I am a white male in my early 70’s, writing this story in September of 2022. In the same month, 30 years ago, I underwent a quiet but momentous change in my life. Before I knew anything substantial about AA, I experienced the first three steps: I admitted the possibility that my drinking was hurting me, I recognized there was help being offered and I needed it, and I decided to accept that help. I experienced, in the space of a few minutes, enough of a change in my thinking to allow me to decide to step back from my old drunk ways and to point myself toward a sober lifestyle. What happened was that I loosened my iron grip on the illusion that alcohol makes life better. I began to see that I was allowing alcohol to control my life and that it was killing me. The story of how I got to that point in my life is as follows.
There wasn’t much out of the ordinary in my upbringing. Solid, middle-class home life with good parents and a church-based education in primary school and high school. There was no violence (physical or emotional), good relations, and no rebellious tendencies in me. Inside the religious trappings in church and in the church-based school were values which I adopted. At a very young age I sensed that honesty was a good policy, and that generosity made life better for everyone. Without thinking I adopted those practices.
But there was another part of that same upbringing that showcased alcoholic drinking. Although drunken behavior was not tolerated (though it most certainly DID appear at times), alcohol consumption was allowed and accepted, you might even say “expected.” In my family, and in the wider social circles in which my family moved, drinking was present in almost every type of situation where people got together. It was consumed in church as part of the ceremonies—the weekly German club gatherings my grandfather presided over were held in the meeting hall in the back of a tavern–school functions in which food was consumed were always BYOB–when I entered high school (literally through the back door by the dumpster!) I remember the garbage bags full of empty beer, wine, and liquor bottles which rested behind the residence where the religious teachers lived. I was brought up in an extended family setting and when mother, father, grandmother and grandfather, and the rest of the German-bred brood gathered to eat the daily, evening meal, Grandfather always had beer with his meal by the quart and there was a generous supply of cases of quarts cooling in the basement.
To this day I cannot say who was or was not an alcoholic in the family. Whether they were or not is not my concern. What I did see was that everyone drank, and some drank more than others and more often too. The fact of the matter was that alcohol was present at every family gathering and the book at those gatherings that was consulted (and annotated) was not the Good Book but the Bartender’s Guide!
My mother died early in my sobriety, and I will always remember the smell of alcohol on the breath of many who came to mourn her, family and friends alike. As I look back now it is clear I was raised in an environment in which an alcoholic could easily find and feed his habit.
When I entered high-school I found that some of my fellow classmates shared my interest in alcohol and the athletes I ran with were even more inclined to be drinkers, especially beer drinkers. And I knew something about drinking beer! By my third year of high school there would be after school gatherings in somebody’s house where we would raid the home alcohol ladder. By senior year members of the groups, I frequented had obtained fake ids and made friends with the older drinking crowd. With a little effort alcohol was readily available and I partook readily.
Alcohol changed the way I saw myself and my surroundings. It swept away my inhibitions and gave me a false sense of freedom. I began to believe that it made me a better person. I began to believe I was better at doing things when high. I was a better basketball player, I could drive with more skill, I was more creative in my thinking, and perhaps most important of all, it helped me to better understand and relate to people. This was the illusion that I began chasing. That illusion would eventually lead me to be physically addicted to alcohol.
I drank when I could through my college years. Upon graduating, I married. It became routine to have “a beer” at the end of the day and in a few years “a beer” which was now a six pack would be “supplemented” with hard liquor which was consumed by the half pint after work on the ride home and snuck from the family liquor cabinet. I lived all the sneaking drinks cliches by watering the booze, refilling the bottles with water, hiding empties, and all the rest.
In time I resorted to spending money to support my habit that should have been spent for the good of the family. I resorted to raiding my kids’ piggy banks, stealing from the wife’s purse, and skimming from petty cash at work. Slowly, honesty and good work, care for other people, had been pushed aside to make room for alcohol. The disease of alcoholism is chronic and progressive, and my life was evidence of that. I had become an almost daily drinker and a petty thief and liar.
Sometime in my early thirties, I began drinking on a daily basis. In the last year and a half of my drinking, in the time between the death of my wife (which removed all constraints from me feeding my addiction) and my turn to sobriety at age 42, I was drinking a bottle of champagne for breakfast based upon the premise that it was healthy for me because it was fruit based. I believe now that I really believed that champagne for breakfast was healthy for me.
