By Anon.

Proud of the fact that I had been born in San Francisco, it seemed to cut to the essence of my heritage when pulmonary problems – that my later to become ex-wife had developed – caused us to consider, and eventually move, across the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin County to raise our growing family, now numbering three, all under age eight. The ravages of my problems with alcohol, unbeknownst to me at the time, had moved with us.

The office where my thriving business was continuing to grow despite my shortcomings stayed behind, requiring a commute each day. Two prior premarital DUIs, over ten years apart, by now “ancient history”  had caused me to learn how to better control my drinking so it would no longer obviously affect my driving. Because not driving when I had been drinking was lost on me despite my arrests. I sought and found a local spot, over the GGB, where I could drink but avoid contact with the law. I gave no concern for whom I might hurt, I was “sure” I would drive well, my concern was to not get caught. I was a selfish drunk, my veneer was that of a well-educated, respected, professional, father of three – but on the inside, in the marrow of my bones, I was a selfish drunk, plain and simple.

After the successful change of location to Mill Valley, with the perfect watering hole located a short drive up an easy mountain road, life could not have been better, or so I had thought. But the drinking I believed was having an effect only on me, was tearing my family apart. Even though I had finally gotten sober, after months of daily 7:00 a.m. meetings and despite the evening blackouts, the Kick Out Order was on its way from the Marin Family Law Court. I had no friends, or at least so it had seemed. Without the booze to take the edge off, I was itching restless, oh so irritable, and, make no mistake, very discontent. The folks that had what I wanted, that were licking their disease one day at a time, said “Keep coming back” and “Don’t quit before the miracles” but just how was I to do that. The sponsor helped and with his guidance I started on the steps, not knowing then the timing probably was what kept me sober in the Tsunami that was to hit.

Because of my profession, I was keenly aware that Marin City, just on the West side of Sausalito, due to the boom in WWII shipbuilding, caused Marin Ship to be built, literally overnight, with Marin City constructed in the same haste to provide housing for the needed workers. Of the 4.5 million Americans who entered the shipyards to aid in the war effort, the deep South provided many to the Bay Area, laborers looking for a chance to work, alongside many a Rosie doing her riveting. But when the war ended, a ‘final bullet’ casualty was Marin Ship which closed entirely within weeks, leaving thousands unemployed overnight, playing much more than havoc on the neighborhood dependent upon the shipyard for wages.

The night in question, when I Came to Believe, started like so many before it. My morning meeting was in the books. The 4:30 at The Marina Dock on the way home sure helped, but as I crossed the GGB, I was getting “thirsty” – You know what I mean. Desperately I perused the schedule and found Marin City 6:30 – 6 Nights a Week. Off the freeway like normal, but left to the meeting, not right to the bar. It took a bit to find the classroom used as the meeting location and I knew not a soul, but I felt welcome before I could find a seat. Everyone but me lived in Marin City, or so it seemed. They were laughing and joking with each other and their attitude was contagious. But when that single mom told my story, that was when I Came to Believe. She told us how she had drank herself out of home and family, and how through the program, working the Steps, she had gotten those shattered relationships repaired. While the husband was still a work in progress, the children had finally “come home to momma.”  Oh, did I need to hear that hope that night. When we talked a bit after the meeting, she told me something I had heard before but from her that night I “heard” in a different, a special way. She said “Don’t drink, you go to the meetings, that thing with the kids will work out.”  I never saw that woman again despite getting to that meeting many times over the years that have followed. As I have heard her advice in my head so often in those years, each time I have taken the same hope from it. Though these family circumstances of mine quite a few years later are also still a work in progress, the hope is not. It has replaced the marrow in my bones with a belief that is vital to my successful day, that my Higher Power will restore me to the sanity I have but to seek His help. Looking back, I now know that my HP sent that woman on just that day to Marin City so I could hear her advice which I needed to hear to keep me out of the bar to which I had been headed.  The Power of one drunk talking to another I see day after day as a Miracle of this AA program – I Came to Believe that miracle one night in Marin City, a night I will never forget.