instead of continuing to bang on the doors that had been welded shut against me, I saw new doors appear, these were ajar with hope, so when pushed with honest action, they opened to resolution. All did not break my way, but my difficulties were taken away. In the aftermath, I was able to bear witness to the truth that when the chips were down, I could turn to my Higher Power and know, really know, all would be well. This was a whole new attitude and outlook upon life. A promise made and a promise kept. 

///

A member shares hitting bottom in New York at the age of 24 years old and finding sobriety through a podcast.

By John. W

As with those who pursued the monster Frankenstein
             The villagers were after him.
                          All he had touched had turned to trouble
                                     From pub to pub he had crawled
                                                No respite there, only ale and anguish too.

“Before” it had been better
                But before was long ago.
                            The baying of the hounds grew louder
                                       As life chased him down vine covered lanes.
                                                   The nearness of his surroundings pressed upon him

He knew of nowhere to turn
            He could run no more, had not the power to
                        “You need fight no more” he heard from somewhere
                                   With a new found strength
                                                A first step he could suddenly take.

At the pier he arrived and onto the dinghy he stumbled
            The tether loosened, the current not he at the tiller
                      Somehow the lonely night had become day
                               Although no passing time did he perceive
                                            The Pier Was Burning in the distance

“As is my life” he admitted,
           For the first time, to himself or to anyone,
                       In that moment came the surprise . . .
                                    For he wistfully added  “. . . and I know why!”
                                                 It was then he felt the nudge of the shoreline.

This new place he did not know or recognize
         Still, as he stepped upon the shore, he felt “Home”
                     Those he encountered were friendly enough
                                 Even a familiar face or two came forth to greet him.
                                              They said:  “We have been saving a seat for you.”

*   *   *   *   *

By Christine R.

I love baking cookies. The warm scent of Tollhouse morsels fills the home with tantalizing deliciousness. A pinch of salt is required to bring out the sweetness. Herein lies the parallel for us in recovery. We need the salt of our tears to bring forth the oncoming sweetness of recovery.

For sure I thought I would never laugh again when I got sober. The joy juice of alcohol was missing. The elixir of life had betrayed me. As a long-time friend in the Program, Dr. Gil used to say, “Man takes the drink. Drink takes the drink. Drink takes the man.”  The drink took me and everything else along with it: money, family, friends, home, and work. Alcohol takes the  intangibles too like: self-esteem, courage and, above all in this case, the laughter. 

The litigation office I worked for was combative, demanding, and stressful. No time for tears and certainly no laughter. So I compartmentalized my tears, comforting myself countless times, “You can cry when you get home. You can cry when you get home.”  When I arrived home, I would bundle myself up in my bed and cry a waterfall of tears.

Thankfully, my sponsor revealed crying was both right and healing. “Tears have toxins,” she would say. Day by day, one drop at a time, years of toxicity were released. As I emptied out the vast pool of tears, a new-found solace was discovered. A serene emptiness – a void only God could fill and did fill with the joy of laughter.

In Chapter The Family Afterward, page 133, it says, “We cannot ascribe to the fact that life is a vale of tears, though it was just that for many of us.” (Maybe you are one of the “us?”) Goes on to say, “But why shouldn’t we laugh? We have recovered and have helped others to recover.  We find cheerfulness and laughter make for usefulness.”  “We have found a way up and out and wish to share our knowledge of that way with all who can use it”  (12×12 pg. 125)

Who would have thought?

Another friend of mine says, “Comedy is tragedy plus time.” Time takes time and with that time comes the ability to review my tragedies with a pinch of salt and lots of sugar. The sweetness comes most especially when I share these tragedies with another alcoholic – whether in a meeting at group level or privately, sitting in my office with the anguished newcomer. To laughingly describe looking for the Visine that would “get the yellow out” to hide the fact I had a blown liver, still brings a hearty guffaw for me and the listener.

The laughter of today is not the barroom cackle at someone else’s expense.  More often than not, the laughter is toward ourselves coming from a place deep inside. Tradition Four on page 149 describes Bill as “standing in the ruins of his dream and could laugh at himself — the very acme of humility.” We used to say, “If you are looking for humor, you have only to look in the mirror for endless possibilities.” 

From a Vision For You, pages 160-161, “We succumb to the gay crowd who laughs at their own misfortunes and who understand ours.  Social distinctions, petty rivalries, and jealousies — these are laughed out of countenance.”  If you look for it, laugh, laughing and laughter are referenced at least 15 times in our Big Book and 12 x 12.  

In an interview, Bill described his initial meeting with Dr. Bob, “There we were, one drunk talking to another.  Because I needed to hear the message too.”  

And so it goes. One alcoholic talking with another. Stories upon stories. My sponsor said, “I talked myself sober.”  There is a pinch of truth in that one as well. By being accountable in the truth-telling halls of our Program, the truth becomes the sweet balm of healing and love. 

By Anonymous

I had a drinking problem long before I was ever able to honestly admit that simple fact to myself. So many times, too many to count, I would stare at myself in the mirror, reliving the events of the previous 24 hours and wondering why that face staring back at me had done those things. I mentally could not connect the fact that the face into whose eyes I peered was mine. That face at which I stared, who had driven into oncoming traffic in a blackout or had just been released from incarceration following an alcohol-related traffic stop, was not me, it was just a reflection of that person I did not want to be – but was. I could not be honest with myself about that harsh reality.