I was inebriated that entire year and a half. This self-deception was one form of the “bad thinking” I was to learn about in AA meetings. It took me many years in recovery to realize that the thinking (bad) preceded and led to the drinking (bad). For the longest time I couldn’t understand the bad thinking caused my problems (bad thinking doesn’t cause liver damage—alcohol does!) Until one day it dawned on me that most days when perfectly free from alcohol, I decided that it was a good idea to have a drink!
Even the term “denial” doesn’t best describe my whole approach toward alcohol consumption. Whatever might get in the way between me and alcohol had to be removed or somehow dealt with. Sometimes it was simply ignoring the words or actions of someone. Sometimes it would be a deception or side fake to divert from the drinking. Sometimes it was outright lies. In the end, in full-fledged allegiance to my alcoholism, I had effectively cut myself off from family and friends. The sole object of my bad thinking was myself and the consumption of alcohol.
As I got to my bottom, I quit a perfectly good job for no other reason than it got in the way of my drinking. By this time, I had to drink to keep from having withdrawal symptoms. There were times when I had to pull the car over to the side of the road to vomit because I had no alcohol to drink. I remember one morning when a neighbor’s young son was sitting with me at my kitchen table, and he asked why my hands were shaking so badly. I needed a drink or two to allow me to write.
There were no dramatic events in my life that could be attributed to my alcoholism—no DUIs, no drunken brawls. During my whole drinking career, I kept in mind what I had learned being brought up, –you drank but you stayed out of trouble. This was just more bad thinking. The reality was that I was slowly wearing out my body, my mind, and spirit in a slow descent into a physical hell. My alcoholic state of mind allowed no hope, no possible solution, not even the consideration of hope or help because alcohol took precedence and pushed everything else to the side.
My alcoholism was evident to many around me including my wife, my mother, and other family members and friends. My family members were beginning to see alcohol differently. I remember my mother speaking glowingly about one of the German club members who was able to get sober. I know now that her comments were directed at me. The family over time still had the booze around but was beginning to moderate and some were taking a critical view of it. My grandfather and father had passed away and there were other heavy drinkers who were no longer there. Drinking had become a lonely business for me.
In the last months before leaving alcohol, my body, my liver in particular, was not working correctly. I was getting bruises all over my body not from falls or other impact but from simply having a constant pressure in that area. I would wake up after sleeping on a pillow and would have huge bruises where my body had rested on the pillow.
Within weeks of quitting the job, as my physical condition quickly deteriorated, a group of family and friends came to my house to persuade me to go into treatment. It was about noon and to this day I couldn’t tell you how that came about. They explained that they had a place I could go to be treated for my excessive drinking and one of the group, a doctor, a friend and AA member, offered me a drink to keep withdrawal symptoms away until I could get medical attention. I don’t know why but I declined that drink and have never had the physical urge to drink again. They asked me to take a moment and think about getting some help.
I went and sat down in a chair in my family room. In a few minutes I agreed to go into treatment. In those few minutes I started to move from the alcoholic state of mind to a place where there was room for new ideas, new behaviors, new hope. I did not understand the full implications of that decision at the time but have come to appreciate it as I mature in my sobriety. That change of mind was quiet but momentous for me. For the first time in my life, I was open to the view that alcohol was not the way to live. In reality alcohol created an illusion that would lead toward death. To this day, I mark my anniversary with a noon meeting to celebrate the exact time I first stepped toward sobriety.
There were several days spent in a hospital bed hooked to IVs. The nurses would change shifts, and I overheard that my chart described me as a “chronic alcoholic” with “acute alcoholic hepatitis”. During one of my sleepless nights, I heard people at the nursing station refer to my roommate and myself as the “drunks on the floor.” The doctor who treated me during the early years of my recovery once told me that he did not think I had 6 weeks left to live if I had continued my alcohol consumption.
When I was admitted to the 30 day treatment program I soon learned that I had entered the hospital as a drunk (my word) but was now living in a sober condition as an alcoholic (their word and now my word, too!) toward becoming a recovering alcoholic (me now and a phrase I hear often in my meetings).
I learned a lot in that program about myself and the disease of alcoholism. They provided a safe environment for my body to recover, for my mind to clear, and for my spirit to be freed from alcohol. But the most important thing they did was to send me to an AA meeting in the hospital as soon as they were sure I could find my way back to my floor of the treatment program.
