By Anon.
That we are to learn from history so as to avoid repeating it may help in many facets of life, but it certainly did not help with my history of drinking. The embarrassing moments in high school, which were cute or funny, transformed into embarrassing moments in college which ranged from badges of dubious honor to moments best tolerated by friends just looking the other way. After graduation this proclivity to imbibe translated into a wrecked car [my first] and arrests, more than I care to acknowledge even after over a decade sober. Like so many I was later to hear also describe, I arrived at the doors of AA, not on the Wings of Victory. My stop, like it had been for these others, was at the last house on the block, literally the end of the line.
Before I could comprehend that there indeed was a solution, I needed to cross the threshold of unmanageability. In my case, as heard from more and more when the sober days began to mount, this I could do by accepting I was powerless over alcohol. My lack of power was my dilemma. I was not a moral weakling. I was just suffering from a disease that was out to kill me and, while performing its treachery, was bent on telling me I was fine. This message was like a wave breaking off the sea wall at Ocean Beach. It rolled in every morning when I showed up at my 7:00 a.m. meeting, hung over, and it hit that sea wall. It then receded as the day progressed, taking the oath to make this Day One of never, ever drinking again with it.As the next swell built, I consumed my daily swill and history dutifully repeated itself.
Praying alone did not seem to work for me. The luster of swearing had paled with those to whom I offered it to replace the trust lost in the downward spiral of dishonesty and betrayal my drinking had spawned. Yet the conversations I began to hear at my morning meetings were different. Even though I certainly was not an alcoholic and was just as surely more successful in business than almost everyone in the room [My fantasy world in “Hi Gear,”] they were each doing that which I could not. They had stopped drinking and were staying stopped. This was a new frontier for me.
As my days at meetings began to pile up, even though my continued drinking was to take me to still new lows, the gift of Faith which I had somehow been given began to become unwrapped. I began to believe that if these men and women could do it, then maybe, just maybe, so could I. As the days became weeks and then months I heard how they did it – One Day at a Time. So too I heard the horror stories of those who slipped and managed to make it back – sadly I also heard the reports of those who did not.
I realized once I experienced that miracle of a sober day, that day the Obsession actually vanished, that I was either in it for the long haul or the end would soon be upon me. A member of our program was asked to read one day, and they turned to Bill’s story: “But just underneath there is a deadly earnestness. Faith has to work twenty-four hours a day in and through us, or we perish.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 16) Faith not only in the admission that my life was unmanageable because I was powerless over alcohol, but Faith that I could be restored to sanity. Faith that if I was painstaking, I would comprehend the word serenity and I would know peace. With each passing sober day this new frontier upon which I had embarked revealed a new and wondrous landscape. While I had heard these wonders described, to actually have them become a part of my life, I see now was entirely a product of my gift of Faith continuing to be unwrapped as I followed the suggestions set forth in the Big Book.
My sponsor told me many times, “Faith without works is dead.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 88) His actions and those I witnessed in the other members of my group each day, personified what it meant to lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. As I tried to follow their lead, which thankfully asked me to focus upon progress, not perfection, my Faith grew too. I cannot say how it happened, nor when it happened, only that it happened. I heard the words “We know that when we turn to Him, all will be well with us, here and hereafter.” (Twelve and Twelve, pg. 105.) I do not know what these words mean to others who might hear them, I can only say what they have come to mean for me. Simply, I have Faith that all will be well when I turn to Him. Finally, bare of all its wrapping, I can freely partake in this gift of Faith our Program has given to me.