Thus, when marital discord – big time – drove me towards a solution rather than a drink one day, the thought of attending a 7:00 AM meeting as suggested by that anonymous voice on that anonymous 24-hour a day hotline, seemed a half-baked idea that was equally only coolly received by me. That the location was on my route to work and barely five minutes from my home was a small consolation. Only illusions of Snoopy as the WWI Flying Ace and his Dawn Patrol comics character succeeded in bolstering my efforts to make that meeting despite its ridiculously early hour.  Since this was the only meeting I attended for the first two months, I did not know that their practice of not reading “How It Works” was unusual. I of course had my own Big Book, to demonstrate to my spouse that I was ‘working the steps’. But having a Big Book and reading it were two very different things. 

The result was that I failed to grasp the Principle of Honesty which was fundamental to the start of my recovery.  While I had been honest about starting to attend daily meetings, an admission needed to stave off (at least for the moment) divorce court, the little asides about having a sponsor, working the steps and not drinking between meetings were all false. I am sure it was no surprise to those who tolerated my occasional complaints during the meetings – I had tried to remain anonymous you see, and this included saying nothing to anyone – that I was not getting the benefit of “How It Works”. For me this time could only be described as my continuing journey through Hell.

Thankfully my miracle, and the hope for those who follow, coincided with my first honest statement about my drinking. At the time I did not know of this “coincidence”, it was only later pointed out to me by someone who heard my story several months after I got sober. She observed that it was immediately after I had, for the first time, honestly told my 7:00 AM group that I was a Newcomer that my fortunes had begun to change for the better. Men in the meeting started to reach out to me to share their experiences and I finally hung around long enough after the meeting to talk to them. They talked to me about the difficulties I was facing as a Newcomer and how best to confront them and stay sober when doing so. I was inspired by one woman’s tale about getting sober only because she wanted her children back in her life, a dream I had. She was able to explain the uphill battle before me and that, even in rejection – which I was to experience like she had – I could stay sober.  One old timer after kind, but daily, quizzes about whether I drank the day before, gave me her 16 year chip so I could “lean” on her sobriety when I needed to. Sadly, cancer took her before she could get 17 years, but I have her chip in my pocket, cuddling mine for the same time, reminding me I am never alone in my daily struggle.

In the 20/20 vision which hindsight provides, it is now easy to see how the Principle of Honesty was the key to my salvation. Without it, my lies to myself about the effects of my drinking and the people it was harming, prevented me from effectively taking my first step in recovery.  Thereafter, the rigorous honesty my sponsor has schooled me in over the years has often been a real challenge. I would not be honest were I to pretend the case to be otherwise. However, with the aid of my Higher Power, I have been developing a better sense of when I should just keep quiet and exercise that restraint of tongue and pen. In such moments, I have found that, at worst, I may be only considered a fool, but when I rashly or imprudently open my mouth, as is my bane, I invariably remove all doubt. As for “How It Works”, I have come to believe it was no “coincidence” that the founders of the program that saved my life mentioned “honesty” three times in the opening salvo – they were just relaying the honest truth of their recovery.

///  

Sometimes We Pick the Fruit Before It’s Ripe

By Rick R.

I wish I could say that everyone who enters the doors of AA has an equal shot at getting sober and staying that way for the rest of their lives. However, depending on the different reasons why each individual decides to give AA a chance, coupled with the degree of desperation causing the person to delve into what the program has to offer, we get a variety of different results. 

When I arrived at my first meeting, I was desperately looking for what I thought was a solution to an impossible situation. I was defeated and absolutely demoralized. Within minutes of being exposed to the sober members of that group, I was convinced I had found the solution to my hopeless condition. The desire to drink was removed from me on the spot and has never returned. That was on October 15, 1969. I wish every new member could have that type of experience.  Yet we know many of us are not that receptive in the beginning. 

Most of the members of that early group were over forty years old and I was only 28. I was the exception at the time. Meetings were much smaller because there were no rehab facilities intervening in the alcoholics’ drinking escapades. They did not start hitting their bottom until their forties or fifties, or it had something to do with midlife crisis, or it was just a coincidence. 

What I do see that is different from my experience is the blurred line when it comes to the first requirement for AA membership: “A desire to stop drinking.” My employer told me I had to stop drinking. When I consider the relief I got from the bottle, I doubt I would have been as receptive to getting sober. If I had, I am sure I would have relapses as much as any of those who, unfortunately, struggle with staying sober. Apparently many of the AA members of today have seen a high percentage of relapses. They attribute that as an abysmal success ratio in AA.  They assume just because they were sent to AA from a rehab facility they should be lumped in with those, like me, who had a desire to stop drinking and came in looking for answers. These relapses are the natural result of when the desire to drink is stronger than the desire to stay sober.

In the Foreword to the Second Edition of the Big Book it says: “Of alcoholics who came to AA, and really tried, 50% got sober at once and remained that way: 25% sobered up after some relapses.”  I often ask the newcomers what caused them to give AA a visit. Most of them say the main reasons were DUI’s, work-related requirements, and spouses’ ultimatums. 

Occasionally someone says, “I just ran out of ideas, and I needed help.” The latter is usually the one in ten who stays sober without relapse. I also believe if you counted only the ones who came in searching for answers, the same ratio as mentioned in the Foreword to the Big Book would still apply. Seventy five percent is not bad. The good news is many of the members who are here as the result of intervention or other motivations often become what they refer to as the “educational variety”, often getting sober years before they would have had they not been intervened upon. 

We treat these brothers and sisters with empathy, compassion and understanding. The awareness in the community has taken away much of the stigma (not all) of being cursed with the disease of alcoholism. Where we had meetings totaling ten or twelve members, we now have twenty to forty members attending. Sometimes the fruit gets picked before it is ripe, but is never discarded.