While still in treatment I attended meetings, adopted the AA way of life and got a sponsor. When I left the treatment program I immediately started to work the steps with my sponsor and did service work following my sponsor’s example. When I had a year sober, he asked if I could attend a district meeting because he had a commitment that evening, he had to meet. He told me to take some notes and report back to the group. The following month he had a commitment on the same night and I filled in. And sometime soon thereafter I was the group GSR and soon after that was acting as secretary for the district.
Over the first years I lived as a recovering alcoholic, the values of honesty and good works reappeared in my life. In time this one-time petty thief and liar drunk would be entrusted with handling AA responsibilities including finances. AA taught me to value my sobriety over everything else and pointed me in the right direction. I am deeply grateful for that.
For the first few years in AA I kept my agnosticism to myself. This was a personal decision. My sponsor and I worked the steps and I participated in meetings including prayer & mediation. At an open meeting when I was a few years sober, I spoke of my “neutrality” toward the deity, my agnosticism, and the effectiveness of the AA program in keeping me sober. Afterward two patients came to thank me for my comments. They had been hesitant about adopting AA because they were not “believers.” Since that time, I have overcome my reluctance and will share at meetings that the program is effective no matter what you believe if you work at it.
Over time I have found that AA is very tolerant of all opinions, and I have never experienced any resistance at meetings. (Maybe it also helps to diminish resistance when you are willing to make the coffee and handle the money!) I have come to appreciate that the only belief I need for AA membership is to believe in the value of sobriety. I have always tried to make clear that no matter what you believe, the AA way of life, keeping sober and living a decent life, is possible for anyone and the only way to live.
I have also found other AAs who share my “belief.” Joe is a good example. We both appreciate the “Eastern” outlook which we understand has a primary “good” and not a “god.” After a meeting in which I expressed interest in attending one of the AAAA meetings, Joe took me aside and said that I shouldn’t waste my time. He had been to one and he told me that all they talked about was God.
I also found that at the 1955 AA Convention where Bill publicly relinquished control over the AA structure, Father Ed Dowling, Bill’s spiritual advisor, addressed the gathering of alcoholics and said, “I think we are all agnostics”. I take great comfort in his words, and I now know that I am not alone.
Being sober is the only way this alcoholic knows how to live. The drinking life was based on illusion, and it would have eventually resulted in my death. Being sober allows me to enjoy life and to meet my problems as best as I am able (The fact of the matter is that I have never been playing with a full deck anyway!).
Early in my sobriety, a regular at one of my meetings, we’ll call him Denny, would bring his baby daughter with him. Denny used to hold his daughter in one arm and extend the other toward the sky with open palm and talk about how he had been reconnected. I was impressed with his sincerity and the life he had embraced. He counted every day sober and would announce it at every meeting he attended. I started counting days and 2 and a half years into the program, on a June 10 (my birthday and AA’s birthday) I celebrated 1,000 days. It was nice to have the sober faculties to be able to appreciate the symmetry in all of that. 1000 days were great, and I took it as an omen that I should stop counting and simply concentrate on one day at a time.
No, there have not been a lot of fireworks in my recovery, but the life-changing changes have occurred and if my life is not always serene it is usually balanced. I have good relationships with my children and grandchildren, got married after 20 years of sobriety to a good woman in the program, and have weathered the downs in life including deaths of people close to me. My mother dropped dead from a heart attack while I was doing my 5th step. My son died from an accidental drug overdose. I have learned to recognize and embrace those incidents, and to remember that I am not alone in experiencing them. I try to live a life which I can enjoy and to be helpful to others. There are times I get goosebumps in an AA meeting simply by remembering that I do not have to take a drink today.
Let me finish by saying I have come to appreciate and be grateful for the way we AAs create the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was reading William James and discovered that he thought that it was possible the deity derives strength from our human actions! A crazy idea but one that appeals to me. I know that I am not AA but I also know that I am a functioning part of AA! If there are no parts, no matter how small, there is no AA! When we lose a part, whether from relapse or death or whatever the reason, we become a little weaker. And the flip side to that is that the AA fellowship is stronger every time we attract a new member. Everything starts with individual AA members deciding to show up at a meeting. From that point, inside and outside the meeting rooms, those members as individuals and in groups fulfill the AA responsibility to carry the message. It is my firm belief that my purpose is to stay sober and to carry the message that sobriety is possible for everyone and the only way to live. And it is also my firm belief that I am not alone in believing this. And by that faith and the actions that come from it, we become more than ourselves.